Forget the pie charts, color-coded maps and hyperventilating pundits. What’s the street-level experience of voters in today’s America?

For the first time ever, P.O.V. is offering a streaming version of the entire broadcast of ELECTION DAY on their website during the month of July. ELECTION DAY combines 11 stories — shot simultaneously on November 2, 2004, from dawn until long past midnight — into one. Factory workers, ex-felons, harried moms, Native American activists and diligent poll watchers, from South Dakota to Florida, take the process of democracy into their own hands. The result is an entertaining, inspiring and sometimes unsettling story of citizens determined to vote on one fateful day. ELECTION DAY is a co-production of Arts Engine, Inc. and the Independent Television Service, with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The Website is Down: Sales Guy vs. Web Dude is probably the funniest video I’ve seen this summer and it’s all done purely with screenshots and audio. When it was posted in June, the video actually got so popular that the server crashed and The Website is Down actually was down…See the credits below.

Created by: Josh Weinberg
Sales Guy: Casey Cochran
Web Dude: Josh Weinberg
Trevor from Arvada: Jesse Johnson
Irving Whitefellow (The Boss): Josh Childs
Sales Manager Nancy: Ruth Sherrod

Music By: Rap Team - www.myspace.com/rapteam

User interface Open Source Credits:

// VT100.js: http://fzort.org/bi/o.php
// Released under the GNU LGPL v2.1, by Frank Bi

SoundManager 2: Javascript Sound for the Web
——————————————–
http://schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/

Copyright (c) 2008, Scott Schiller. All rights reserved.
Code licensed under the BSD License:
http://schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/license.txt

Thanks To:
Apple, Skype, Linus Torvalds, SuSE Linux, Redhat Linux, VmWare, AOL, HijackPro and Microsoft.
Thanks to blip.tv for originally hosting this video.
Special thanks to Bitgravity for their generous support. You guys rock.

The Sierra Club, in partnership with green blogs EarthFirst and Ecorazzi are hosting hundreds of house parties across America on Thursday, July 17 to help send the message that to really solve global warming, we need to change more than lightbulbs — we need to change our leadership. Look for a house party near you at LightbulbstoLeadership.org or sign up to host your own. The Sierra Club will provide you with a step-by-step House Party Guide and other materials that will help you plan a successful and fun event.

Hey ladies, want yogurt? No? Too bad, because yogurt wants you.
Just one selection from a series of funny Target: Women videos for Current TV’s Infomania starring comedian Sarah Haskins. I’m glad someone is taking the time to make fun of these ridiculous ads…

Check out the latest video from the snarky green blog EarthFirst.com. It demonstrates how to bike to work without showing up all sweaty (and it stars Fresh Cut’s own greenophile Dorothee Royal-Hedinger!)

Back in February I posted a gorgeous video by the Japanese art team Rinpa Eshidan . Today TAN posted their video called “Puzzle” so I just had to share:

There’s a reason that you probably haven’t heard of Vincent Bugliosi’s new book The Prosecution of George Bush for Murder which is #12 on the New York Times bestseller list right now. That reason is he’s been blacklisted from the mainstream media because they apparently find his message too risky. Since I’m a fan of free speech and an independent press, I’m going to go ahead and post information about this book because he’s a brilliant (and determined) man. Here’s info via Bugliosi’s agent PMA:

In The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder Bugliosi presents a tight legal case against President Bush as being criminally responsible for the deaths of more than 4,000 American soldiers in Iraq. In a searing indictment of the President and his administration, he sets forth the legal architecture and incontrovertible evidence to put George W. Bush on trial for murder in an American courtroom for taking this nation to war under false pretences. In his groundbreaking book, Bugliosi also has outlined a legally credible pathway to holding our highest government officials accountable for their actions while in office. The book was published on May 27, 2008, by Vanguard Press, a member of the Perseus Book Group. The mainstream media has black listed this book in the U.S. and the book became a NY Times bestseller without one single review. The feature film adaptation of the book, presently entitled MAD AS HELL (working titles), is presently being edited and we are hopeful it will be distributed in theatres October.

Here Bugliosi describes the media blackout of his book:

Ever had a day when you wake up to a pile of dirty dishes and a laundry basket begging for some love? Well, Craig at Wheezy Waiter (asthmatic since 1980) knows how rock those chores out!

According to his site, Craig used to be a waiter in downtown Chicago. He says,

I started a video blog in late May 2007 out of frustration with a job that barely paid the rent and didn’t involve any of my creative skills. It was originally going to be a blog about the trials and tribulations of the dining experience, from the point of view of both waiters and customers. It became a showcase for my own brand of absurd humor which occasionally includes dining subject matter.

Craig is also in the band Driftless Pony Club which has released such classics as “Inertia is a Bitch“. Fresh Cut hearts you Craig!

Somehow a dude named Matt convinced Stride gum to finance his 6 month trip through 39 countries on all 7 continents to dance with various people and film it. Can you say jealousy? The video has become a You Tube phenomenon with more than a million views a few days after posting. Though his dance is ridiculous, I have to admit that the result is a gorgeous. For more info visit: wherethehellismatt.com.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

This film was recently featured on You Tube’s homepage and was the winner of the 2007 Oscar for best short subjects animation. It was created by Torill Kove, narrated by Liv Ullmann and distributed by the National Film Board of Canada. For more click here.

Can we trace the chain of events that leads to our own birth? Is our existence just coincidence? Do little things matter? The narrator of The Danish Poet considers these questions as we follow Kasper, a poet whose creative well has run dry, on a holiday to Norway to meet the famous writer, Sigrid Undset. As Kasper’s quest for inspiration unfolds, it appears that a spell of bad weather, an angry dog, slippery barn planks, a careless postman, hungry goats and other seemingly unrelated factors might play important roles in the big scheme of things after all.

And if you haven’t read Sigrid Undset’s epic novel Kristin Lavransdatter, you MUST.