Not With A Bang But A Whimper ... and a Tweet

Occupy Wall Street's final implosion amid rival factions and bitter infighting.  That's terrib-- BWAHAHA!

Finding Political Common Ground in San Francisco

Awwww, isn't that sweet?  Finally something everyone can agree on!  < / snark>

Nerd Analysis: A Professor of Psychology and the Moral Foundations of Occupy Wall Street

Interesting.

A Look Back: 45 Memorable Images of 2011

A picture says a thousand words.

2011 Retrospective in Lego

News stories reproduced in glorious Lego!

Quote of the Day: the Zero Sum Fallacy

Read this as P.J. O'Rourke takes a look at the latest iteration of an old falsehood:

But the Occupiers are wrong about something much more important. They believe in the Zero Sum Fallacy -- the idea that there is a fixed amount of the good things in life. Anything I get, I'm taking from you. If I have too many slices of pizza, you have to eat the Dominos box. The Zero Sum Fallacy is a bad idea -- dangerous to economics, politics, and world peace. It means any time we want good things we have to fight with each other to get them. We don't. We can make more good things. We can make more pizza -- or more tofu, windmills and solar panels, if you like. 

The Zero Sum Fallacy is just that, a fallacy. Economic history since the Industrial Revolution proves -- be the rich however stinking rich -- we ordinary people can make more of the good things in life. But we have to make them ourselves, with our knowledge, skills and hard work. Government can't give us good things. Government doesn't make things, it just redistributes them. This brings us back to fighting with each other.

Occupy Practical Reality

I present this news story without further comment.

Life Imitates Satire: Occupy San Francisco Goes Into Banking

Bwahahahaha!  Is it the "inevitable culmination"?   If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!  And somehow I can't help thinking, "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

Classic Milton Friedman

Harvard econ prof Greg Mankiw has an intriguing post on what Milton Friedman might say to the Occupy movement.  Get a load of the dipstick in the first video who asks, "Isn't it necessary to forcibly redistribute wealth?"  Um, NO.  Note too how courteously Friedman disassembles these young clowns who have more idealism than sense.

LOL: Occupy Black Friday

Some demonstrators are actually thinking of holding protests outside the shops today.  You know what?  Go right ahead, darlings!  Be my guest.  I'd like to see you stand between the bargain-hunting, Christmas-shopping masses and the doors when the retailers finally open.  

Best "Occupy" Yet?

Heh!

Quote of the Day: Wealth, Values, and "Exactly the Wrong Message"

Here are some timely observations by Tyler Cowen of George Mason University during an NPR interview about the Occupy Wall Street protests:

Bill Whittle Comments on OWS

This is brilliant.  I add that these people should also watch lots of "Dirty Jobs" ... and participate in some of them.  Oh, and I think everything applies double to these little fools.  Oh, and Whittle is always well-spoken and polite, but if you want a real rant, check out Frank Miller's (yes, that Frank Miller, the awesome graphic artist).

Jon Stewart and Occupy Wall Street

No comment needed.  Just listen to these people talk when Samantha Bee interviews them.

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LOL: The Pampered Poseurs of "Occupy Harvard"

This is hilarious.

OWS: Decline and Fall?

Just about every thinking person should be sick of the OWS "movement"'s well-documented descent into disease, depravity, and --in four cases -- death.  This isn't about free speech anymore, and maybe it never really was.  There is something symbolic about how much clean-up is required after dislodging these disruptive yet utterly self-absorbed folks.  Whatever legitimate or quasi-legitimate grievances they had as the initial spark for action have long since been submerged in the waves of deplorable behavior that have alienated everybody else, especially the long-suffering locals.  

Steyn on OWS: "Anarchists for Statism"

Take a look.  *Sigh.*

Nerd News: Protesting Professor Mankiw's Economics 10 Class

OWS sympathizers disrupt a Harvard economics class.  In the words of the econ prof himself, "Here's what happened: About 5 to 10 percent of the class participated in the walk-out. At the same time, some previous ec 10 students came in to sit in the lecture as counter-protesters. The lecture then proceeded as planned."  I say good on the class alums who returned as counter-protesters.  

Professor Mankiw links to coverage by the Harvard paper.  I like this bit from an op-ed in the Crimson:

The Occupy movement has become known for its many, and often contradictory, faces. Now we can add a new group of faces to that list—Ec 10 students.  Students in the popular introductory economics class walked out fifteen minutes into the class yesterday in a gesture of solidarity with the Occupy movement and to protest what the event organizers consider a class that promotes a “strongly conservative neoliberal ideology.”  We find it troubling that students would protest a class because of its supposed ideological bent at an institution dedicated to academic integrity.  Such an action sets a dangerous precedent of ideological discrimination against professors. 

... Furthermore, the students’ attempt to connect their classroom protestations to the Occupy movement illustrates the disjointed and often unfocused nature of the movement.  Indeed, it seems ironic that students in an introductory economics course at Harvard feel that by walking out of their completely optional lecture taught by a famous economist on the theme of income inequality feel that their actions ought to be considered a sign of solidarity with the Occupy movement.  Such protests don’t show solidarity, they show ignorance and a lack of self-awareness. 

You don't say!  (Also, Crimson editors, please fix that comma splice.)


UPDATE:  "... one major criticism of the Occupy movement is that protesters do not generally seem to be well-informed on the economic issues they care so strongly about. Walking out of an economics lecture will do little to quell this stereotype."  HEH!  Note that all this happened at Hahvahd.  Smart people can be idiots too -- a very special kind of idiot.

Get Off My (1960s Countercultural) Lawn!

A cri du coeur.  The oh-so-derivative faux and boringly predictable would-be revolutionaries are the dipstick du jour.

LOL: Stephen Colbert Occupies OWS

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