Leading The Way
Climate change activists chained themselves to the wrong building in the City of London after failing to realise the fossil fuel company they wanted to disrupt had moved address last year.
And yes, there is a punchline:
The group of 200 protesters instead brought chaos to the entrance of a building which houses the offices of a leading renewable energy company.
The protestors’ chanted demands include “No borders, no nations, no gas power stations.”
Update, via the comments:
Readers are invited to marvel at the patchwork of seemingly incompatible concerns, and to ponder how, if at all, any of the protestors’ professed objectives could actually be met without nations, with borders, to implement them. Do they imagine that some borderless, undifferentiated and continually shifting mass of human beings with no common identity or common bond could function at all for any length of time, let alone in ways that they, or we, might find congenial?
Via Tim. Previously. Also, open thread.
Was it the curse of the “non-hierarchical organisation”?
Was it the curse of the “non-hierarchical organisation”?
Well, given there were 200 of them, you’d think someone might have checked. Still, we mustn’t question our new messiahs.
I’m not making the borders and nations connection except that it rhymes.
A worker at the company told the Evening Standard: “They’re protesting against Drax, but they don’t live here anymore. I understand [the protester’s aims] but it helps if they check the facts.
Once can’t help but think, if they were actually bothered about the facts, then they wouldn’t be eco-loons to begin with
I’m not making the borders and nations connection except that it rhymes.
It looks like the usual incoherent patchwork of leftist posturing. For instance, I’m not quite sure how any of their supposed ecological objectives could be met without nations, with borders, to implement them. Do they imagine that some borderless, undifferentiated and continually shifting mass of human beings with no common identity could function at all for any length of time, let alone be motivated in ways they might find agreeable?
If there were no power stations I don’t think anyone would be tempted to enter the nation by crossing the border!
No borders, no nations, no gas power stations.
Yay! Let’s all live in caves and eat dung as Gaia intended!
One can only hope that the narcissistic clowns obstructing traffic and chaining themselves to things, and boasting “We will shut you down,” were escorted to detention cells that were suitably dark and unheated.
Avast there! No guacamole for THOSE scurvy dogs!
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/first-food-writer
Avast there! No guacamole for THOSE scurvy dogs!
I’m not sure glamour is the word that comes to mind.
Also leading the way, APSA Announces the New Editorial Team for the American Political Science Review
Meet the diversity !
Related:
https://pagesix.com/2019/07/30/a-listers-flock-to-google-summit-in-private-jets-mega-yachts-to-talk-climate-change/
We must save the planet, people!
Meet the diversity!
Let’s see, ten white women who could pass for one’s leftie aunt, a Brahmin, and an old-money “Black Royalty” case, by the appearance of it.
I can just feel the oppression.
Welcome to London.
Welcome to London.
Of course people need to be told these things because how else would they possibly know? AIUI, I think you may need additional signs to discourage stabbings and cutting people’s heads off. Just a suggestion.
I can just feel the oppression.
Sorry, forgot the link.
The one who appears from the tiny photo may be of the sub-Continent is apparently African-American (or African/Caribbean/American), the top row second from left one with the glasses has the Hispanic name. They didn’t go in order with the names because that would have been cis-hetero patriarchial and oppressive ordering style of dead yte males that might have led one to infer that one had higher rank or status than another or something, I imagine. Putting them in alphabetical order would have been right out.
Regardless, 12 wxmyn mainly wypipo political “scientists”, I’d bet the ranch the diversity of thought is nigh palpable.
Sorry, forgot the link.
You’ll notice I was much too polite to draw attention to your appalling, shame-inducing error.
Meet the diversity!
It reminded me of the Guardian’s 10 trainee journalists who were allegedly “an eclectic mix of voices,” yet sounded eerily similar, both in terms of their backgrounds and their vanities, and all of whom managed to be exactly what you’d expect, only slightly more so.
“No borders, no nations, no gas power stations.”
The Los Angeles City Council voted to extend its ban on people living in their vehicles in certain parts of the city (the ban had been city-wide for decades until a federal court struck that down in 2014) … of course, there were agitators there to shout “shame on you!”.
There was one angry female that summed up their side of the argument by shouting “If you want us off the streets, make housing free!”
If you want us off the streets, make housing free!
Of course no responsible person would say in reply, “If you want to get off the streets, get a job!” Because saying something like that, suggesting that perhaps people need to be responsible for themselves, to take care of themselves, would be irresponsible.
It reminded me of the Guardian’s 10 trainee journalists…and their vanities…
Why?
Because.
They didn’t order the names or photos alphabetically because they are all interchangeably, equally woke. Photographic diversity is supreme.
Theodore Dalrymple, here.
“No borders, no nations …”
I hope there weren’t any Scottish Greenists there. They advocate an international border at Gretna and are propping up the minority nationalist administration in Edinburgh, and I’m sure they wouldn’t take kindly to accusations of rank hypocrisy.
“a feeling that the systems we have in place don’t allow my views, or the views of a lot of young(ish) people, to be properly listened to.”
Thirty years ago, this argument might have carried some weight. (And let’s be honest: it’s exactly the same complaint youthful “activists” have been making since time immemorial.) But in the age of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram? It’s becoming difficult to avoid earnest spotty herberts pontificating on things they’ve no experience of and don’t understand. Christ, we’ve just had the heads of major governments genuflecting at the feet of a mentally-disturbed 16-year-old as if she were some kind of Old Testament prophet.
The problem these days is too much listening to dumb kids, not too little. Now get off my lawn.
I’m not making the borders and nations connection except that it rhymes.
They want a single, global government: socialist, totalitarian, and ever-increasing in power.
…genuflecting at the feet of a mentally-disturbed 16-year-old as if she were some kind of Old Testament prophet.
Not unlike our own US&A leftists and the Harvard bound scholar who couldn’t get into Florida state schools, and speaking of open borders, I don’t think he is quite making the point intended…
Hmmm…
…and stay off.
How did David Hogg get into Harvard – the boy is thick as mince.
came here… stole…killed
We shouldn’t be so quick to condemn stealing and killing as illegal, let me tell you.
…wait.
Even setting aside the lie that borders were open then and open now, pace Hank Hill “The boy ain’t right”.
…the boy is thick as mince.
Yes, as sharp as a velvet bag of styrofoam peanuts, but his politics are both correct and reliable, and that is more important than being able to read, write, or reason like some average Harvard dweeb with a 1520 SAT and straight As.
How did David Hogg get into Harvard
Virtue-signally and celebrity-bragging.
You don’t think the Malia Obama got there on her SATS & grades? Or Chelsea Clinton at Stanford?
Good lord ! According to the Guardian you hosers up there in Qumbec and Montraal have evidently lost all control of fracking or global climate hysteria and completely flooded North and South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming !
The Great Lakes are now only the Meh Lakes.
It is in The Guardian, it must be true.
Qumbec and Montraal
Spelling is hard. Also cartography.
Computer proofreading strikes again…
“Montraal”
Watch out for the Ravenous Monbugblatter Beast.
Old and busted: God’s wrath.
According to the Guardian
https://twitter.com/thedailymash/status/432847525414858753?lang=en
If Chelsea inherited half her dad’s brains she’d have cruised in. He was a Rhodes Scholar.
And Obama went to Harvard and was President of the Law Review. I don’t like him either, but it’s undeniable he has some smarts.
Do they imagine that some borderless, undifferentiated and continually shifting mass of human beings with no common identity or common bond could function at all for any length of time, let alone in ways that they, and we, might find congenial?
They joined a cult and put bike locks round their necks.
They joined a cult and put bike locks round their necks.
Well, yes. There is that.
Still, you have to wonder what it is they imagine holds a society together – culturally, socially, economically. If you disdain even the idea of a shared national identity, and dissolve geographical boundaries, such that anyone from anywhere can enter at will – in any numbers, indefinitely – and then immediately exploit the local infrastructure and support systems, how long will those systems survive? Why would anyone contribute to a supposedly mutual arrangement if there’s no mutuality or reciprocity, no common values, just exploitation by an avalanche of strangers from halfway across the planet? What happens to trust, even basic civility?
They talk about “fuel poverty,” but strive to make energy scarcer and more expensive; they blather about “social justice” and caring for the “vulnerable,” and about opposing the “unsustainable,” but in almost every conceivably way, their ambitions are a blueprint for dystopia, conflict and rapid collapse.
It’s so inverted and perverse, it’s almost funny.
He was a Rhodes Scholar.
A mystery in of itself lacking, as he did, the usual qualifications of the typical US Rhodes Scholar, not that he actually finished his degree at Oxford.
I don’t like him either, but it’s undeniable he has some smarts.
Except Harvard did away with selecting Law Review Editors based on grades shortly before his stint there and for which review he wrote nothing, so any evidence of his “smarts” is apparently as sealed as his grades somewhere in the 57 states.
However, back to the climate, I haven’t been following events in the recent European slightly warm wave you have been having but good news everyone, according to the Guardian of 2004 relief is just around the corner !
Just get your dog sleds and mukluks out. Speaking of frozen people, I was wondering if the Qumbecians are going to be sore about being reduced from a province to a city.
you have to wonder what it is they imagine holds a society together – culturally, socially, economically. If you disdain even the idea of a shared national identity, and dissolve geographical boundaries, such that anyone from anywhere can enter at will – in any numbers, indefinitely – and then immediately exploit the local infrastructure and support systems, how long will those systems survive?
I don’t know about the rest of your people but when I want answers to questions like that I consult a lifelong thinker and philosopher – with a notable perspective on history, culture, and humanity – like Conan O’Brien. Comedians are special and because of it, importantly opine on how laughably irrational ordinary people like you are. Just saying.
Obama went to Harvard and was President of the Law Review. I don’t like him either, but it’s undeniable he has some smarts.
Smart enough to gaslight so many simple dupes, too.
the usual qualifications of the typical US Rhodes Scholar
I had no idea. I had always assumed that Kris Kristofferson was just another talented musician. Thank you for linking to that. It’s always good to see another side to a person.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7309805/Backlash-barefoot-Prince-Harry-hypocrite-celebrities.html
Surely the Mail lifted this from some satirical magazine?
Every detail is perfect.
A barefoot prince
Homage to Nelson Mandela.
Bono
Barack Obama expected, but not yet seen.
Private jets.
I suppose they couldn’t have made do with a 3 star hotel in Glasgow in January.
Surely the Mail lifted this from some satirical magazine?
But if you think of it in terms of ostentatiously signalling caste status, of would-be overlords mouthing pieties from which they themselves clearly expect to be exempt, then it makes a kind of sense.
Do they imagine that some borderless, undifferentiated and continually shifting mass of human beings with no common identity or common bond could function at all for any length of time, let alone in ways that they, or we, might find congenial?
The John Lennon song. It has replaced the Bible as the goto Book of Common Wisdom for western civilization. Imagine the damage that song could have done if they had bothered to engineer it properly.
Still, you have to wonder what it is they imagine holds a society together – culturally, socially, economically. If you disdain even the idea of a shared national identity, and dissolve geographical boundaries, such that anyone from anywhere can enter at will – in any numbers, indefinitely – and then immediately exploit the local infrastructure and support systems, how long will those systems survive?
They don’t imagine (except per the JL song I reference above), because…
They joined a cult
A cargo cult. Stuff just is. It magically shows up. My belief is that once a society becomes wealthy enough to form a critical mass of people who simply have had things given to them, either by richy-rich mommy and daddy or Uncle Sugar, unless the reins of that society are pulled severely, it is doomed. And no society in the history of man has acquired the degree of wealth, a wealth growth that has accelerated over such a short period of time, as this one has. It’s the meme of Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times. In human historical terms we are well into some dangerously uncharted waters.
no society in the history of man has acquired the degree of wealth, a wealth growth that has accelerated over such a short period of time, as this one has.
The associated myth being that it earned it. It didn’t. It printed and leveraged it and today it faces a negative sum that’s as unpayable as it is incalculable. And, ironically, as denied as it is ignored. So it kicks the can.
In many terms we are well into some dangerously uncharted waters.
The associated myth being that it earned it. It didn’t.
I get your point in general but as specifically stated here, strongly disagree. I’m talking about wealth here, not money nor prestige. The wealth most definitely was earned by the aggregate civilization, otherwise it would not exist to be stolen. The wealth is right here in our discussion. It is in the tremendous advances made in medicine, technology, science, agriculture, and even dare I say in airy-fairy intangibles such social cohesion, as much as that is beginning to slide, and even in things that show up on corporate balance sheets as “good will”, as much as I may have trepidation about the usage of that language. It printed and leveraged , most definitely. But it does exist. The print/leverage only concerns who can claim ownership of it. Though again somewhat to your point, the relative value attached to some of it is iffy. But that itself is quite marginal relative to the entirety and depends on unknown future demands relative to current (by all practical meanings static) supply.
In many terms we are well into some dangerously uncharted waters.
At this point I’m assuming we’ll see Cormac MacCarthy’s The Road levels of societal collapse in my lifetime.
Obama went to Harvard and was President of the Law Review.
Who during his tenure of the Law Review, was rarely seen and produced no writing of his own.
But geez, how nice for everyone else to carry him so he the Law Review could claim “See? We aren’t racist!”
I get your point in general but as specifically stated here, strongly disagree. I’m talking about wealth here, not money nor prestige.
Etc.
We can couch it as we wish but ultimately we face the inevitable implosion of the real machinery of our national existence. How our notions of our civil superiority comport with our survival skills then is therefore all that matters in our rhetoric today.
The rest is typical American civil religiosity and terribly short sighted at that. No? We’re so dim-witted and up our own rears about who we think we are that we make 50 year old moon landings, national football anthems, and militarism the ne plus ultra of proper civil identity and discourse. Meanwhile, as this blog well catalogs, we’re fighting an eternal culture and political war badly and that’s before we face the real music, which has been my point.
Either we’re into uncharted waters or we are not. How you elect to parse that matters when the Big One just happens to be the one virtually everybody denies. The print/leverage absolutely does not ‘only concern who can claim ownership of it’. It owns us.
‘If it didn’t exist it couldn’t be stolen’ is sophistry. Wall St “owns” a quarter quadrillion in derivatives.
Spelling is hard. Also cartography.
Hence the origin of the mocking name “the Grauniad”.
In today’s exciting episode of “Everything is Racist”, stay tuned for, “Robots !”
I am going to go out on a limb and guess our plucky researchers have never heard of sex robots that come in all flavors, but I digress…
The jokes, they write themselves. The whole paper is at the link if you want to see how this groundbreaking study was conducted. I am not responsible for any concussions suffered from banging your heads on tables.
Will that robot shout “Allahu Akbar!” and then explode?
Gauchos versus Vegans.
Pst314,
I wondered about The Grauniad. Thanks!
Gauchos versus Vegans.
Sure, just wait until some homicidal maniac comes at you with a bunch of loganberries.
Sorry for the sound quality on that link this one is a lot better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JgbOkLdRaE
Gauchos versus Vegans.
I believe the expression is one-nil.
Grouchos versus Vegans would be even more interesting.
Grouchos versus Vegans would be even more interesting.
Godzilla versus the Vegans.
What? Oh, come on. You’d watch.
Hell, I’d pay.
Godzilla versus the Vegans.
More like, Abbot & Costello versus the Vegans or The Three Stooges versus the Vegans.
“Qumbecians are going to be sore about being reduced from a province to a city”
Quebec City is actually already a city, though. It’s where that Wolfe and Montcalm thing happened.
Quebec City is actually already a city…
I think, giving the accuracy of the rest of the thing, you may be giving the map makers way too much credit for knowing the distinction. Maybe it is a tourist bureau thing – “Canada is so nice y’all will Qumbec soon, eh !”
Quebec City is actually already a city
The people who live there just call it Quebec.
Godzilla versus the Vegans.
Bambi Meets Godzilla
The people who live there just call it Quebec.
That must cheese off the people in Montraal and all the other cities in Qumbec the province. I blame the French. Good thing it is not Qumbec City, New Brunswick like Kansas City, Missouri, that would be a real mess.
How did David Hogg get into Harvard – the boy is thick as mince
Because he hates the correct people.
They want a single, global government: socialist, totalitarian, and ever-increasing in power.
Don’t forget the most important part:
With themselves in charge.
And Obama went to Harvard and was President of the Law Review. I don’t like him either, but it’s undeniable he has some smarts.
Without access to his transcripts I’ll stick by my assumption that it’s his melanin that got into Harvard and the Law Review. Barack was just along for the ride.
Leaving aside other considerations as soon as Africans or Arabs create a robot they can make it whatever color they damn well please. Until then, ‘Sod off, Swampy’.
It looks like the usual incoherent patchwork of leftist posturing. For instance, I’m not quite sure how any of their supposed ecological objectives could be met without nations, with borders, to implement them.
I’ve often noticed the Compulsively Woke are horrified at nations but absolutely adore their little cities; they’re still patriotic, only incredibly more parochial in their patriotism. Presumably their model for the ideal society is as a series of city states. Indeed, there could be something in that – national politics, being performed on a larger scale, and not on the humble and personal level of local governance, tends to have much more associated corruption.
But then, go back a few centuries to when city states were common, one notices – they were *always* at war with one another.
It’s a very bad idea to assume people you don’t like are stupid. A lot of Democrats don’t seem to realise that with Trump. But it’s no more edifying in reverse.
Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude. Even with a melanin edge, that isn’t something to be sniffed at. It’s kind of funny people who couldn’t produce an academic record half as good as his insisting he’s clearly not clever. It comes across as jealousy to me. “I don’t like him, he must be stupid”.
Of course he didn’t do much at the Law Review. The man’s a politician, and always has been one. Hes absolutely brilliant at politics too. I regard him doing it for personal benefit largely, but there’d be few that isn’t true of.
He didn’t produce his scripts for the same reason Trump didn’t produce his tax records. He doesn’t want opponents sniping at it for years.
“He didn’t produce his scripts for the same reason Trump didn’t produce his tax records. He doesn’t want opponents sniping at it for years.”
All correct, Chester, and it is interesting to compare him with Boris Johnson, with a similar high level of education at an esteemed institution. Johnson’s journalism, however, is copious and has been effectively trolling lefties for years.
It’s also only fair to note that Obama left some big opportunities for his critics in his two published books, especially his record of drug taking. “I inhaled – that was the point.”
And yet I don’t believe they were either of them always so calculating about their political ambitions.
the Compulsively Woke are horrified at nations but absolutely adore their little cities
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/opinion/peter-thiel-google.html
It’s kind of funny people who couldn’t produce an academic record half as good as his insisting he’s clearly not clever.
Except no one actually knows what that academic record really is because he had all of it sealed.
He didn’t produce his scripts for the same reason Trump didn’t produce his tax records. He doesn’t want opponents sniping at it for years.
Yeah, except anyone actually graduating magna cum laude would have nothing to be sniped at (“Oh look, straight ‘As’, what a dweeb”), and his legion of sycophants would have had them carved onto Mt. Rushmore, and recited every 4th of July by the Marine Band Chorus.
Don’t forget the most important part:
With themselves in charge.
And we must also not forget that the reason Democrat cities are such failures, are such cesspits of poverty and crime, bad schools and filth, is that this benefits the left: the key to their winning elections is in having a populace which is uneducated and unemployable and which therefore can be counted on to vote for those who promise lots of free stuff.
It’s kind of funny people who couldn’t produce an academic record half as good as his insisting he’s clearly not clever.
Clever or intelligent? He’s not intelligent enough to avoid Marx. Or the attendant dysfunction. Or the most prolific spate of institutional corruption in American history. So, clever or intelligent?
And to what aim, which is kinda the salient upshot.
It comes across as jealousy to me. “I don’t like him, he must be stupid”.
Too bad because it’s actually that normals don’t like Marxists. Because they’re unavoidably stupid although, to your point, they’re frequently clever.
And we must also not forget that the reason Democrat cities are such failures, are such cesspits of poverty and crime, bad schools and filth, is that this benefits the left: the key to their winning elections is in having a populace which is uneducated and unemployable and which therefore can be counted on to vote for those who promise lots of free stuff.
Rush Limbaugh used to (and may does still, I don’t know, I quit listening to talk radio ages ago, about the time I quit watching cable news) say that Democrats aren’t interested in solving any problems because they’d rather have the issues to campaign on.
Thus, they want, they need, racism to continue to exist (despite the demand far outstripping the supply), as opposed to ending it, so their candidates can continue to run on, “Elect me! Because racism!”
Obama or Vogon, you decide…
Hey, hey, hey…I’m sure you are aware that when it comes to Vogon poetry, and especially as September soon is rapidly approaching…like soon…no one can top the eminent Algore:
I would argue Obama is clever. But not wise.
When I read the article, my first thought was picturing the thermonuclear levels of sturm und drang that would have occurred had the robots (the non-human chattel servants) been predominantly black.