John McCain wants to unleash the power of American innovation to ween the country off oil with an old fashioned, but effective motivator; a cash prize. The presumptive Republican nominee for President proposed awarding a $300 Million prize to the inventor who could come up with a car battery far advanced from the current technology available, in a recent speech at Fresno State University.

While enormous strides have been made in recent years in battery technology, what’s currently available for mass production limits plug in electric cars to about a 250 mile range per charge, and leaves little to no room for trunk storage with the space needed for the Lithium Ion Batteries. The batteries are also costly which prompted Senator McCain to require the winner of his proposed challenge to deliver battery power at 30% of current costs having as he put it, “the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars.”

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So far so good! It’s my last day at Silverdocs but so far it has been nothing short of amazing. Here’s a little refresher on what I’ve seen and also a list of what’s to come. Stay tuned for more Silverdocs 08 and for a comprehensive write-up stocked full of TakePart links about how you can connect to the issues in the films.

Thus Far:

• Silverdocs 08 : Head Wind
• Silverdocs 08 : Meet the Paro (Mechanical Love)
• Silverdocs 08 : Opening Night and All Together Now

To Come:

• A look at Up the Yangtze : http://silverdocs.com/festival/films/2008/yangtze/
• A discussion of the DocuClub screening of my film Stages
  
• Some shorts : http://silverdocs.com/festival/films/2008/shorts-program-4-disconnections/
• Corridor 8 : http://silverdocs.com/festival/films/2008/corridor-8/
• Frederick Wiseman’s Law and Order : http://silverdocs.com/festival/films/2008/law-and-order/
• A film that’s all about Dust : http://silverdocs.com/festival/films/2008/dust/
• More video!!!!
• Lot’s of pictures

For now, here are some pictures from pal Cheryl - who also has a film in this years’ fest!

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/23166402@N06/sets/72157605653795062/
  

I just discovered Sarah Haskins on Current TV and I’m officially a fan. Her take on feminist issues and media is honest and hilarious. Check out her latest regarding the “female friendly” presidental campaign.

Watch the video here : http://current.com/items/89019993_target_women_suffrage

Current TV is an independent media company featuring “pods”, or short programs, of which a portion are created by viewers and users. takepart and check out currenttv.com for more shows to watch and ways to get involved.

Honfest, an annual celebration of vintage Baltimore kitsch, is stirring controversy in Charm City. Central to the festival are the 1950’s style beehive hairdos and kitschy outfits (seen left) donned by festival goers which proponents contend are a good natured send up of the fashions of Baltimore’s recent past. However, critics point out that those rocking these styles are primarily upper middle class residents of the city or, worse yet, suburban commuters whose masquerade could easily be interpreted as a put down on Baltimore’s working class residents with whom the styles were popular. Others point out that with the festival now entering its fourteenth year, the joke is getting a little old.

“To me, it’s used up,” Baltimore filmmaker John Waters told the Baltimore Sun in an article about the controversy. “It’s condescending now. The people that celebrate it are not from it. I feel that in some weird way they’re looking slightly down on it. I only celebrate something I can look up to.” Waters’ entry into the debate has added considerable gravitas to the arguments of the event’s detractors, with much of Honfest’s imagery and style sense being drawn from the director’s Baltimore-set films such as Pink Flamingos, Hairspray and Polyester.

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World Day Against Child Labor is today. Long outlawed in the United States, child labor is still a major issue throughout the world, particularly in poverty stricken regions where the lure of cheap, easily exploited children is often taken advantage of by employers while at the same time many children living in poverty tragically feel forced to work in order to contribute to their family’s wellbeing. Currently the UN International Labor Organization estimates that 165 Million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are involved in child labor practices throughout the world.

This year the focus of the annual event is on education as a route to reduce child labor and on gender equality between boys and girls. Countries throughout the world from Africa to Asia to South America to the Middle East to Europe and beyond are staging events to reduce the unfair exploitation of children.

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The stakes are high for Warren Buffet at Long Bets. His prediction:

Over a ten-year period commencing on January 1, 2008, and ending on December 31, 2017, the S & P 500 will outperform a portfolio of funds of hedge funds, when performance is measured on a basis net of fees, costs and expenses.

And one million says he’s right. Long Bets new site offers a new way of finding resolutions to BIG issues. It is an arena for competitive, accountable predictions and a way to see what leaders think of world issues. Whoa. That’s a mouthful but it is a really fascinating site. Take a peek at the bets and the predictions.

A personal favorite is: By 2100 racism will no longer be a significant phenomenon in most countries of the world. That’s a long bet. And in 97 years we wont be around to see who won but here’s to hoping he wins the bet within the next few decades. Some other heavy bidders on the site include Wired’s Kevin Kelly, Warren Buffet and Ted Danson.

LongBets is a project of The Long Now Foundation which hopes to provide a counterpoint to today’s “faster/cheaper” mind set and promote “slower/better” thinking. And they want to do so by creatively fostering responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years. Takepart and check out longnow.org

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Nerve.com has assembled fifty of the best commercial parodies for you. Unfortunately, many of SNL’s most infamous are no longer available online, due to NBC’s copyright-enforcing blitz a while back. However the folks at Nerve did muster up lots of classics and plenty of favorites from Chappelle’s Show, MADtv, In Living Color and SCTV. Enjoy Nerve’s #4 pick ( and one of my favorites) Buhweet sings:
Funny Cartoons at JibJab

And after you enjoy Nerve’s 50 takepart and check out mediamatters.org. Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.

The Girl Effect is a new online interactive project seeking to improve the dire situation in the developing world one girl at a time. The initiative, created by the advertising agencies Grow Interactive and Wieden & Kennedy, is part of a $100 Million investment in girls by the Nike Foundation and NoVo Foundation chairs Peter and Jennifer Buffett.

The Girl Effect recognizes that girls and young women are the foundation of communities around the world. The project seeks to direct funding to the education and entrepreneurial business activities of girls and young women in developing countries to help being their communities up. The statistical evidence is incredible when we learn the unique role girls and young women play in the health and wellbeing of their societies. According to the website’s Fact Sheet:

When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children.

An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages 10 to 20%. An extra year of secondary school boosts wages 15 to 25%.

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The already cool Flip Video, just got cooler - Meet the Mino :

Spec wise it takes video @ 640 by 480 @ 30 frames a second. The files are MPEG-4 AVI and it has low light sensitivity. PLUS! say goodbye to DoubleA batteries with this one, the mino has an internal battery that charges WHILE you upload your video!

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Today is the first full day of Planet Green broadcasting!  The channel went on the air last night at 6pm with the first episode of Hollywood Green with Maria Menounos (or as the website describes her, “the popular Maria Menounos”), and now is officially the only 24hour network devoted to green programming.  As we’ve previously mentioned, we can look forward to a lot of great stuff on this network.  Like, I don’t know, this:

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