During the Krewe d'Etat parade, an unidentified group of people placed many stickers on floats and vehicles throughout the procession. More on that and photos here. The image on the stickers shows a red high heeled shoe stabbing the d'Etat skull figure in the eye.

Someone who claims to be a Muse posted something about the sticker campaign on the gawker blogs. Link to this "leftoverhill" person's feed here. She wrote: "Sister Muses- did we all help with Operation Sticker during Krewe D'etat? That was fun."

• Emily Mueller

"I didn't expect this kind of reaction at all," said Amy Mueller, as her 11-year-old daughter Emily stood by her side covered in Mardi Gras ephemera. "It's amazing."

The Krewe of Muses den played host to a private party for Emily this morning, to make up for what happened to her during the Muses parade on Feb. 16.

Last night, Amy posted this item about a group of future millionaires, undoubtedly, drunkenly (and viciously) harassing Emily, who is autistic. According to the post, the group was blocking Emily's view of the parade, spilling beer on her and nearly burning her with a cigarette in the process. When Amy asked them to move, here's what happened:

The tall man with the bear hat on his head paid no mind to us. He didn’t move, either.

“Hey, man! I need to move. This woman is bitching at me because her retard daughter can’t see the parade!” he shouted to a kid a few feet away.

"I got an email yesterday. It was so sad. We all started crying. Within 20 minutes, everybody wrote back," said Muses member Renee Rich. They began figuring out a plan to give back what contemporary dudesweet college culture had denied Emily (a nice time) and the rest of us (brief hope for our species). By 11 a.m. today, they did it.

Photos of Emily's party after the jump:

• Stickers covered Krewe d'Etat parade floats and other parade units.

During the Krewe d'Etat parade Friday, Feb. 17, unidentified people attached a large number of stickers to parade floats and other vehicles in the procession. The stickers are roughly the size of a CD and feature the krewe's emblematic skull with a jester hat being stabbed in the eye with a red high-heeled shoe. There's a pool of blood behind the skull. Krewe members noticed the stickers at the end of the parade, but they were clearly visible on the WDSU TV broadcast during the parade. (The camera is set up at Gallier Hall.)

Stickers also were put on the velvet outfit of a riding krewe officer and utility vehicles in the parade. But the prank was more extensive than stickers. The same image was painted in color on the sidewalk in front of the Krewe d'Etat den before the morning of the parade, and it was painted in several places on Uptown streets near where the krewe's parade route begins.

A krewe spokesman described it as vandalism, and said the krewe would have to repaint some floats not scheduled to be repainted.

The sticker's shoe seems to suggest the Krewe of Muses, and there has been some sort of rivalry between the two krewes in recent years. In a response to an email seeking comment, Muses' captain said she had heard about the stickers but said she didn't know anything else about them.

Images and some talk about the stickers hit the twittersphere last Friday.

Mardi Gras in New Orleans is always an amazing spectacle for costumes, floats and bands. But there are Carnival celebrations around the world, and The Atlantic has posted two amazing slideshows. There are some local photos (including one by frequent Gambit contributor Jonathan Bachman), but locals may want to check out the floats that roll down the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro - they are larger than most New Orleans homes - and have a look at some of the European Carnival celebrations (Venice, Lucerne, Nice, Croatia) and their unique features. If you were thinking about going to Crested Butte, Colo.'s Mardi Gras, one photo here should dissuade you. Brazil and Trinidad and Tobago, however, are quite impressive (although maybe not the mudfest in Parati, Brazil).

First slideshow.

Second slideshow.

For those who can't get enough of local Mardi Gras, check out the long slideshow posted by local photographer and Creole String Bean guitarist Rick Olivier.