* Number attending this weekend’s anti-war rally in Washington D.C.: 150,000 estimated (Photo at right from Bradblog)
* Number attending this weekend’s pro-war counter rally in Washington, D.C.: 400 (although wingers were expecting 20,000)
* Recommended reading: Time Magazine’s "How Many More Mike Browns Are Out There?":
A TIME inquiry finds that at top positions in some vital government agencies, the Bush Administration is putting connections before experience.
* If conservatives think the war in Iraq is vital to our national security, how do they explain this:
Bush plea for cash to rebuild Iraq raises $600
An extraordinary appeal to Americans from the Bush administration for money to help pay for the reconstruction of Iraq has raised only $600 (£337), The Observer has learnt. Yet since the appeal was launched earlier this month, donations to rebuild New Orleans have attracted hundreds of millions of dollars.
The public’s reluctance to contribute much more than the cost of two iPods to the administration’s attempt to offer citizens ‘a further stake in building a free and prosperous Iraq’ has been seized on by critics as evidence of growing ambivalence over that country.
* Remember Pat Tillman? He was the NFL player who gave up a multi-million dollar contract to fight in Iraq. When he was killed in April 2004, he became a darling of the right wing. Here’s what Captain’s Quarters wrote in "Pat Tillman, American Patriot, KIA":
In a society sometimes dominated by loudmouthed, preening, self-involved individuals, Tillman stood out for his refusal to think only of himself. Tillman was no one’s fool, either; he graduated early from Arizona State with a degree in marketing and a 3.84 GPA, and conducted himself with both intelligence and honor in his career and personal life. At one point, Tillman turned down an opportunity to make more money with another team because he felt loyalty to the Cardinals, who had given him his chance to play even though he was undersized for his position.
In the intervening months, it was learned that Tillman was killed by friendly fire, taking off some of the sheen for his famous-in-death self-sacrifice. Now, it turns out, he apparently wasn’t all that was anti-Bush and anti-IraqWar:
Interviews also show a side of Pat Tillman not widely known — a fiercely independent thinker who enlisted, fought and died in service to his country yet was critical of President Bush and opposed the war in Iraq, where he served a tour of duty.