Jim Henley of Unqualified Offerings recounts his day at the protests yesterday. Here's a bit of it:

Finally we came to the counter-protest. There was even less to it this time than last - maybe three-dozen Freeper types lining a half block leading to the Navy Yard entrance. And as we approached, they began chanting:

Your Red roots are showing!
Your Red roots are showing!
Your Red roots are showing!

Me with my PEACE NOW SOCIALISM NEVER sign. Ronit with her NYC WANTS AL QAEDA sign. Teresa with her very specific Not THIS War, and Patrick and Teresa who have been leading us through renditions of "America the Beautiful," "My Country 'Tis of Thee" and even, hard as it is to sing, "The Star-Spangled Banner." Well, about two thirds of this last, since I skipped several lines by accident. My companions had fine singing voices and on those occasions where we were close enough to other marchers, several joined in.

Let us remember the core principle though: the counter-demonstration can afford to be dinky, because the counter-demonstrators are already slated to get what they want.

It's a long and thoughtful piece, you ought to go read the whole thing.

Max Sawicky's account is here.

And from Eric at the Hamster:

attended the antiwar march in Washington DC on Saturday afternoon and, needless to say, it was a success.

The speakers at the protests emphasized that because of the blistering cold temperatures a lot of people thought there would be a small and timid turnout. As seen, those critics were wrong. All people, from toddlers to grandmas; hippies to military veterans; capitalists to Marxists; lesbians to college frat boys attended the rally in support of America against a disastrous foreign policy called the Bush doctrine.

The Bush doctrine is a ruinous plan that calls for American solders and Iraqi civilians' lives to be exchanged for the capitalist pursuit of oil. As many signs at the protests read, this proposed war was nothing more than 'blood for oil.'

These are the people that care about America. There were the grandparents I met who were afraid that their grandsons would die for a chicken hawk administration. There were the humanitarians and idealists who were concerned about the havoc another war would bring to Iraq. There were also liberalists who believe that international institutions like the United Nations are the answer, and not the enemy, in American foreign policy.

There was opposition, of course. Perched on a Citibank balcony were people claiming they stood in support of America's soldiers, and subsequently in support of American foreign policy. The Georgetown College Republicans, in all their infinite wisdom, held banners proclaiming their patriotism. As one protester, upon seeing the suit-wearing Republicans remarked, “I think they're sipping wine-glasses.”

At times the message of the rally got off topic. Some people used the rally's large audience to lobby for other causes. At one point, an Israeli and Palestinian got into a verbal confrontation. Yet these deviations were slim and few. The people who descended on DC came to march for peace, and save this country, and its soldiers, from an endless and unnecessary Bush war that will take American lives.

Mad Kane has outdone herself (again) with her Dubya Does College Comic Strip.

Unrelated but interesting comment on Pete Townsend from Smythe's World. Here is the correct link to the referenced document.

And via Political Parrhesia, the Republicans in Congress are in fear of Hillary Clinton's increasing clout and urging others to keep their legislative distance from her.

How uninformed are Americans about the 9/11 hijackers? Check out Sideshow and see the latest poll numbers showing that far too many believe most or some of them they were citizens of Iraq.

Former Senator Gary Hart has launched a website on his 2004 decision. He was on ABC's This Week discussing it.

We're all in favor--Hart's bid will fuel discussion and debate--he's a very smart man. With a sense of humor:

Hart, who practices international law in Denver, has been married for 44 years. When Hart was asked earlier this month how he would answer questions about the Rice episode, he laughed and said: "Maybe it won't come up."

Mr. Hart practices law in the same building we do--we run into him in the elevator from time to time. We'll try to engage him in conversation more, and report here on anything we learn.

Update via Instapundit: Here's the link to Hart's Website.

There's an Instapundit, Senior--what a great guy he sounds like!

Red Hot News which calls itself "The Internets Largest Media Site". We are impressed and are bookmarking it and adding it to our Alternative News Sources immediately.

Via Instapundit and Tim Blair, Keith Richards is lashing out at Paul McCartney for canceling an Australian tour. The Stones tour will go on.

Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has lashed out at former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney for calling off an Australian tour because of the Bali bombings.

"I say to Osama and the boys bring it on, evaporate me," Richards said on the eve of the band's Australian tour. "If it gets to the stage where these guys are dictating if we rock or not, then forget about it.

"If McCartney uses these guys as an excuse, he should give it away. Don't give them the power. I can't wait to tour Australia, even if they take out my plane on the way there."

And, you gotta love the guy on his attitude on age.

He and Jagger turn 60 this year, drummer Charlie Watts will be 62 in June and guitarist Ron Wood, the baby of the band, turns 56 the same month. Critics have claimed they are too old to rock, but Richards said: "I don't care what anyone is saying. Man, we are never going to give it away. You tell them down there that Mr Richards is still very up for this gig."

Ok, so we love Mick and Keith no matter what. Always have. We found the live concert last night at Madison Square Garden, shown for free on HBO, nothing short of mesmerizing. There will likely be repeats in the coming weeks, don't miss it.

Update: Via Drudge, Mayor Bloomberg is fuming that Keith Richards and Ron Wood smoked a few cigarettes on stage while perfomring and sent cops to issue summonses but they had already split...lighten up, Mayor, it's only rock and roll.

Don't miss Pontificator on the necessity of the Democrats filibustering against all of Bush's right wing judicial nominees.

The San Francisco Chronicle takes aim at the Total Information Awareness program in an editorial today - here's some, but go read the whole thing.

Medical histories. Financial records, including individual transactions. Security cameras. Divorce files and college transcripts. The tracking of cell- phone calls and toll-booth passages. Reading habits, as culled from library records and bookstore purchases.

Bits of information from these and other sources, when combined, can produce a comprehensive profile of an individual. It also could be misleading, dangerously so, if some of the input is inaccurate. Yet the Bush administration appears determined to steam ahead toward an unprecedented system of data-mining under the direction of former National Security Adviser John Poindexter, a major figure in the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal during the Reagan administration.

The prospect that an American can be identified as a suspect through a flawed database is particularly chilling in view of the USA Patriot Act, which gives authorities sweeping new powers to conduct searches without notifying the subjects -- and even detain "enemy combatants" without judicial oversight....

The issue is not whether Americans feel comfortable in giving vast new surveillance powers to President Bush, John Ashcroft or any other leader. The founding fathers knew the folly of trusting basic freedoms to the benevolence and wisdom of people who happen to be in power at any given moment.

"A government of laws," declared John Adams, our second president, "and not of men."

That admonition should apply to the government's latest attempt to exploit advancements in technology -- and fears of terrorism -- to track the everyday lives of Americans.

And read Sen. Patrick Leahy's letter to Ashcroft about how little Congress has been told about the data-mining plan, and what's wrong with it.

Moreover, as Federal law enforcement agencies obtain public source and proprietary data for mining, the sheer volume of information may make updating the data and checks for reliability and accuracy difficult, if not impossible. Reliance on data mining by law enforcement agencies may produce an increase in false leads and law enforcement mistakes. While the former is a waste of resources, the latter may result in mistaken arrests or surveillance. Such mistakes do occur, even without data-mining.1 In short, while the only ill effect of business reliance on outdated or incorrect information may be misdirected marketing efforts, data mining mistakes made by a law enforcement agency may result in misdirection or misallocation of limited government resources and devastating consequences for mistakenly targeted Americans.

The Denver Post is calling it " the largest war protest since Vietnam"--in huge letters, on the front page. Good for them.

Intervention Magazine has this first hand account by senior editor Regis T. Sabol, which begins:

From the grounds in front of the US Capitol, on the Mall, a sea of a quarter million Americans -- regardless of the number that the networks are reporting -- braved biting cold under a beaming sun to oppose the Bush regime's plan to invade Iraq "any day now." They came in fleets of buses, from cities large and small, from north and south, east and west. Twenty-five buses came from Brooklyn alone, with another 50 from the Big Apple itself. Minneapolis boasted a caravan of 45 buses while tiny Rhode Island had 15 buses, all carrying protestors to the Capitol. One bus traveled north from Gulf Port, Mississippi picking up passengers along the way in Alabama and delivering them to the center of resistance in the nation's capital.....

Here is the New York Time's account.

The Chronicle has this report of events in San Francisco. Check out this picture of the crowds. And here, in their own words, the protesters sound off on Bush.

The Houston Chronicle reports:

Texas put two men to death last week and has 16 more scheduled for injection by the end of April, putting the state on a record-setting pace at a time when capital punishment has come under increased scrutiny elsewhere. Even as the decision to empty Illinois' death row continues to reverberate, and as the Texas Legislature prepares to deal with a new U.S. Supreme Court prohibition on executing the mentally retarded, the Lone Star state's death penalty system churns forward with machine-like efficiency.

Here are some stats on Texas:

"Of the 823 executions nationwide since [1976] Texas has carried out 291 -- or 35 percent. Nearly two-thirds of those executions have taken place in just the last six years. In 2002, Texas put 33 men to death, nearly half of the U.S. total and far more than Oklahoma, the second-busiest state, which killed seven people." "Since 1997, 186 have been executed. During that period, only eight months passed without an execution here. Another 442 men and eight women remain on death row."

16 more are scheduled for execution by May. We are going to tell the story of one of them later today, so please check back.

Check out Body and Soul's Strange Brew of headlines--showing that truth definitely can be stranger than fiction.

"Hundreds of thousands of Americans opposed to waging war in Iraq rallied on Saturday in several cities demanding the White House back down and give U.N. weapons inspectors a chance....."

"Though U.S. opinion polls have shown broad support for ousting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, a Newsweek survey released on Saturday found 60 percent of Americans want to take more time to explore nonmilitary solutions.

"A TIME/CNN poll also found 49 percent of respondents thought Bush was doing a good job handling the Iraq situation, while 44 percent thought he was doing a poor job."

Here's a wrap-up with details of marches in U.S. cities and around the world.