I made the grave error of driving through the Loop yesterday afternoon, which is normally bad enough on the weekend but was made infinitely worse by the peace march that was taking place at the time. A long line of people with signs saying things like "honk for Justice" and "Inpeach Bush" [sic] had gathered to walk down Delmar, and because of this all the traffic lights were shut off and there were cops directing traffic. It took me 20 minutes to get from Debaliviere Road to the U. City Library, a trip that should normally take about 5. The lesson here is don't ever, for any reason, drive through the loop. Even if there had been no protest march and all the traffic lights were functioning, the Random Vagrant Mumbling Unintelligibly and Begging for Money - Normal Person ratio is usually pretty high.