This attractive revolving door is made by the Crane Door company. We didn’t research them for influence peddling.

I like to think of myself as a little more informed than the “average” citizen - whoever they are - yet I regularly find myself to be disturbingly naive (okay, just plain stupid) regarding how things really work in our government. It has bothered me for some time that our government seems to have been taken over by the finance industry, and that it operates in creepy collusion with a telecom monopoly, but until taking a closer look recently, I had no idea how active that revolving door in Washington really was. Considered “business as usual” by most Washington insiders, it even has a polite euphemism. Instead of calling it a corporate coup of our government, it’s called Agency Capture or Regulatory Capture. I believe in the old school Republican idea that government can be bad for business, but I can hardly accept the reverse, i.e.: that business is good for government. I think the recent banking catastrophes and USDA food safety failures speak for themselves; with the former you have the revolving banking industry/treasury department door, with the latter, the USDA/Monsanto door. I would be astounded if the current administration’s plans to make changes in revolving door policies were successful; the practice is simply far too pervasive. The amount of information on government agencies that are staffed with former corporate influence peddlers is overwhelming. Eisenhower warned of us the Military Industrial Complex back in 1961, and Monsanto has been a target of this scrutiny for some time; see lists like this one or this one. But these are just high-profile, extremely well-funded examples. This form of governing reaches across every industry, and at all levels of government. I’ve compiled a table of examples below, but for a really amazing resource, check out Open Secrets’ Revolving Door database. You can use it to do things like starting with a list of over 300 former public servants to track their connections, or look at revolving door employees by agency. The White House has nearly 500 on staff itself. In spite of the overwhelming number of federal employees that are infecting the way our government runs, there is a bright side. Rather than feeling paranoid and powerless against cold, inhuman, and faceless corporations, we COULD start targeting the actual people responsible with civic action. They only get away with it because we don’t pay attention. The tables and images below begin to give it all a face. (more…)

If you were paying attention last fall, you might have caught a glimpse of the Neuroscience Audiomedical clip on the left. If you haven’t seen it, give it a look; it’s fun, and perhaps even a little disturbing. The only thing that disturbs me about it though, is that in spite of being a product-weary anti-consumer, I’m somehow disappointed that it’s NOT pitching a product at me. It has all the elements of a viral campaign or an Internet-Meme-to-be, but somehow is neither. It sort of points at the electronica DJ collective called Scratch Perverts, but none of their sites reference the clip, so you’re just left kind of thinking “Wow, that’s really neat, but WHY?” Well, keep wondering, ’cause I didn’t find much in the way of an answer myself. If you liked the video though, you’ll be pleased to know that Neuroscience Audiomedical has also done a live performance (also below). Or so say they say. It appears they used the same projection technology that was utilized for the Gorillaz and Madonna appearance at the Grammy Awards. The holographic projection method is a product called Musion Eyeliner, which allows 3-dimensional, moving, life-size holograms to appear within a live stage setting using Peppers Ghost techniques. Pretty cool. I just wish I knew what I was virally promoting here. More vids below. (more…)

I usually don’t pay much attention to the Academy Awards, but this year, an acquaintance of mine said “If Avatar wins Best Pic I will kick myself in the face. If I am unable to do so, I will train in leg flexibility until I am able to do so“. For that reason alone, I’m a little more interested than usual in the outcome this year, and as a result I couldn’t help noticing that this year’s Oscars have a few odd things in common with the 2008 elections.

1.) People of color will play a significant role in the outcome.

Avatar has aroused a lot of discussion about race and class around the world, and some people will be VERY upset if this non-white nominee wins. I don’t think Obama’s nomination caused suicidal tendencies though.

2.) A powerful woman may win, but an arrogant man in her past may impact the outcome.

Kathryn Bigelow probably deserves to win for Hurt Locker, but her arrogant ex-husband could easily muck things up for her. (more…)

I think Inchvesting is kind of like FarmVille except it’s no fun and costs real money.

Arthur Miller said “Figure it out. Work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally own it, and there’s no one to live in it“. Well, these are hard times; an estimated 15 million Americans can’t get work so they can even try to work their butt off to own a house, and later find themselves overextended and joining the ranks of millions nationwide who already blew it and defaulted on their mortgages. This probably has contributed to the estimated million or so homeless people already in America, the only upside being that it may have improved tent sales considerably. Heck. Even Iceland seems to be defaulting on its loans these days. I always laugh when an advertising-kludged pseudo-liberal site like Huffington Post asks stupid questions like Should Congress Take a Pay Cut?, because the fact that they’ll take a democratic legislator’s bandstanding seriously highlights in a convoluted way just how deep the problem really runs. Of COURSE they should take a pay cut. They should also think about spending less than 60 bucks on lunch each day. So. If you don’t have the job security of the guys who get paid out of the taxes they always say they don’t want to charge you, and you’ve lost your job and your home, is there still any chance you’ll ever live the American dream and have your own piece of land? Well, while you’re still homeless, you might want to get creative with your signage like these guys or abuse celebrities like this guy. And once you panhandle a few bucks, you could think about inchvesting it. Yes, for a dollar an inch you can have a little piece of Detroit. Another option would be to disregard social order altogether, secede, and claim any land you like. Think those teabaggers are crazy? You obviously haven’t heard about America’s new sovereign citizens.

I wish this were a parody graphic. It’s from Google China’s Human Flesh Search page.

If you’re not paranoid or have nothing to hide, things like the UK’s millions of security cameras, the TSA subjecting you to cavity searches, and Google tracking everything you do won’t bother you, and may even comfort you somehow. Personally, although I’m not doing anything particularly questionable with my time, and am not ashamed of the questionable activities I do engage in, I enjoy the ability to say “none of your businesss” and go off into the forest to sit on a rock and think for awhile. Back in 2002, the fact that cell phone providers were going to add the GPS-powered E911 feature to phones raised the question what do they plan to do with this information? Well the answers are finally in. If you’re the Iranian government, they’ll help you prosecute and arrest political protesters. If you’re the FBI or the White House, they’ll help you track callers without a warrant, because the current administration - much like the Bush gang - believes that cell phone users have “no reasonable expectation of privacy” when using a cell phone. “So”, you say to yourself, “I’ll just ditch my cell phone then”. Ha. Forget it. They (whoever “they” are) will still find you, either using social networking like they did with Saddam Hussein , or with the latest in reverse lookups, disturbingly referred to in China as Human Flesh Search Engines. Interested in working part time as a “Google Human Flesh Searcher”? Explore your options here. I wonder if this would work for catching Osama Bin Laden? (more…)