Amid the Occupy Wall Street crowd of a thousand causes, today, came one non-cause we can totally get behind: Losing Kobe Bryant to Italy.

Just in case the Occupy L.A. protesters were forgetting the finish line, what with all this love City Hall has been showering upon them, LA Taco contributor J. Larson sent this photo back home to remind us what America's selfish, dysfunctional upper crust has done to our Home of the Brave. Outsource our jobs, fine — but Kobe? Really?

Italy, unlike the deadlocked NBA, knows how to treat a baller. This deal is sweeter than 20,000 Chinese assembly-liners at $2 per hour, via the Los Angeles Times:

  • Lakers guard Kobe Bryant is getting closer to reaching a 10-game, $3.2-million contract with Italian pro team Virtus Bologna…
  • Serie A would be Bryant's new league. Any contract he signs with the Italian club would allow him to return to the NBA if the lockout ends.
  • Unlike the NBA schedule, the Italian league schedule currently features only one or two games a week, which would benefit Bryant.

Of course, OWS dude's posterboard statement — if you can even call it a statement — is less about poor Kobe, who's totally a 1-percenter himself, and more about failing so hard as a country that not even our most popular 1-percenter wants to stick around.

Much less the other 99.

Update: Only picket sign more simultaneously hilarious and nonsensical goes to: “OCCUPY FACEBOOK.”

[@simone_electra/swilson@laweekly.com]

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