This is Hilarious. When the going gets tough, the occupiers get going! Wild eyed climate svengali Bill McKibben claims the “atmosphere is occupied”, and that’s why we have global warming.
Only one problem, when the atmosphere gets too cold, people bail from the tents and head home. The Infrared camera video footage shot by the Telegraph reveals a lot of tents are missing bodies at night.
What a bunch of wimps! Why, in the 60’s their parents protested in waist deep snow, carrying signs, and the protest march was uphill both ways!
Or maybe they brought in some polar bears to help them “experience and be one with nature” more fully and that’s why people are missing?
Here’s the story from the Telegraph:
Only one in 10 St Paul’s protesters stay overnight
Just one in 10 of the tents at the Occupy London Stock Exchange camp which has closed St Paul’s Cathedral are occupied at night, it can be revealed.
The camp forced St Paul’s to close for the first time since the Blitz and is costing local businesses thousands of pounds a day.
But most of the protesters are heading home to sleep in their own beds at night.
Infra red images taken by a police helicopter during the early hours show that only around 20 of the 200 tents on the encampment actually have people staying in them.
The Daily Telegraph has shot its own video of the St Paul’s camp using thermal imaging equipment which appears to confirm these claims.
…
On Monday the revelation was described as a “charade” and pressure was growing on the church and other authorities to evict the camp.
“It is like a phantom camp – a big charade,” said Matthew Richardson, a Corporation of London councillor, who is calling for action to be taken.
“It just shows that most of the people don’t have the courage of their convictions and are here just to make trouble and leaving your tent here overnight is a good way to do that.”
Full story and the video here
Okay, I’ll bite.
_Jim says:
“I have already spent waaaaaaay too much time on the various OWS boards (wanna see the chat logs I captured?) and the various livestream and Ustream feeds to take your ‘word’ on it. What you find, is, these ppl have been indoctrinated by the ‘schools’ and universities they have ‘attended’ in primarily the ‘liberal arts’ vein …
Remember: Indoctrination =/= education.
Classical mistake, Hill.”
So what are you sayin’ _Jim? Indoctrination only occurs in our schools and universities? Really? C’mon, indoctrination happens in households, churches (I’m a Christian by the way), political parties, communities. Are you saying a college education is worthless or harmful? The easiest way to cut off dialogue is by attacking people as “elitist” or “liberal” or “christian” or “conservative”. Sometimes those labels are useful as shorthand but to dismiss entire institutions based on a doctrine that you don’t agree with is just close-minded. Wanna win this war of science? Let’s stop the ad hominem attacks and assumptions, and just stick with good science.
oh _Jim…
I’m unsure as to what mistake you are referring to. I am not offering any form of denial with regard to claims that there are a number of mindless morons involved – it would appear that they all are photographed/filmed. I’m sure you will accept that within any group you will find a percentage. Many of these protestors offer a confused and inadequate account of why they are threes Some I’m sure are also incapable of speech. That said, we must accept that there are reasonable, sound, educated & employed people protesting. It is easy to become distracted by the highlights. We simply can’t apply a broad brush, declaring all involved as out of work and reliant on benefits as one user posted. It’s just unfair. We’re all fair people are we not?
Jeff Fujita – another eloquent post. I personally think we should end the discussion on that note.
This hurts the creditability of this blog. I’m willing to bet money that when The Tea Party was having it’s 15 minutes that people were not posting video’s of all the rednecks carrying ignorant and hateful signs. When I first came on this site I suspected that this was a republican propaganda site in disguise… I was assured that it was not. But stuff like this leads me to wonder if I wasn’t right the first time.
Code Tech, you are correct that many business group because they are complimentary businesses or simply locate there because there is heavy traffic. However Home Depot and Lowes do not compliment each other, they compete directly against each other, it is a zero sum game. Same with Best Buy and Circuit City. They coexist for a while but ultimately one always wins out in the long run. These people are not dumb, they realize most of these towns can only support one type of these stores, and if they can support more, they will drive out the weak business by building the first store near the existing store and then build additional stores.
Wal Mart tried to drive out Target but lost that battle since Wal marts brand name is synonomis with cheap and red neck even if they are selling Cartier watches and Ralph Laruen clothes inside the doors. Wal Mart definately aims to eliminate competition by any means necessary, and is totally unapologetic about it.
Back in the day when malls were big business they usually had a number of allocated stores for shoes, cardstores, book store etc. In many cases one franchise would buy out all the allocated properties even when it was unprofitable simply to deny competition. If your franchise is big enough you can take these losses in order to starve out competition.
I live in a very wealthy town and we have had several chain stores fold, usually when two competitors are located right next to each other. Luckily enough companies move into the area that eventually the abandoned hulks are torn down and turned into something productive. There are several abandoned strip mall fronts.
Wal Mart also deliberately employs people at less than full time hours so they don’t have to offer health insurance, and they are doing so even more these days. It is no secret, they openly admit they are doing this to save costs. Let’s be honest, people working at WalMart at entry level jobs do not have much choice, BUT, they are making the effort and I think they should be treated as bona fide full time employees. These companies are compelled by training and pedgogy to always, always, always, look to the bottom line, not to necessarily do the ethical thing. I’m a true blooded capitalist and free market guy, but let’s not pretend that companies have employees at the top of their priority list most of the time.
John Brookes says:
October 26, 2011 at 5:52 am
“I decided that Starbucks couldn’t be as bad as everyone said, and bought a coffee there. I was wrong. It was that bad.”
I thought the same and having tried Starbuck coffee in Sydney I will declare you wrong, it was worse than everybody said.
Having said that, when overseas, you can tell a Melburnian by the phrase “the coffee isn’t very good is it”
Re: the discussion at hand: off-base, inapplicable, and erection of straw-man argument ad infinitum.
Thanks for playing (BTW, did you notice how persuasive the protesters arguments were for pulling money out of Chase and putting it into a credit union as voiced by Veronica Navarro in the first vid? I thought you did … so, ‘thanks much for playing’; now back to peeling potatoes in the Liberty park protester ‘kitchen’ …)
.
LKMiller says:
October 26, 2011 at 6:14 am
The goals and objectives of the 912Project/Tea Party were and remain very specific. To list some of the main goals:
* a return to limited, constitutional government
* ending wasteful government massive deficit spending
* rational tax policies that encourage economic growth in the private sector, the only source of the money that government steals and redistributes
* personal responsibility
Thank you, LKMiller.
I am sick and tired of “I wanna something for nothing” pot-smoking hitchhikers on the life’s side wayside comparing themselves with the Tea Party, the only more or less sensible grass-roots movement in the modern America.
Pull My Finger,
I’ve worked for 30+ years 12 (sometimes 15) hours per day, often on weekends, and nobody offers me any health insurance, because I am self-employed. I don’t have money to purchase it, and I am not old enough to get it “for free” (read: hitchhiking at other people’s account).
WalMart employees sign their contracts when they get employed, they know conditions of their employment beforehand. If they don’t like their job, they should learn to do something else, better than on the “entry level” — it’s not that hard.
I’m still not sure what the protesters want, expect or have to offer.
They want to end capitalism? And replace it with what?
A capitalistic republic allows everybody the chance to gain from their own efforts.
People working toward their own self interest. That’s what works.
I’m seeing allot of support here for the Corporate Socialism that bailed out the grossly miss-managed banks and American corporations that took down the economy. Wake up you still have grossly miss-managed banks and corporations still doing the same shtick, I see Greece USA style in your future.
Brian says:
“This hurts the creditability of this blog.”
Actually, it doesn’t. But Brian’s credibility is non-existent when he writes about “posting video’s (sic) of all the rednecks carrying ignorant and hateful signs” at Tea Party gatherings.
I am not a Tea Party member, but I notice that when they leave their rallies they always pick up their trash and leave the place clean. They don’t cause trouble like the Teat Party “occupier” bums and Soros stooges, who always leave the place a real pigsty. Tea Partiers are ‘rednecks’ only in Brian’s fevered imagination; in real life they come from mostly the middle class: the 99% of overtaxed, over regulated Americans. They don’t carry hateful signs, and they want more African-Americans to join them [although ACORN infiltrators have been caught red-handed trying to stir up trouble by pretending to be tea partiers].
Brian also doesn’t get the fact that plenty of WUWT readers and commentators are from the Left, but they’re more interested in scientific truth, and therefore they reject the CAGW scam. Really, Brian doesn’t get much of anything. I suspect he’s still a youngster.
“I’m still not sure what the protesters want, expect or have to offer.
They want to end capitalism.”
They say they are protesting against Capitalism. They believe they are protesting against Capitalism. But from everything they have said to date, from every object of their anger, it is clear that these misguided unfortunates are NOT campaigning against Capitalism. The only way you can even use the word Capitalism to describe what they are protesting against, is to qualify it with the word “Crony”. Crony Capitalsim is the actual object that has aroused their anger. Another term could be Corporatism or Statism or even Fascism.
Actual Capitalism – free markets with suppliers and demanders competing on equal terms – hardly exists at all, and where it does exist, it is almost entirely confined to small businesses. Crony Capitalism, on the other hand, is the system we have today, where policy makers and corporations conspire to rig the game in their favour, or where policy makers interfere in the free market with regulations to acheive some imagined good.
In the early part of the first decade of the millenium, it was GW Bush who signed a little piece of legislation that required mortgage lenders to lend to home buyers regardless of their credit worthiness – or unworthiness. The aim was to make homes affordable to all, and we all know the end of that story. Bush and Greenspan then proceeded to pump up asset prices with years of cheap money, leading to bankers enriching themselves beyond their wildest dreams. And we all know how that ended.
Other business leaders have enriched themselves with tax payer subsidies to provide renewable energy. Another clear example of Government with its boot on the free market, which is why Fascism is an appropriate term (before anyone takes offence, Fascism isn’t just what the Nazis did. It is when the country is run like a corporation, where the government dictates and directs economic activity).
So in that sense, I support the protesters. Unfortunately, people of a certain age remember all that sort of thing from the sixties and seventies, and nothing much changed – except the hippies grew old. Nothing new under the sun.
Sun Spot says:
October 26, 2011 at 11:46 am
“I’m seeing allot of support here for the Corporate Socialism that bailed out the grossly miss-managed banks and American corporations that took down the economy.”
Visit the doctor. Your eyes are failing you.
I guess people have to get their politics involved on this web page but unfortunately, the politics probably drive away the people who really need to be reached, i.e., the well meaning people who have been duped by the snake oil salesmen promoting global warming. I understand that the wall street occupiers are a diverse group, but one of their major concerns is the growing separation in wealth in the US (already one of worst places in the world in this regard) (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/66877.html). Overexploitation of the productive class really has nothing to do with capitalism or socialism, but has to do with how much destructive behavior (in this case unmitigated greed) that a society can tolerate/ withstand. I believe the excessive bleeding of the productive class was one of the major reasons for the U.S. war of independence, though clearly the conflict wasn’t described in these terms. Couldn’t we lay off bashing the well meaning (call them left or liberal or whatever you want) and focus on showing them how they are being manipulated to create another means of parasitizing the productive class, e.g., carbon credits, useless technology (windmills, CFLs etc). We have a common enemy, pseudo science used to justify irrational and destructive behavior. There is so much common ground for cooperation in just trying to get the truth out.
Alexander, that’s a choice you make. Health Insurance is expensive, even if you get it through your employer. It certainly isn’t free. But Wal Mart doesn’t even give their employees an option to buy in under a certain number of hours a week even though they have access. If the employees are willing to pay for insurance why not give them the option? All these politicians talk about pay as you go and saving schemes, but the truth is if you have a serious medical condition, no insurance, and no Gates like wealth, you ain’t got enough money,
Of coures the problem is that the uninsured tax the system but do not pay in. If everyone paid in then there would be more money in the system. You can call it socialism or welfare but no more so than public transportation, libraries, or national defense. Everyone needs medical care at some point in their life. We already pay for the poor as it is, why not just get more money up front or more people insured by companies? Companies see low level employees as widgets that are easily replaced so they don’t feel the need to offer more than is necessary to keep them.
The governement mandates car insurance, for good reason, why not health insurance? It’s not like you are the sole arbiter of you health. The health care system is FUBAR, I’m not advocating a “National Health”, but it needs streamlined. Maybe some of these tax credits that get doled out to head of household or children should have to go towards health insurance if the families don’t have it. I mean it’s not really their money to begin with, it’s taxpayer money.
It may not be hard for you and I, but remember, 100 is the average IQ, there are people out there who are unable to do higher level jobs, or didn’t have an opportunity for higher education, or are disabled in some way, or don’t have the money to go to college, or have any number of mental, physical or emotional issues that prohibit them from doing anything more than a low level job. But a lot of these people have great work ethics and are fine human beings. For many people it’s Wal Mart or Welfare. Why degrade them for picking Wal Mart? Wal Mart can EASILY afford to give them the option to pay for their own insurance.
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WalMart employees sign their contracts when they get employed, they know conditions of their employment beforehand. If they don’t like their job, they should learn to do something else, better than on the “entry level” — it’s not that hard.
‘Actually, it doesn’t. But Brian’s credibility is non-existent when he writes about “posting video’s (sic) of all the rednecks carrying ignorant and hateful signs” at Tea Party gatherings.”
Tea Party has a lot of redneck supporters and they’re actually owned by The Koch Brothers so… Yeah, they have SOOO much creditability.
“I am not a Tea Party member, but I notice that when they leave their rallies they always pick up their trash and leave the place clean.”
awwww…. Such wonderful people.
Too bad the people backing them don’t feel that being clean is so honorable.
http://www.forbes.com/2001/01/04/0104faces.html
“They don’t carry hateful signs, and they want more African-Americans to join them”
Sure they don’t. They’re basically gods themselves.
“Really, Brian doesn’t get much of anything. I suspect he’s still a youngster.”
Yeah… Watching the GOP debates I got a first hand look at how old people do it.
http://articles.cnn.com/2003-10-10/entertainment/rush.limbaugh_1_wilma-cline-rush-limbaugh-inaccuracies-and-distortions?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/20/entertainment/main650282.shtml
Good thing the right wing folks are so clean and innocent.
BCBill says:
October 26, 2011 at 12:16 pm
“I understand that the wall street occupiers are a diverse group, but one of their major concerns is the growing separation in wealth in the US (already one of worst places in the world in this regard) ”
I was thinking about this for quite some time; there’s the Gini index, and the assertion that a nation with a lower Gini index (less income inequality) has a higher economic growth than a comparable nation with a higher Gini index. I’m German and through our welfare state system we have a pretty low Gini index, so that’s probably Obama’s wet dream.
But there’s a strange conundrum. The US has a higher GDP/capita than we, about 130% of ours, in PPP terms. Shouldn’t we slowly catch up? Yet we don’t. It has been the same ratio for at least 10 years or so; I’ve been tracking that since I found the CIA factbook.
I have the hunch that our high tax system here in Germany just encourages politicians to squander more money on renewable subsidies, enormous funding for AGW scientists and other pet projects, buy themselves more influence on a European level by giving billions and billions to the EU etc. etc.
Cuba, BTW, is one of the countries with the lowest level of inequality. Somehow the Gini-index induced super growth doesn’t materialize for them as well. And I wonder, how much inequality is there in North Korea? Do they have a thriving economy? Not really.
I’m still scratching my head about this. Are there any data points that support the “more equality = more wealth” thesis? If you have some, please bring them up; I won’t deride you.
Wal Mart employees, if it like any of the service industry jobs I’ve held or supervised, don’t have contracts. Their hours are likely sealed by little more than a handshake and change on the whim of the manager or the needs of other employees. Usually they will become insurance eligible by averaging 37.5+ hours per week over a certain amount of time (varies by state) and if it falls below that, bye bye insurance.
Pull My Finger says:
October 26, 2011 at 10:24 am
About your “redneck” comment. Screw you. You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.
Brian,
How can I get the five minutes of my life back that I wasted on that drivel? The obnoxious host’s first words are “The Tea Baggers…” Thanx for posting your lunatic propaganda… NOT.
The most the tea party signs can be accused of is hyperbole. OTOH, the TEAT PARTY bums are busily stealing from each other while demanding the right to steal from working folks, raping, defecating on the open ground, and generally acting like the disreputable bums they are. They have no coherent message, they are simply a mob on the dole. Why would you support them, and why are you so obviously afraid of law-abiding Americans assembling peacefully? The Soviets used to label your kind “useful idiots”. What are you getting out of that mindless mob rule?
Thinking of it a bit, I’ve never seen a tent that didn’t have an opening, be it mesh or open slit, built into the top to allow heat exchange and prevent moisture from condensing on the interior surface.
They’re designed to keep the rain and wind off. And that’s about it.
They don’t trap heat. They don’t insulate the interior. As soon as the tent is vacated it quickly assumes ambient temp.
I agree with others – take the unoccupied tents away. These places are not wilderness areas or designated camping grounds. (Find me this Constitutional Amendment, “Right to pitch a tent wherever you damn please”?)
Every item of personal property left unattended should be deemed abandoned. Pile it all up at the nearest lost-and-found, charge a $20 service fee and require a positive ID proof of ownership to get it back. (Publish all those names so the rest if us know who NOT to hire.)