I couldn’t help thinking of Chris Baker, one of our local A.M. radio talkshow hosts, when I saw this. Chris is always ranting about the anti-war crowd being full of Marxists. Well, heres some evidence (as if ANSWER isn’t enough) from Houston IndyMedia to support that argument:

The LoneStar Radical Marching Band is calling for a music-drum-noizemaking bloc to join the F15 [Feburary 15th - J.L.] anti-war march. Bring your real and make-shift insturments. We will be there around 1230.

Black Bloc Ballet!!!! Marxist-Leninist Psycho-Rhythm!!!

Anarcho-Punk Folk Drum Circle and March!!!!

JOIN THE FEBRUARY 15 ANTI-WAR MARCH

–JUST SHOW UP AND JOIN THE BAND–

The Montrose Art and Resistance Collective is calling for a critical mass of drummers, musicians, noise-makers marchers and puppetistas to join the Febuary 15th anti-war march. The collective will begin assembling @ Tranquility Park @ 12:30 pm for the 1:30 pm march against war in Iraq and repression @ home. We will begin with a drum circle @ Tranquility Park, then we will continue with a raucous spirited walk through downtown Houston to Eleanor Tinsley Park.

All particpants are encouraged to bring real instruments, make-shift instruments, costumes, puppets and props. The LoneStar Radial Marching Band will contribute rhythm, dance, music and noise-making to this march. The louder the better. The more the merrier.

Furthermore, as we are a financially lean and mean collective and essentially live off the land in our activities we also are having a make-shift/real instrument drive and need all the help possible. If you have old pails and buckets or insturments and noize-makers no longer being used, please contact us and we will be glad to take your music making donations.

We also plan to have another organizing meeting on February 9th. Please contact us if interested.

Blissfully yours, the Montrose Arts and Revolution Collective.

houston_activist1969@yahoogroups.com

 
Sounds like the men of the 193rd are pretty busy:

Also Wednesday, U.S. airplanes dropped another half million leaflets over southern Iraq in its escalating psychological warfare ahead of the threatened war to overthrow the Iraqi president.

Leaflets with five messages were dropped over a number of locations outside the capital, Baghdad, and near the southern city of Basra, according to a statement from U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla.

One version told of radio frequencies where Iraqis can tune in to anti-Saddam U.S. broadcasts. A second showed allied warplanes bombing Iraqi tanks outside a mosque, warning civilians to “avoid areas occupied by military personnel.” Others warned the Iraqi military against shooting at U.S. and British planes that have been enforcing the decade-old “no-fly zone.”

Via Fox News.

Poor Beaker is catching some serious flak over his Madonna post.

On a day with so many scary developments this makes for some funny light reading.

Update:
Beaker is not backing down:

her knee-jerk, anti-war reaction is at best laughable and predictable. If she is supporting our leaving Saddam in power because she thinks it is better for the people of Iraq, (and our own national security) then she is ignorant. If she just needs the controversy to sell CDs, then she borders on evil.

Update II:
The folks over at MadonnaPower.com have their pointy bras in a wad over me, Beaker’s Corner and Amish Tech Support.

THE Sun today prints a single white feather to show our disgust at cowardly French President Jacques Chirac.

And we urge our ten million readers to post it [mail it - JL] to Chirac’s headquarters in Paris to symbolise British anger at France’s soft stance on Saddam Hussein.

The Order of the White Feather was founded in August 1914 by Admiral Charles Fitzgerald.

The organisation encouraged women to give white feathers to young men who failed to join the British Army as the First World War raged.

The cost of posting a letter to President Chirac’s official residence is just 37p.

To send your white feather protest print this page and send to: President Jacques Chirac, Palais de Elysee, 75000, Paris.

Via The Sun.

 
PARIS - This evening, in what is easily the most stunning development in America’s war on terror, Boy Scouts from Troop 320 of Manchester, Md. staged a daring preemptive strike on France.

Details are sketchy but the lightening fast operation, lasting all of 5 hours, stunned France and the world. “Our troop hit the ground at just after noon and we raised Ol’ Glory before dinner.” said beaming Troop Leader Alex Ledsinger adding “We didn’t even have all 15 of the boys with us. The Stevens boys couldn’t make the trip due to conduct problems at school this year.”

Americans, and likely the French, are anxiously awaiting comments from President Bush amid rumors that the raid was not planned by the U.S. government. One shaken administration official, who asked not to be identified, said “Uh we are trying to find ways to leverage this uh development in a way thats fair to uh a uh liberated France and U.S. interests.”

Privately the Boy Scouts themselves expressed surprise at the events. “We were supposed to meet the French President, or whatever they call it, and take our picture with him and he was all like waving his arms in the air and begging for mercy.” according to Josh Perlman, 13, adding “It was weird but our Troop Leader told us to just go with it.”

For now at least, Troop Leader Alex Ledsinger isn’t talking. “We’ll stay on the ground until we can peacefully transfer power to General James L. Jones of EUCOM. I’ll comment further after I get these boys back home.”

The space shuttle Columbia and its crew of seven astronauts are missing and presumed lost.

Search and rescue crews have been dispatched to the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas. NBC News has reported a large explosion over Dallas, Texas and eyewitnesses near Dallas report hearing loud explosions at the time Columbia was scheduled to pass overhead.

Video of Columbia’s descent over Texas shows the vehicle breaking up upon reentry.

Law enforcement authorities report numerous pieces of debris landing in Nacogdoches, Texas. - Space.com

My friends never call me at 8am on a Saturday morning. I wanted to sleep in and didn’t take the calls but when the second one came in I decided to check the news. I turned on the T.V. and saw re-entry video and instantly knew. At the time the reporter was saying the shuttle was missing but the streaking debris pretty much said it all.

My family has roots at NASA’s Johnson Space Center that go back to its founding. My grandparents worked with and knew all the great astronauts and directors in the early days. I remember my grandfather taking me to NASA and introducing me to a lot of them. My step dad has worked in and around JSC for almost two decades. I started out as a mailroom clerk, moved on to the shuttle training program as a field engineer, served as the webmaster for the shuttle program office, and later returned as a consultant for a brief period about a year ago.

I was in high school when we lost the Challenger and crew. I went to school with their kids. I know what that accident did to them. It seemed like the whole year was filled with memorials and speeches. Things didn’t get back to normal at NASA for a few years and for the families of the crew I’m sure that they still haven’t.

Unfortunately, the conspiracy theorists and media will have a field day with this accident and the fact that an Israeli astronaut was a member of the crew. Investigations will continue for years but all that matters now is that seven heroes lost their lives in pursuit of mankind’s most dangerous and rewarding endeavor.