G20 Thursday -- Slow And Quiet, For Now

I took a walk across town to the United Steelworkers building, which turned out to be pretty much deserted. I walked down the main streets where the businesses were largely closed, the sidewalks were ... deserted. Except for lots of cops. The office buildings are closed, some have concrete barriers around them. The big PPG building -- the one with spires on top -- has fencing with barbed wire all around it.

Even the big Starbucks was closed.

There are a few places open, a pizza shop, with the chef standing outside looking at all the bored cops.

Bored cops, that's a story. They all have brand new equipment. The riot helmets are obviously just out of the box, not a scuffmark on any of them. New, ironed uniforms. I passed a group of 30 or so in full riot gear, being drilled by a sergeant. I guess this gives everyone an opportunity to try out all the new stuff, new equipment, uniforms, helmets, etc.

So far there are no large demonstrations, with a few exceptions. Earlier there was a group of maybe 30 or so from Burma marching, followed by a slightly smaller group from Ethiopia. On my walk I passed one large group of maybe 100 Tibetans, with Tibet flags, marching to the end of the street outside the fence - as close as they are allowed to get to the convention center itself, and this is not close at all. Even then they are being kept a block back from the fence. (If I was a right wing blogger I would have said 100,000 Tibetans. That's a "Tea party" joke for bloggers.)

As for financial issues I passed literally "one guy with a sign," which said, "Stop the global bank thieves of America." Oh, also a group of four or five guys with "Weed" signs, for legalizing marijuana. They were pretty loud, though.

Another thing I noticed is all the buses. Because the city is closed to traffic they have brought in buses for people. But there aren't any people hardly. I think I saw three or four people getting on buses, in a ling of maybe eight buses...

Things pick up later. According to the schedule, at 6pm:

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama greet arriving Heads of Delegation at Phipps Conservatory.

Secretary Geithner greets arriving Finance Ministers at Phipps Conservatory.

I expect things to change after that.

Update - CNN is reporting that a bunch of anarchists were tear gassed. I don't know where, but not around here. They're saying this is just the first wave of the expected protests over the next 24 to 48 hours.

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