Monday in DC

More protesters this morning...despite the dire predictions of blizzard (more on that later).

Today, though, the PFPS (cops) were deployed in an arc protecting protesters from people walking by. I was kind of disappointed. About 8 protesters (high for a normal Monday, but down a good bit from last week) were holding the usual assortment of signs. There may have been an incident last week or a threat this week, but for whatever reason, the cops were closer to the protesters (and the lone antitester--not sure if it was Kathreja or Christine) than usual. Oh well, anything different or unusual is interesting. However, the lone antitester with the sign Thank you for defending Freedom had a cup of hot coffee, so someone from the building had obviously broken through the line of defense and provided her with needed warmth and sustenance on this blustery day.

Which brings me to the subject of weather. Washington DC is interesting. The mere threat of snow shuts down schools, county offices and the federal government. If the Soviets had been able to create a weather machine, they could have won the "Cold War" by merely threatening blizzards. The irony of it is that there doesn't actually have to be snow. Just the threat. This morning was a nippy 35 degrees, with about 10 knots of wind from the west...and not a snowflake in sight. There was, however, a forecast for possibly 3-6 inches of snow by tonight!!!! All the schools were closed, the government was on 'Unplanned leave' status. Slugging from Tackets Mill, I found a long line of cars. This is an exceedingly rare event on a Monday morning. Usually there is a long line of people. Cars mean that folks think there will be an early release...

The excuse is safety. However, on a normal day bumper to bumper traffic moves at a speed varying from 5 mph to 85 mph. Safe? When it snows, traffic thins out, slows down and yes, there is more of a chance of a fender bender, but probably a lot less chance of a major smashup. Of course, as rare as snow is here, not a lot of people know how to drive in it well, and most are shockingly unwilling to detach their phone from their ear, no matter how iffy the road conditions.

An example: a couple of years ago there was an AF member killed on the beltway in her boyfriend's SUV. Not much unusual about that, but it was threatening to snow a bit and she was talking to her boyfriend on the cell phone, trying to get some tips for driving in the snow while arranging a hookup (he was travelling the other way on the beltway, and they were trying to arrange a lunch meeting or something). When she hit the pylon doing 70, her boyfriend heard the whole thing, and then ran into the traffic jam inevitably caused by a fatal crash. Tragic, yes, but if common sense was more so, it could have been avoided.

And that is my rant for the day.