One of the great things about the internet is that give it a chance and sooner or later someone will provide you with the information you were missing. which means I have to revisit my whole pondering of this 99% thing, as a rather informative article with charts has identified just which 99% they’re claiming to speak for (which I’m still not convinced by) and why which is a whole lot more convincing.

Here’s What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About…

“The “Occupy Wall Street” protests are gaining momentum, having spread from a small park in New York to marches to other cities across the country.

So far, the protests seem fueled by a collective sense that things in our economy are not fair or right. But the protesters have not done a good job of focusing their complaints—and thus have been skewered as malcontents who don’t know what they stand for or want.
(An early list of “grievances” included some legitimate beefs, but was otherwise just a vague attack on “corporations.” Given that these are the same corporations that employ more than 100 million Americans and make the products we all use every day, this broadside did not resonate with most Americans).

So, what are the protesters so upset about, really?

Do they have legitimate gripes?

To answer the latter question first, yes, they have very legitimate gripes.”

You really need to go read the whole thing and look at the charts to get the picture.

 

If you’re reading this you’ve probably already read about the plight of Nick Hogan, if not go and read about it over at Old Holborns and whilst you’re there make use of the donate button to chip in an help get him out of prison. I thought debtor’s prisons had been done away with but apparently not, and by all accounts this particular prison has a particularly bad reputation.

Even if you agree with the smoking bad, the issue here is as Charles Crawford says far more about “the definition of a privately owned pub as a ‘public place’ under the relevant legislation. Just because the public have ‘access’ to a pub does not mean that it should be treated as a public place.“.

The other interesting point as observed by Old Holborn is that none of the smokers were breaking the law it was perfectly legal for them to smoke in the pub, it was just illegal for the owner to let them smoke (even though he wasn’t there). Which does make me wonder who’d get prosecuted if one. were to smoke in a government or crown building, as again as OH observes most of the staff there will have no power to compel you to stop, and you’re not breaking any law.

Finally in case you’ve not already done so go and chip in a few quid to help get Mr hogan out of prison so he can get back to trying to keep his remaining pub open, and you don’t even have to leave your chair.

Correction The law does make it an offence to smoke in a smoke free place, but that still doesn’t give them much power to enforce it. However a slightly more worrying bit with concern to the point Mr Crawford makes is this:


Additional smoke-free places

(1) The appropriate national authority may make regulations designating as smoke-free any place or description of place that is not smoke-free under section 2.

(2) The place, or places falling within the description, need not be enclosed or substantially enclosed.

(3) The appropriate national authority may designate a place or description of place under this section only if in the authority’s opinion there is a significant risk that, without a designation, persons present there would be exposed to significant quantities of smoke.

 

I really must apologise, my previous article UKIP losing the plot I’d rather presumed that UKIP wanted a blanket ban on the burqa. However as Dick Puddlecote points out over at Old Holborns this isn’t actually the case. They just want to ban it in public buildings and allow for it to be banned in private buildings as well and they actually want to ban “anything which conceals a woman’s face“. Which is marginally more reasonable, except why just women’s faces? Surely experience tells us that men with covered faces are far more likely to be a problem? And what does it matter if you’ve got your face covered in a library say? Or if they word it really well in a council run community centre attending a group for Islamic women? Also surgical masks? I’m very sure that you can’t over estimate how badly a law can be worded, and how stupidly it will subsequently be enforced.

So given that they single out both women and Islamic garb, I’m going to stick by my previous conclusions even though I did misread the report and think they were after a blanket ban on just one type of garment.

If they proposed that it all face coverings could be requested to be removed when security concerns or the establishment of identity required it, that’d be far more reasonable – but one would hope that was the law already? And as for private buildings given that hoodies, crash helmets and even hats are banned from all sorts of places wouldn’t it just make more sense to allow private venues to ban whatever clothing they like? what with them being private property and all?

So my final question stands failing a LPUK candidate, as UKIP seem to be trying to join the rest of the authoritarian part who’s left to vote for?

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