Today the design firm Cuban Council launched Aliens Vote. Whether you're a native-born American or fresh off the boat, check it out:

at least one out of every ten people living in the U.S. today is an alien. That’s approximately 29.1 million people; equal to the entire population of New York & New Jersey combined. They own homes & businesses, pay taxes and go to public schools. While these people play a huge role in the U.S., they can’t voice their opinion in government elections.

Because of this we decided to create Aliens Vote to see how this silent minority could sway the upcoming presidential election.

Alien visitors to the site are then asked which way they'd vote if they were, in fact, allowed to vote. A pretty nifty little project. Still, although the Cuban Council folks have effectively blocked people from voting multiple times, they have no way of verifying that the people taking the poll on the site are actual aliens (they would have had to ask for visa numbers, etc).

Be that as it may, it'll be interesting to watch how things go. As one person affiliated with the site tells me, "this is about raising the issue considering the government holds all this info, takes their money and then ignores them when it comes time to have a voice."

True story: One time a friend and neighbor of mine who worked for the World Bank was slated to go to Africa on some big fancy World Bank trip to Africa. In order to go on this fancy World Bank trip to Africa he was prescribed a potent batch of anti-malaria pills. As you may or may not have heard about anti-malaria pills, they can sometimes have adverse effects on the person taking them. Like hallucinations. This poor guy, for reasons he never fully explained, decided to check his e-mail--deep in the throes of medicinally-induced hallucinations and night-terrors. Long story short: he called one of his clients a terrible, terrible name. And to facilitate his hasty retirement from the World Bank, copied his entire department on the e-mail, boss and all.

If only he had Mail Goggles. 

What, you may be asking, are Mail Goggles? Simply put, Google's latest offering is raddest thing to ever arrive in Rad Town: a filter that strives to keep you from sending e-mail that, deep down, you don't really mean to send. You know, like when it's 3 AM and you've just emptied your cabinets of Johnny Walker and Ben AND Jerry before settling in to check your Gmail--and maybe ping that ex you've been thinking about stalking--before hitting the sack (a little moment I like to call "Wednesday").

Google wants to help you NOT send that e-mail! Behold:

The way it works, I gather from the official Gmail blog, is that you can choose when it's active. If you're routinely prone to, say, judgment-debilitating weekend behavior, then just have your Gmail account give you a little Mail Goggle quiz wduring certain judgment-debilitated hours. Presto! You can't send that e-mail unless you really want to.

Of course, if your will to self-sabotage is as strong as mine, you can always give up on the e-mail and send a really incriminating text message. Complete with photo.

I found out that Barack Obama had chosen Joe Biden as his running mate from the big O's Twitter stream (Full disclosure: I am a registered Independent, and I also subscribe to the RNC's feed, which has a MUCH better avatar than Obama anyway).

All of this is to say that it's well understood that Obama is one of the more tech-savvy presidential candidates ever (or at least has a more tech savvy team). (John McCain, to his credit, is aware of the Internet). He's a social organizing and networking whiz. Now his campaign has gone a step further and released a volunteer-created iPhone application that works as a campaign tool. Obama's camp describes it as "a great volunteering tool that lets you make a difference any time you want by talking to people you already know."

The app organizes your contacts by state in order of electoral priority--it's your job to call through your buddies based on how strategic they are to an Obama win. It gives you news feeds and you can give the campaign money through the application. The folks at techPresident appear to like it. Now, if only Newsweek would buy me an iPhone. You know, so I could take it for a spin. In the name of journalism.

[benandhank.com]

Good morning, children. Feeling weary? Beaten down by bad news? You must be ready for a little Humpday Bailout Fun. Turns out there's a little gallows humor to be had among the steady drumbeat of depressing economic news. With the able-bodied guidance of my esteemed and estimable Newsweek colleague and dot-comrade Kathy Jones (all sing her name in praise!), I have trolled the Internets near and far to find for you, my little cuttlefish, LINKS! Pertaining to All Things Meltdown. So, read on, brave explorers. Go forth and click (that is, after you've read all of Newsweek's own fine coverage):

• First of all, is it me or does it already smell like Halloween spirit in here? Behold the horned Bernanke and Paulson masks. (Because you know everyone and her mother is going to be Sarah Palin for Halloween anyway -- show some originality, folks! Be devil-Fed people!)
  
• Speaking of pretending to be Henry Paulson (*shudder*), I suppose it was only a matter of time, but lookee here! There's a fake Henry Paulson Twitter stream. Sample tweet: "Came home after sleeping in office all week. My cat, Mr. Thrifty, looked at me eyes that said, 'You owe me 700 billion tummy rubs.'" Good stuff. (But. Sorry Fake Hank, my heart still belongs to Fake Sarah Palin, and will forever -- or until she vanishes into the stuff of historical political-oddity footnotes -- whichever comes first.) 
  
• Americans! Listen here! Unregulated free market capitalism may be broken, but there is no crushing the entrepreneurial spirit! Bailout-themed t-shirts and worthless gewgaws are for sale by the bucketload at Cafe Press. A place for you to spend all that money you don't have anymore! Yay! 
   
• This Dark Knight bailout parody is fairly genius (and it also reminds me of this recent brilliant Daily Show bit --you know, as opposed to all those un-brilliant Daily Show bits). Imagine asking the Joker for $700 billion. His reply: "And I thought my jokes were bad" ... funny because it's true. Also mind-bendingly depressing because it's true. 
  
  Dark Bailout:
  
   
• Oh, and speaking of mind-bendingly depressing, be sure to grab this line of code and embed it onto your blog: The National Debt Clock widget, ticking ever upwards on the race to $10 trillion. <-- Seriously, don't click on that if you value your sanity. (But first, don't think of an elephant.) UPDATE: Horrifyingly, it appears we have now passed the $10 trillion mark. Oy.
   
• Another number that's steadily, ineluctably, unavoidably trudging upwards? That would be the number of failed banks. Thanks for that, Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter.
   
• OK, fine. The crumbling of our economic infrastructure as if it was so many stale stale sugar cookies is a serious matter. Fortunately, there are more seriouser people than I who are working hard to figure out what to make of it all: The Calculated Risk blog has up-to-the-minute news, analysis and projections -- maintained by "a senior executive, retired from a public company, with a background in investing, finance and economics." Sounds credibly fancy! Particularly chilling is this post examining Personal Consumption Expenditures (in normal-people words: "consumer spending," which may well see its first quarterly decline since the fourth quarter of 1991). "This is strong evidence that the indefatigable U.S. consumer is finally throwing in the towel," he writes, as I stash my precious, precious pennies into my horned Hank Paulson fright mask under the mattress of my bed in my house, the mortgage on which I recently defaulted.
   
• Speaking of which! The housing bubble blog. Ooof.  
   
• Finally, if you haven't already actively been using this for all your old Winger cassingles, check out Buy My S---pile, Henry! -- because you too have a heaps o' regretable purchases you'd like Uncle Sam to take off your tired, caloused hands. From the site: 

With our economy in crisis, the US Government is scrambling to rescue our banks by purchasing their "distressed assets", i.e., assets that no one else wants to buy from them. We figured that instead of protesting this plan, we'd give regular Americans the same opportunity to sell their bad assets to the government. We need your help and you need the Government's help!

Use the form below to submit bad assets you'd like the government to take off your hands. And remember, when estimating the value of your 1997 limited edition Hanson single CD "MMMbop", it's not what you can sell these items for that matters, it's what you think they are worth. The fact that you think they are worth more than anyone will buy them for is what makes them bad assets.

Now. Ready for some good news? Here is precious little some!

• Not all millionaires are scumbags! No, really. Take this quiz and see how even you misunderestimate these poor (and increasingly poorer) creatures. Then target your rage at CEO billionaires. Seriously. Screw them!  
   
• Lastly, don't just sit here reading my stupid blog of stupidity. Tell Congress what you think of this mess. GO! NOW!
  
  

Twitter has launched an election page, an outpost where users can share their thoughts on the various twists and turns of this wacky season. It's a neat example of what Twitter should be doing more of going forward. Twitter has great unrealized potential -- imagine a series of watercoolers where users can interact over shared interests (as opposed to just publicly IM'ing friends). It would be a very powerful thing indeed. The users are already there. It'll be exciting to see where Twitter takes them.

Stuart Ramson/HTC-AP

... this phone was not primarily designed to solve a problem that you, the consumer, are having. Rather it was designed to solve a problem that Google has—namely, the need to keep feeding more and more people into the maw of Google's online advertising machine ...

In other words, the phone is a Trojan horse. You get a cool phone for not much money—$179 with a contract from T-Mobile—but then you're caught in Google's Web. Another way to see this is that a quasi-monopolist (Google rules the online advertising business) is attempting to protect and extend its quasi-monopoly by giving away at no cost something for which others charge money. Sound familiar? It's what Microsoft did to Netscape in the 1990s, giving away a free browser to undermine Netscape Navigator.

Oh, snap! I haven't played with the device yet, but it does look fairly nifty (for an elaborate advertising platform, especially). Indeed, elsewhere on the Internets BoingBoing guest contributor Douglas Rushkoff seems to be enjoying his new toy:

I played with Android yesterday. I don't gush over products. At least not in years. But this one makes me feel a bit like I did when I got my Kaypro. It's a solid device that hints at the beginning of a "golden age" of solid and reliable smart phone technology ...

I've played with a lot of phones, but this is the first true "smart phone" that is as easy to use as an iPhone, Sidekick, or Helio Ocean. Unlike the iPhone, it has a real keyboard that slips out from the bottom (and a bit more effortlessly than the one on my Ocean). Real keys, too, that feel good and click. Oh, did I forget to mention it? Copy and paste.

Of course, Rushkoff flicks at the advertising concern, but in the end is just pleased as punch with his relatively open source toy. Here's a video demo of Android that's been making the rounds for, oh, a year (we're nothing if not timely).




In conclusion: I wish Newsweek's top editors would make big announcements wearing Rollerblades.

The funny, fast and informative Calculated Risk blog (read and commented upon by both Average Joes and economists, like Paul Krugman)

For news on failing banks, there's the Implode-o-Meter.

CNBC has a speedy market ticker--to keep track of late-breaking ups and downs (and further downs).

Thejuciest Wall-Street gossip can be had at Dealbreaker.

And, may you never need it, Bloomberg's debt-consolidation calculator.

(The Troll and his liberal arts degree would like to thank Newsweek.com photo editor and finance wizard Kathy Jones for this post)

That's right. Gravel. It's my new name. I think it suits me.

You know, Gravel. As in Gravel Palin. Or more specifically, Gravel Blood Palin. 

Are you jealous that I have a Palin name and you don't? Well, do not let envy eat you up from within ... that's, like, way unpatriotic. Instead, do what I did and check out the Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator to get your very one Palin moniker. Although I guarantee you that you won't get as awesome a Palin name as Gravel Blood. (A friend of mine was dubbed Hen Waffle Palin, which, to be sure, is rad. But there just isn't something right about having the name "Waffle" in an election season. It's worse than Hussein! Also, isn't Hen just a little, I don't know ... sexist? Maybe I'm reading too much into this?)

What's your Palin name?

T-Mobile will be the first carrier to offer a mobile phone powered by Google's Android software, according to people briefed on the company’s plans. The phone will be made by HTC, one of the largest makers of mobile phones in the world, and is expected to go on sale in the United States before Christmas, perhaps as early as October. ...

The HTC phone, which many gadget sites are calling the “dream,” will have a touch screen, like the iPhone. But the screen also slides out to expose a full five-row keyboard.

And here's a little peek of what it'll look like: