I left my protesters in San Francisco
 

Been a fun day following the torch stuff here in SF. Turns out the pro-China supporters were far greater than expected. Pretty anti-climatic, but funny. Reminds me of a fight I saw with a churro seller during an Iraq protest...

Here are some highlights from sfgate.com:
At least one torchbearer decided to show her support for Tibetan independence during her moment in the spotlight. After being passed the Olympic flame, Majora Carter pulled out a small Tibetan flag that she had hidden in her shirt sleeve.

"The Chinese security and cops were on me like white on rice, it was no joke," said Carter, 41, who runs a nonprofit organization in New York. "They pulled me out of the race, and then San Francisco police officers pushed me back into the crowd on the side of the street."

For another perspective here's an account from China:
hxxp://torchrelay.beijing2008.cn/en/journey/sanfrancisco/news/n214299144.shtml

LOL... Yeah, a little different from the perspective we are seeing over here.

Which was probably why SF always had been the only US city on the tour.

Oakland > SF

Rarely have I ever been rendered speechless...this is so...so...arggghhhh

Everything > SF

SF is seriously overrated.

over over the usage of ">"

No kidding

http://www.sfgate.com/maps/sfhomicides/
http://www.sfgate.com/maps/oaklandhomicides/

yeah, you win...

Yowzers, I had no idea that gunshot deaths made up such a high percentage of total homicides... Maybe the States has a problem with gun control laws or something?

We cribbed them from Australia's machete control laws.

Well, to be honest, I'd rather kids bringing machettes in to school than hand guns.

It's all the rainbow thugs from SF coming over here and shooting us up.

SF definitely handled it a lot better than London or Paris. The bait-and-switch at the start (moving the torch quickly to another "starting" point) meant very few protestors of either stripe on the torch route. Not publicising the details of the route in advance, and then apparently changing it anyway probably also helped a lot.

The end result is that they got the torch through the city without the negative scenes from London and Paris. A big win in the current climate, I'd say.

In all seriousness, I wonder at what point all the protests start to actually work against Tibet in the court of (U.S.) public opinion.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who is rapidly getting to the just-STFU-already point. If the residents of Tibet want to raise hell, more power to them, I've got no problem with that, I wish them the best.

But I've got less than zero interest in hearing from professional activists, leftover hippies looking for a cause, and people with too much free time on their hands.

One side benefit of the protests is that I learned the torch run was a Reifenstahl/Hitler idea in 1936.