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Emporium

I was on the way to the downtown mall, to grab some food and check out the St Patrick's day parade. Noticed the Anonymous guys (and girl), about a dozen all up, going hard on the corner of Britomart and Customs. They got a fair few honks but, to be honest, I don't think they figured on fitting in with the festival atmosphere as much as they did - or, to put it another way, the parade was bigger, louder and just plain more interesting than the protest.

A few of the protesters were dressed very snazzily, which is great. A lone police officer was directing traffic for the parade and doing his best not to notice them.

Apparently, the plan was to move the protest on to Panmure (as explained in their planning discussion), where the local church is. But the group of people I saw moving away from the protest hopped a bus to somewhere else. No, I won't say where. They're paranoid enough as it is. I will say it was hilarious watching them purchasing their fares though.

Actually, speaking of paranoia, I thought the suggestion was to take indirect routes home, and to keep the masks on. The group of four or five I saw didn't; they ripped the masks off after dumping their signs in the nearest public rubbish bin, blocking it from being used (not cool).

And since I just realized I've discussed the whole protest without saying what the protest was against. Stuff has some good reading material about the operations of Scientology in New Zealand.

Edit: Later in the day, the US foreign policy protesters in front of the downtown embassy showed how a protest is really done; with fifty plus people, a police cordon and a few burning flags.