A Cloudy Yet Pleasant Sunday

The WaPo has a fuzzy account of yesterday’s anti-war protest in Washington:

Organizers, who had predicted tens of thousands of marchers would demonstrate, gave estimates ranging from 15,000 to 30,000. Police no longer provide official estimates of crowd size but informally put it at 10,000 to 20,000, with a smaller but sizable contingent of counter-protesters.

War protest leaders said a large winter storm that hit the Northeast hurt turnout. More than 60 bus loads of protesters who had been scheduled to come from the region canceled their trips Friday night, according to Brian Becker, national coordinator for the Answer Coalition, the event's main sponsor.

It was quickly apparent that the weather had not prevented counter-demonstrators, many in black leather motorcycle jackets, from showing up in force and surrounding all sides of the Wall.

The last paragraph above says counter-demonstrators “turned out in force,” yet elsewhere in the article the WaPo downplays the numbers.

It appears the turnout for yesterday’s counter-protest was good…30,000 people, according to the National Park Service (as reported by Gathering of Eagles). Baron Bodissey at The Gates of Vienna has a good write-up and pictures—less of the moonbat variety and more of normal people—lots of pictures. The Hot Air folks have four-plus pages of photos on Flickr; once again mostly normal folks…but more moonbats (and many more photos) than Gates of Vienna.

Most interesting:

DESPITE sectarian slaughter, ethnic cleansing and suicide bombs, an opinion poll conducted on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq has found a striking resilience and optimism among the inhabitants.

The poll, the biggest since coalition troops entered Iraq on March 20, 2003, shows that by a majority of two to one, Iraqis prefer the current leadership to Saddam Hussein’s regime, regardless of the security crisis and a lack of public services.

The survey, published today, also reveals that contrary to the views of many western analysts, most Iraqis do not believe they are embroiled in a civil war.

Officials in Washington and London are likely to be buoyed by the poll conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB), a respected British market research company that funded its own survey of 5,019 Iraqis over the age of 18.

Polls are common here in the US, but they seem to be fairly rare in the Middle East, especially in Iraq. This one is an eye-opener. It’s also pretty good news for the US (and Britain, as noted), in my humble opinion. This little item, in particular, is striking:

Only 27% think there is a civil war in Iraq, compared with 61% who do not, according to the survey carried out last month.

Just this morning I watched Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher on C-SPAN (no transcript or video available yet) say something to the effect of “A Republican told me recently he thought there was a civil war going on in Iraq. Well, Duh! We’ve known this for two years now.” (I’m paraphrasing, but the gist is accurate.) Perhaps Ms. Tauscher needs to have a few words with some Iraqis. They seem to appreciate our efforts, and their effects, much more than she does.

This is important (to some of us):

The oldest celebrity in hockey not named Chris Chelios celebrates his birthday Sunday when the Stanley Cup turns 115. Short and stout, the little guy has worn his age well and, to our knowledge, Stanley hasn’t had any work done to keep him looking so young. No Botox for him.

Happy Birthday, Stanley! I’m sure you’ll enjoy your summer in Detroit this year. Maybe.

That “maybe” relates to the fact the Wings were Number One overall in the NHL standings going into last night’s game in Vancouver, which they lost, 4-1. Nashville, who were one point behind the Wings going into last night’s games, beat Dallas 3-2 in an ugly game. The Preds are one point ahead of Detroit with ten games left in the season. This is when it gets good...

Look for much more hockey in the coming weeks here at EIP. It’s that time of year!!

Today’s Pic(s): More cherry blossoms. These things only last for a day or three, so you have to get ‘em while you can. Yesterday I gave you a couple of close-up blossom views, today it’s the Big Picture. In terms of the tree - not the file sizes - although the file sizes are quite large, even when re-sized for blog-posting purposes. The tree itself is rather small; I'd estimate about eight to ten feet in height. A young'un, in other words. But she's been here longer than I have...

And for those of you who think I might be turning Japanese on you, what with all the sakura stuff these last two days…well, I have been heavily influenced by Japanese cultural sensibilities. I took away more than a bit from my five years in Nippon. How could I not? There’s a lot to like there. And a lot not to like, as well, but that? T’is another story altogether!

Outside my door (again). Twenty minutes ago (again).
(There's a Green Hornet behind that tree, so be careful!)