Occupy The Onion

Canada’s CBC News morphed into The Onion so slowly, I hardly even noticed. “Sole Occupy Whitehorse camper to leave due to winter,” this headline solemnly reads — and it would take a heart of stone not laugh at his predicament:

The sole member of Occupy Whitehorse camped out outside the Yukon Legislature says he will be leaving by the end of the week because winter is setting in.

Since Oct. 19, Mark Bowers has lived in his camper at the tent city that cropped up in June to protest the Yukon’s housing crisis.

Bowers said the Occupy Whitehorse group held a general assembly this weekend, where it was decided he should leave.

“It’s the winter time in the Yukon and we have to face facts,” he said. “It’s expensive. Is it possible to sleep there all winter? Sure it is, but propane is expensive.

“There’s safety issues that come into play and the one thing we don’t want to do is essentially put anyone’s health or life in danger.”

While the cold may be increasing the level of paranoia at #Occupywhitehorse, Bowers has a plan:

Bowers said he believes he was under surveillance from government officials but was never formally asked to leave.

Occupy Whitehorse will now be a “virtual occupation” with the campaign switching to Facebook and Twitter, he said. But just because he’s leaving doesn’t mean he won’t be back.

So Bowers wants increased — even in Canada! — government regulations and government surveillance of business activities, but he fears that he was “under surveillance from government officials?” Why would he consider that to a bad thing?

And regarding the “virtual occupation,” at the Corner, Mark Steyn quips, “So henceforth Napoleon will be Tweeting his triumphant ‘virtual occupation’ of Russia.”

Meanwhile back in States, while the OWS-supporting President Obama complains that his detractors “talk about me like a dog!” Occupy Denver takes the notion much more literally. “Occupy Denver has elected a three-year-old border collie named Shelby as its official leader,” the International Business Times reports, in another Onion-esque story:

She was voted into the position by Occupy Denver’s General Assembly on Tuesday night. The election was a reaction to Denver Mayor Michael Hancock’s “insistence that Occupy Denver choose leadership to deal with City and State officials,” according to the group’s Web site.

But all of the Occupy protests around the country, and now, around the world, are leaderless movements. So Occupy Denver stuck to its principles, in a way.

“Shelby exhibits heart, warmth, and an appreciation for the group over personal ambition that Occupy Denver members feel are sorely lacking in the leaders some of them have voted for on national, state, and local levels,” the group said in a press release.

Clearly, the gang at Occupy Denver needs to head further west, and reestablish communications with their California counterparts at Occupy Sunol. Shelby and Mayor Bosco should be able to sniff out an agreement pretty quickly, I think.

Update: Local TV journalist asks Northern California Occupiers, “Who pooped on the bank?”

Meanwhile, Mollie Hemingway of Ricochet visits Occupy DC and reports back, “I’m not saying the encampment smelled of death, exactly, but it really did smell bad.”

Goodnight America, drive safe — it’s been fun!