missing ashtrays are a bad sign

The ashtrays in front of the building I’m in on Wed/Thurs in downtown DC are no where to be seen today.

This is troubling - they only remove them in expectation of ‘something going down’.

Anyone have any word on any planned protests this morning in DC of an abnormal magnitude? Searching around is a trap because there are protests somewhere in DC nearly every day.

Yesterday I saw roughly 60 people picketting some building on Vermont Ave… all had posterboards on sticks saying something about healthcare and some were playing the bongo’s, because that’s what healthcare is all about.

The AP (on a few of the floors in the aforementioned downtown DC office building) has had foreign reporters in front of the building delivering ENG (Electronic News Gathering) head-shot reports with nice K St. backdrops every day for the past few months. Today a reporter I did not recognize appeared to be stopping willing passer-by’s to get man-on-the-street questions answered. You wouldn’t (ok you probably would) believe the nut-jobs stopping and trying to get in line to voice their opinion, people purposely standing in-frame behind the reporter, people walking by throwing / peace signs (ok it’s really brittish semaphor for ND, Nuclear Disarmament - hush up Stephen King fans) or just being silly.

What a show.