Allegedly over safety concerns about the office. Follow hashtag #globalreveviction for more information.

On December 30th, Roman Berry posted a comment on the Robert Scheer on Ron Paul diary about the Overton Window. When I followed the link to the Corrente blog post about the Overton Window, I thought, what a great idea. But it wasn't until I started doing some research on the concept that I found out that Joseph Overton, who came up with the idea, was employed by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which was established in 1987.

Politicians robocall you. Now you can robocall them.

Welcome to the Robocall Revolution. We believe that voters should have access to the same technology political groups use to get their message across; so we built a simple web-based robocall tool to literally give citizens back their voice in the political discourse. What better way to exercise your rights to to speech, than to actually speak truth to power?

ReverseRobocall.com provides voters an easy way to communicate with one or hundreds of politicians or political groups using the same technology politicians use, the robocall or automated phone call.

I subscribe to Amped Status and got this e-mail from David DeGraw yesterday. I thought it might be of some interest to folks on this board:

Happy New Year! Whose Year? Our Year!

Awesome!

NOTE I love the people who shout "Get a job!" It's so Sixties. What was the unemployment rate then, four percent?

Occupy Congress - U.S. Capitol - January 17

The Revolution Begins in 2012

I'm telling you now, it's coming! People are starting to become furious that we have in effect lost our representative democracy. It's time for a revolution. Not a physical one, but a political one. A revolution that turns over the establishment's apple cart, challenges this corrupt system and brings back our democracy. Get ready for 2012.

Cross-posted at Naked Capitalism.

This chart of Venn Diagrams (New Year's Day links) is a nifty visualization[1] that shows how many, many people, through the operations of Washington's revolving door, have held high-level positions both in the Federal government and in major corporations. To take but one example, the set of all Treasury Secretaries includes Hank Paulson and Bob Rubin, which overlaps with the set of all Goldman Sachs COOs. The overlapping is pervasive. Political scientists and the rest of us have names for such cozy arrangements -- oligarchy, corporatism, fascism, "crony capitalism" -- but one name that doesn't apply is democracy. On the flip, you'll find the chart (and a discussion of its provenance).

Rose garden

It was 83 degrees here in Zone 10 yesterday, so the roses are happy and they're not the only ones Southern California usually has a warm spell during Limo Season (the weeks leading up to the Academy Awards, which is about as close to a religious event as we get). So here's a little preview of spring/summer to start the year right.

Happy New Year, everyone! ***************************************************

U.S. Government Glossed Over Cancer Concerns As It Rolled Out Airport X-Ray Scanners

On Sept. 23, 1998, a panel of radiation safety experts gathered at a Hilton hotel in Maryland to evaluate a new device that could detect hidden weapons and contraband. The machine, known as the Secure 1000, beamed X-rays at people to see underneath their clothing.

One after another, the experts convened by the Food and Drug Administration raised questions about the machine because it violated a longstanding principle in radiation safety — that humans shouldn’t be X-rayed unless there is a medical benefit.

January 1 is the last day of Kwanzaa, which - like Yule - is another mid-winter non-christian celebration involving light, in this case the lighting of seven candles. Check out the documentary The Black Candle to learn more.

Nestled in my Sunday Chicago Trib is a Dollar General flyer. Among the ads appears this promo:

Ya gotta love it - a chance to win 10 bucks, and along with it, a new lease on life. Who says opportunity is dead?

... while the police were uptown at Times Square. Tactically smart!

Dammit, I put my glasses down, and now I can't find them, because I can't see!

I got interested in psychopaths when I was sued by one - I lost. The court believed the psychopath. That spurred me to read up on psychopaths and I read The Sociopath Next Door, by Martha Stout. I also have Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths go to Work and Without Conscience, both by Robert Hare. I've not read those yet, though. Anyway, with this background, an article in The Independent caught my eye - it is about psychopaths in the financial sector. Interesting reading.

Pseudotsuga menziesii

Douglas fir

There are no white bulls and no mistletoe, but with this the closing night of the year and the pea soup fog outside my door, it seems a good time for these two reindeer and their oak tree to conjure up visions of pre-christian druidic rituals.

A pending war with Iran has a lot to do with US unholy imperialism as well as the US’s unhealthy (INSANE) codependency with the leadership of Israel.

Obama is up to his usual fine form, explaining why he had to sign the NDAA tonight.

I fail to understand why he thinks we are falling for his explanation, though I guess he has good reason - tens of millions of good little Democrats are probably sighing with relief, now that those evil terrorists will be put away forever by their hero.

Greatest lead of all time from David Nakamura in Pravda:

Obama expressed misgivings about several provisions of a sweeping defense bill he signed into law on Saturday, pledging that his administration will use broad discretion in interpreting the measure’s legal requirements to ensure that U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism are not detained indefinitely by the military.

Sure, that's just what we all want.

Obama appointed Jerome Powell to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. From the article:

"Powell served as the undersecretary for finance under the president George H. W. Bush and was a partner of The Carlyle Group. The Carlyle Group is a massive private equity firm and one of the largest defense contractors in the world."

I realize that this happened four days ago, but I just can't keep up with the actions of the collective idiots who comprise the entity called the United States Government. Where does it stop? In total collapse?

And Reich is pushing an Obama/Clinton ticket next year. Anyone willing to share the hole that they are hiding in?

Readers? The headline is self-explanatory, no? Suppose you were trying to summarize the arc of political economy since 1972 for an occupier born in, oh, 1991. Remember that our terrible educational system has failed the young especially in contemporary history. What events would you put on the timeline? I can think of three:

Don't have any, except that outliers will be the norm, for both good and ill. Black swans everywhere! Readers? Your predictions?

Sempervivum

house leek, live forever, hens and chicks