A Tale of Two Cities

Today, downtown San Francisco was the site of an anti-Bush/anti-war rally, which, evidenced by posters that had been up for a month, was neither spontaneous, nor hastily planned. Well, they got a couple hundred people and "shut down a few roads," and by shut down a few roads," it must be clarified that it wasn't due to volume. It was due to protestors linking hands in intersections not allowing cars to pass.

This picture was taken in Justin Hermann plaza where they all gathered to yell, scream and share tin foil hat making tips. I can tell you that this plaza is much bigger and, when I was out there to take a look, these people probably filled a little less than half of it (including their signs and puppets):

Anyway, today was a bad day to be a protestor. First, it rained (that's the wet stuff on the ground underneath their feet in case you were wondering if they all collectively wet their pants). Second, their shouts were drowned out by the war machine that was buzzing them overhead.

Yep, the Blue Angels are in town! They were practicing overhead like they always do the Thursday and Friday before the show, shaking buildings and drawing more attention and curiousity than our dhimmi friends.

Moral of the story: "World Can't Wait -- Drive Out the Bush Regime" plans an anti-war rally which "hundreds" show up to demonstrate. In the meantime, it is Fleet Week in San Francisco this weekend, and a large portion of the city, along with many others, will make up the hundreds of thousands that will be watching the Blue Angels. Personally, I'll be standing on a roof, drinking beer, eating hotdogs and cheering on the ear-shattering F-18s as they pass overhead.

Oh yeah, and the forecast calls for sun.

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UPDATE: In case you were wondering who's behind "World Can't Wait," the SF Chronicle article that I linked to above says the following:

The World Can't Wait's founders included supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Party, but in the past year the list of backers on its Web site has grown to 24,000 names. They include actors Sean Penn, Olympia Dukakis and Mark Ruffalo; writers Studs Terkel and Alice Walker; state Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco; and Bay Area "protest mom" Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq in 2004.