Occupy Efforts Fall Short

As the Occupy Wall Street protests began to wind down last month, the leaders of the movement called for one last desperate move to try and infuse some life into the movement. As the call for the shutdown of ports along the west coast went out, it seemed that this try might have some success.

But it wasn’t to be. First off, the longshoremen who run the ports refused to join the folks aligned with the Occupy movement. This lack of support from the unions is understandable. When many democrats and other liberals are quickly backing off of their support to the movement, the unions followed suit. Plus, when you think of how difficult times are right now, taking a day off without pay may not be in the budget for most of these folks who work the docks. Unlike many of the Occupy folks, the union people actually have jobs.

Today was the big day when the Occupy people were going to gather and shutdown commerce along the west coast. A funny thing happened on the way to this utopia: commerce wasn’t impacted in the least. A few routes into the ports were disrupted for a few minutes by a few hundred people at the various locations:

A Burlington Northern-Santa Fe train was delayed north of Seattle.

Protesters briefly shutdown the access to the Seattle port.

In Portland, workers were told to stay home, without pay, for the day to avoid any confrontations.

Up in Vancouver, Canada, protester shutdown to access points for less than 30 minutes, barely causing a ripple.

Weather in LA significantly reduced participation and caused minimal disruptions.

All in all, I would have to say this wound up being a failure on the Occupier’s part.

NFL Star Reads Beck; His Fans Probably Not

File this under whadda know. It seems that a highly regarded NFL wide receiver has purchased Glenn Beck’s book Broke. After buying the book, Chad Ochcinco had the “gall” to tweet about it (BTW: there are many who translate gall to a better word; brave):

“Does anyone know if Glenn Beck has a twitter account?Starting on his new book #BROKE His views on political n economical issues are #EPIC” (Source: The Blaze)

Turns out, some of his fans don’t want old Chad to educate himself. There were several tweets that indicated their displeasure with the guy for trying to understand.

Twitter user DrDeeps was among the first, writing: “Just lost a lot of respect for you for being F**king beck fan. Idiot.” (Source: The Blaze)

Another wrote:

Crisis Continues to Grow in Syria

One of the main reasons given for helping out the rebels in Libya was because of the fear of a humanitarian crisis.  Now it seems there really is a crisis going on in Syria and so far, other than some mild warnings from the administration, there are little in the way of plans to help out the “freedom seekers” in Syria.

The link contains some videos and pictures, which have been rare.

Super Bowl 45 (Now What)

The game is over, the keg is dry, the chips have all been eaten, clean up has been postponed until tomorrow evening (maybe), and all the dishes of potato salad and bar-b-q beef have been put away. The Green Bay Packers have defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers 31-25 in what turned out to be a fairly exciting game.

I am not a fan of either team but I was rooting for Green Bay nearly as hard as I would for the Raiders or Cowboys. The reason for the one day alliance with the cheese heads? Any team that is playing the Pittsburgh Steelers is my favorite team for that day. My intense dislike for the Steelers goes back to 1972 and the Immaculate Reception. I still cannot get over that play. I firmly believe the Raiders would have beaten the Dolphins and gone on to the Super Bowl. Did the ball miss Fuqua completely? Probably not. Did the ball hit the turf before or as Harris was catching it? Inconclusive since the camera angles don’t have the entire ball in the pictures. It was a great play and will go down in the annals as one of the greatest of all time.

Raiders and Cowboys

Both my Raiders and Cowboys lost today.  The Raiders lost in heartbreaking fashion. Tied the game up with just a couple of minutes to go and then they allow a long kick return to set up the go-ahead touchdown. I’ve given up on the ‘Boys until next year. They are a team in need of some serious butt kicking by a coach. I’d like to see Cowher take the sidelines next year. But I don’t think Jones will allow a high profile coach because it would take the spotlight off of Jones.