When we first decided to raise money to buy Occupiers some pizzas - we have NO IDEA there would be hundreds of encampments lasting this long. No joke. We thought it'd be a weekend. Couple of pizzas and DONE. Well, we were wrong. They are still there - there are more of them and they are still hungry.

Occupy LA has no food. None. I was there last night and they had a couple of apples and bottled water. They had not had one hot meal that day. They have the biggest Occupation in terms of numbers - it's four times the size of Zuccotti in terms of space and people and they have no food.

We're doing what we can and it's because of you guys. You guys have donated money - whatever you could to help feed these guys. We've raised over $30,000 in small donations and bought pizzas for 40 cities (Occupy Muncie, anyone?)

Anything you can give helps.

Thanks all!

You guys have given over $20,000 to feed the nation's Occupiers some pies. And we're still going. More Occupations are sprouting up and we are there to give them a cheesy-doughy high five.

We've added San Diego, Buffalo and Des Moines - which brings a total of 25 cities!

If you're occupying - send us an email and let up know! If you can't occupy but want to give an OccuPie - well here's the PayPal for that:

Any amount is welcome. Most of the money we've raised are in small donations. All is appreciated. The Occupiers are especially grateful.

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Who knew there would still be people protesting all this time? Seriously? When we started buying solidarity pizzas last week we had no idea we'd still be doing it now. It's mainly thanks to you guys. Over 500 of you have donated over $18,000. We've bought pies for 22 cities totaling more than $13,000 and we're still going. Occupy Wall Street is growing and so...we can't stop now.

Yesterday at Occupy LA they told me that the 36 pizzas we buy them go quick. They said they could use three times that. They are now reporting a tent count of 253. Which is exponentially larger than their first day.

Total we've bought pizzas for 22 occupations in different cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Boston, Seattle, Chicago, DC/K Street, Tampa, Philly, San Diego, Denver, Austin, Portland, Indianapolis, New Orleans, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Sacramento, San Jose and Des Moines.

Some we're feeding every day. Some we've inspired to get their own donations. It's been amazing. You can still participate. It's not over! I asked an occupier yesterday how long they are staying. She replied: "I don't know, I've never revolutionized before."

More pictures after the jump:

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I find urban studies fascinating, which is perhaps why it was a concentration back when I was in school. To me--perhaps because I have lived in big cities most of my life--finding ways to reform city government, bring transparency, better deliver services and improve the quality of life in metropolitan areas is a passion, because I think there are so many possibilities (especially with today's technology) for making people's lives better by rising up to meet these challenges.

This is why I am thrilled to be working with the City Forward initiative. What is City Forward? It is a tool that pulls public data from urban centers on different issues (user specified) and displays it in customizable graphs.

For example, users can create an ‘exploration’ for important environmental issues such as water usage in multiple cities, and then have it displayed in charts that will visually present the data in a way that people can understand it. These charts allow anyone to make a case or tell a story about what one city or many cities are doing to improve in an areas such as this one, and what others are neglecting.

In other words, in addition to being groundbreaking in its potential applications, its a pretty cool tool for improving government transparency and letting people access public records in a useful, understandable way.

You can go to the site and see what explorations have already been done in cities across the world, and come up with some of your own. And you can encourage your city to share data with the initiative, to fight for the kind of improvements we all need, and quite frankly, deserve.

This is just provides another way to bring some light into the often dark corners of government, while improving our everyday lives. Not a bad thing in today's world, for sure.

Follow Cliff Schecter on Twitter: @cliffschecter

Rumsfeld and the Powell Doctrine!

USATODAY

By John Diamond, Steve Komarow and Tom Squitieri, USA TODAY

excerpt:

Rumsfeld's plan

The strategy outlined by Rumsfeld and other top officials this week has three components:

• Use overwhelming ground force backed by artillery and air power to take control of the insurgent haven.

• Move in immediately with reconstruction efforts to repair battle damage.

• Leave a force in Fallujah large enough to prevent a collapse back into violence.

The goals are simple: to win the gratitude of Fallujah civilians who will no longer have to cope with Iraqi and foreign fighters in their midst; and to demonstrate to other insurgent-dominated towns and cities what can happen if they refuse to participate peacefully in the Iraqi political process.

Why didn't Rummy use this plan at the begining of the Iraq war? It sounds a lot like the Powell Doctrine!

God, I love being a San Franciscan... I can't think of a more appropriate dedication for this administration.

Some presidents get carved into Mt Rushmore; others have airports, motorways, and even entire cities named in their honour. But when George Bush leaves office, his most visible memorial may be a mouldering patch of human effluent.

In November, alongside casting their ballot for the next president, the people of San Francisco will also vote on a measure to rename one of the city's largest sewage works the George W Bush Sewage Plant, to provide a "fitting monument" to the outgoing commander-in-chief's achievements.

Activists from the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco, a mischievously-named group behind the move, will ask supporters to participate in a "synchroni(z)ed flush".

It may sound like a student prank, but the proposal is almost certain to be passed. Democrats usually secure between 70 and 80 per cent of the vote in San Francisco - and in 2006 passed a proposition to impeach Mr Bush and his Vice-President Dick Cheney by a majority of almost two to one.

"In 50 years from now, we want people to see George Bush's name on that plant, and ask each other what went wrong," said Brian McConnell, the Memorial Commission's organi(z)er. "We want them to be reminded of the Iraq war, and his other dramatic mistakes, and this is the perfect way to do it."

Yeah, that would be just horrible, wouldn't it? {{shudder}} I mean, who would want to live in a cosmopolitan place full of art, culture, diversity and some of the best restaurants in the country if it means that your neighbors might be, you know, homosexual??? The bald faced bigotry that people feel comfortable expressing in this day and age never fails to horrify me. PageOneQ:

The town of Eureka Springs is turning into the "San Francisco of Arkansas," warns the American Family Association, and it can happen in your town too.

The presentation in the AFA trailer [available at PageOneQ], "They're Coming to Your Town," tells the tale of an uncharacteristically diverse resort town's government infiltrated by "a handful of homosexual activists" and bent to their will through the enactment of the town's domestic partner registry on June 22, 2007.

"Watch, and learn," says the trailer, "how to fight a well-organized gay agenda to take over the cities of America, one city at a time."

Eureka Springs, most recently, has gotten an honorable mention from unlikely celebrity and Oklahoma House Rep. Sally Kern, who propped it up as an example of the "gay agenda" that she has called a "death knell" and a larger threat than international terrorism, in addition to comparing such an "agenda" to cancer.

Do be sure to see the video that AFA created over at PageOneQ.

With Iraq about to blow wide open, al-Sadr stepped in again.

MSNBC:

Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Sunday ordered his fighters off the streets nationwide and called on the government to stop raids against his followers and free them from prison. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued a statement calling the order “a step in the right direction” towards resolving six days of violence sparked by operations against al-Sadr's backers in the oil-rich southern city of Basra.

But al-Maliki also acknowledged Saturday that he may have miscalculated by failing to foresee the strong backlash the offensive would provoke in Baghdad and other cities where Shiite militias wield power...read on

So who's in charge of Iraq at this point?

I have no idea where John Hussein Kennedy's lapel pin is or why there is no flag behind him, sorry.

Coming next Wednesday, March 26 to a theatre near you, a free simulcast featuring Michael J. Fox and Air America's Marc Maron, "Everything you always wanted to know about the separation of Church and State, but were afraid to ask." Cities are listed here.

On topic, Blog Against Theocracy is this weekend. Open thread below...

Download | play Download | play (h/t Orangutan)

Tibetans and those who support their independence protested in several cities Saturday in India, Nepal and the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, where death tolls ranging from 10 to 100 were reported in the past 24 hours.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Saturday urged the Chinese government to exercise restraint in dealing with the demonstrations and told both sides to avoid violence.

Tibetan exiles in India cited unconfirmed reports that at least 100 people were killed and many more injured in violence that started when Chinese police blocked a march by monks in Lhasa on Friday. China's state-run Xinhua news agency, citing the Tibetan government, said 10 were killed.

"The victims are all innocent civilians, and they have been burnt to death," an official with the regional government told Xinhua.

Because of the extreme difficulties in getting news reports from Tibet, it was impossible to independently verify the death toll or the number of those injured.

Tibetan protesters have been clashing with police in several areas since March 10, the 49th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.