Mid-Week Post

I am the one percent occupying the middle of the week.



Occupy your brain with this:

But nothing had prepared me for meeting this gentleman, who wants his college paid for because, well . . . that’s what he wants. He has perfectly articulated a sentiment I have heard repeatedly but was struggling to distill with anything like the clarity he achieved: That being that if there is something someone doesn’t like about their life, someone else somewhere should change it. And if they don’t, well then, the American Dream is dead...

Read the whole thing and watch the video. In fact, follow Charles Cook's coverage of this event.  We should have learned from the failed experiment that was the Sixties and the logistical, hypocritical mess of Woodstock that these dirty hippies (yes, that's what they are) are looking for a happening and are just generally angry or dissatisfied but aren't sure about what until they get to site of the happening. I will not call it protest unless I am at a lack for a better word or unless I am quoting something simply because that would elevate this event to something substantial and meaningful. The civil rights protests in the American South and at Tienanmen Square meant something. This event is just a bunch of people with no clue and with incoherent signs.



Related: the age-old blame game.



Occupy Cairo:

Sunday's protest was sparked by the burning down of a church in the southern Aswan province.


Coptic Christians organised Sunday's demonstration after a church was set on fire near Aswan last week. Local Muslims insisted it did not have the proper construction permits.

In the past few months, security services have repeatedly been accused of failing to intervene to stop sectarian clashes across the country.

The transitional government is also accused of doing little to address the long-standing grievances of Christians. These include complaints about restrictions on building churches and a school curriculum focused on Islam.

Speaking on al-Arabiya television, Fouad Allam, the former head of Egypt's security services, gave a stark warning: "There needs to be serious action from the leaders to resolve the root causes, otherwise this could lead to civil war."

Related: why is the world not championing the Coptic Christians' cause?




Occupy Tehran:

Allegations that Iran planned to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington and bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies, using hit men from a Mexican drug cartel, mark a dramatic escalation in a 30-year-old secret war.

It may also signal a more aggressive and dangerous Iran, possibly one that feels its nuclear program is so far advanced it can provoke the United States and the West with impunity.



At the very least, the alleged assassination plot would be an act of international terrorism that borders on being an act of war.

Well, that's embarrassing, Ahmadinejad.



(Sidebar: I'd also like to point out that no one tried to arrest Ahmadinejad when he was in New York.)



Occupy Surrey:

Q: Why is Amnesty International calling for the former president’s arrest? And why now?
A: The group says Mr. Bush’s visit to Surrey, B.C., next Friday to attend an economic summit is the perfect chance to nab him for events during the CIA’s secret detention program between 2002-2009 which allegedly include “torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading-treatment and enforced disappearances.” Canada is “obligated” to act, said Susan Lee, Amnesty’s Americas Director. “A failure by Canada to take action during his visit would violate the UN Convention against torture and demonstrate contempt for fundamental human rights.” Greater urgency comes since the U.S. hasn’t acknowledged the crimes, added Alex Neve, the secretary general of Amnesty International Canada. This is the first time Amnesty has been so specific in a call for a Canadian visit, he said. “George Bush is not a sitting president anymore … He’s also not coming for official UN meetings, he doesn’t have any kind of diplomatic immunity.” On Sept. 21, Amnesty submitted an “extensive legal brief” to the government, backed up by “thousands of pages” of documents.



Q: Does Canada really have the power to arrest him?
A: No. The International Criminal Court has no jurisdiction over Mr. Bush because the U.S. has not ratified it. Canada is a member, but authorities here can’t legally detain him on the ICC’s behalf, notes Peter Ferguson, a professor of American politics at the University of Western Ontario. Waterboarding, the interrogation technique that gives subjects the sensation of drowning, was not illegal when Mr. Bush authorized its use on a handful of prisoners, Prof. Ferguson pointed out. Though President Barack Obama changed the policy, that doesn’t mean Mr. Bush can be tried today. “In international law, there’s a difference between being forced to act and able to act,” said Dan Bousfield, an assistant professor of political science at Western. “We’re not directly responsible, and as far as I know there’s no outstanding warrant for his arrest abroad.”

Q: Would Canada actually arrest Mr. Bush, even if it could?
A: “Politically it’d be suicide,” said Prof. Ferguson. “A U.S. president is not going to sit in an [international] prison. It would be a military action. They’d go for a diplomatic response but only for so long — 24 hours or less.” There’s no closer friend to the U.S. than Canada, said Alan Dowd, an Indianapolis-based fellow with the Fraser Institute who specializes in security issues. “Were it to happen, it would have a terrible, chilling effect on U.S.-Canada cooperation.” A fresh Conservative majority government won’t help the cause, added Prof. Bousfield.

Look, Mum, street theatre.



At some point, Shamnesty International (enormous thumbs-up) will call for the arrest of some actual dictators, right? You know- to appear legitimate and everything? No. Didn't think so.



Let's face it- if crybabies people had thicker skin and faster thought processes, we wouldn't need laws or human rights commissions to shut down some guy with a bunch of pamphlets.



Occupy Tokyo:

A heretofore secret cable dated Sept. 3, 2009, was recently released by WikiLeaks. Sent to Secretary of State Clinton, it reported Japan's Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka telling U.S. Ambassador John Roos that "the idea of President Obama visiting Hiroshima to apologize for the atomic bombing during World War II is a 'nonstarter.'"

The Japanese feared the apology would be exploited by anti-nuclear groups and those opposed to the defensive alliance between Japan and the U.S.

Do we really need another reason to get this man out of office?



Ladies and gentlemen, Love Psychedelico.




Related: Occupy the White House:

Watching white MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell chastising black presidential candidate Herman Cain for not participating in the 1960s civil rights movement infuriated me.  O'Donnell accused Cain of sitting on the sidelines like a coward while blacks and whites marched and protested for black civil rights.  How dare this white guy who does not have a clue what it was like to be black in America in the 1960s attack a black person for not responding to racism the way he thinks he should have responded?

Maybe the US will be in its post-racial stage when they elect a REAL black American, erudite, professional and personable. What is white liberal America afraid of?



Occupy Bratislava:

With 55 lawmakers voting for the measure, 9 against it and 60 abstaining, the Slovak governing coalition failed to muster the necessary votes to pass the plan that would have required Slovakia to contribute roughly $10 billion in debt guarantees. 

Nobody wants to be on the hook for $10 billion.



Occupy L'Anse aux Meadows:

When Columbus is viciously condemned, it is the dominant ideas of our culture that are threatened.  Reason, science, individualism, and progress are morally superior to collectivism and stagnation.  The ideas of Western civilization have led to our survival, well-being, and happiness. Let's not return to the Sea of Darkness.  It is time to stand up and defend Christopher Columbus.

That's nice but Saint Brendan and the Vikings beat him to it. 
 


And now, watch this. The antelope probably told his antelope-mates that some human cut him off. But seriously, the guy is okay.