Do not do anything that will make my commute home from work much longer. If you do, I will curse you like I cursed the Pittsburgh Pirates when the traffic going to their games was making my commute too long last year. You have been warned.
The Pirates were already cursed. And as for the protesters, give them a break - the world is a depressing place when you are twenty and in college. 
So, are there any protesters yet?
However many or few of them there are, I bet their issues will be more coherent than those of the Stupidheads Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything* that protested in D.C. on 9/12.
My friend in PGH took tomorrow and Friday off for just that reason.
She works in Oakland.
Good luck, Anne!
So how about them Greenpeacers? I got out of work early and was still late getting home. Although I must admit it was as much from micromanagement of the entire West End as much as any protesters.
Why can’t they go and get drunk to deal with that, like other college students do?
None where I am (Oakland and Squirrel Hill) yet, though there were some elsewhere in the city today.
I heard they spread the flu these days 
I didn’t see them, but I did hear about them. At least the buses that Mr. Neville and I take to and from work seem to still be running.
Environmental activists in particular should not try to disrupt mass transit. I really hope they see the inherent contradiction in doing so and don’t mess with the buses.
Little different from the Whiskey Rebellion, huh? They don’t make protest movements the way they did in the old days. 
I don’t know if it was part of their planning or not, but for the record (and those out of town) the West End Bridge does see the least mass transit traffic of any of the “Golden Triangle” bridges. And it doesn’t hurt that its a great camera shot from half of downtown Pittsburgh either. The firm my wife works for is too near Ground Zero so they opted to just close for 2.5 days. My work will still “work” but I brought some paperwork home that needs done. Worse comes to worse, I can always go from the north to south via Beaver and some back roads but I really am hoping to just stay away from it all. Onorato and The Kid are both, IMHO, overreacting with the security measures. But as the only way to be proven right is to have them relax and people to die from it I can live with being wrong.
The Gamestop near my work has its entrance totally boarded up today.
Uh, no. These were the original unfocused stupidheads, same ones that would protest the IMF and World Bank with a laundry list of demands and causes. If you want to FREE MUMIA, come along - your sign will look great next to the one demanding NO BLOOD FOR OIL.
I’m not dismissing the individual arguments, just like I don’t with the protests I agree with. I just note, as you do, the danger that people won’t pay attention because the issues get lost in the noise.
There is supposedly a protester dressed as a bleeding baby seal, that actually looks more like a bleeding mushroom (no picture in this link, unfortunately). As Dave Barry used to say, I am NOT making this up.
Also according to the Post-Gazette, there’s a group called Student Contingent for Unpermitted March. I’m not making them up, either.
There are protests near the Strip District, including protesters overturning some Dumpsters to form a barricade and throwing rocks at police, and the police using tear gas. This isn’t good. I hope it doesn’t get any worse.
Huh. The Pittsburgh Police haven’t seen this much action since the Grateful Dead were on tour.
I hope they crack fewer heads this time around.
That group? Why … they’re just SCUM! 
At least I’m at home now, and don’t have to worry about going anywhere for the rest of the evening. They’d probably come and picket our house if they knew what goes on here, though.
We’re planning to do some animal testing. We’re making sushi for dinner, and when we have fish, we always test it on animals. The kitties insist that we test fish on them before we eat it, especially when it’s sushi-grade ahi. Siamese mixes like Luna are very good at insisting on things.
They cracked enough for me after the Run/DMC concert. But all those cops are probably retired by now.
So far most of the protesting has been pretty dull. One turned a little violent but not nearly on the level of G20s past. The one shot I saw was pretty cool – cops facing angry mob and behind the cops were two Penguin fans with an imitation Stanley Cup.
There has been some broken windows; mostly at banks. And someone tried to extort a free meal from a fast food joint. But all in all it wasn’t a bad day one. I had to cross the West End three different times and except for one rolling roadblock for a motorcade I didn’t see much except polica and National Guard. Actually it was a great day to drive around Pittsburgh - traffic was on a par with early Sunday mornings.
They broke a bunch of windows in Oakland last night, near where I work. Bastards.
How about it, RT. Care to comment on their issues or their methods?
On what basis?
If these are the same sort of stupidheads that turn out at the usual Mayday protests in London, there’ll be a core group of supposedly anti-capitalist types who are really just there to break things*, with a much larger contingent of well-meaning but naive college types who have turned up for the “event” as much as for any political purpose, and a wide variety of smaller groups there to “promote” their own particular, largely irrelevant left-wing issues. The percentage of people attending with relevant grievances and constructive intent will likely be non-zero but very, very, very small.
*One year they took over Oxford Street, the main central London shopping street, and damaged John Lewis - the one employee-owned, least capitalist shop on the whole damn road. Feckin’ eejits.
I drove in to work today and parked at a nearby parking garage, instead of taking the bus like I normally do, because I was worried that the buses might not be running as normal today. I hope the protesters (especially the environmentalists) are proud of themselves, getting someone who normally commutes by bus (and hates driving) to drive.