Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Pre-G-20 Pictures

By Dave Anderson:


I had to run some errands in the Strip District this afternoon.  The Strip District is immediately east of the convention center which is where the G-20 summit is being hosted.  By Wednesday night, there will be no Downtown vehicle access from the Strip as the road blocks and no go zones are erected.  Here are some of the pictures of the security wall that is visible and omnipresent.



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A pair of cops sitting on the out-bound passenger loading area on the East Busway, Penn Station.  Seems a bit odd to me that they are there as this is how to get out of downtown, and the potential threat vector is people and things coming into downtown.











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About 10 cops at the terminus of the East Busway.  They were not doing much, neither inspecting buses full of people who will get off in Downtown nor looking at out-bound buses either.













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The Pittsburgh bomb squad truck making a mad dash up to Shadyside (suprised they did not take the Busway to the Neville Street ramp).   This was in response to a false-positive report.  There were also numerous motorcycle convoys of ten to twenty cops on bikes just cruising through downtown as a show of force.  Three of the four convoys that I saw and waited to pass as I waited for the cross-walk lights to turn in my favor were composed of out of town cops.  I think a good deal of the sirens and presence is primarily dominance posturing and not actual security. 





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Everything in Downtown is barricading up.  This is a picture of the new Greyhound bus station/Grant treet garage with a 6 foot high chain link fence.  The office buildings on Penn between 13th and 15th street had 3 foot high barriers on the sidewalks.  The purpose is not to really provide too much physical protection but to stake groun for future trespassing charges is my guess. 



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  1. adhochereticSeptember 23, 2009 at 12:00 AM

    Pittsburgh would be a great place to hold events ilke the G-20 or the RNC. The easy availability of post-industrial indoor wasteland should allow the Pittsburgh Police to more accurately replicate the NYPD's RNC protest response.
    After all, you're not doing a good job detaining peaceful protestors and bystanders if your temporary detainment area isn't leaking asbestos and battery acid on the DFHs.
    Are there any abandoned chemical plants, bus depots, or coke factories that suddenly have new razor wire fences?

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