Posted on 08/30/2010 2:09:21 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Glenn Beck rally attendance has become hotly contested following Saturday's event in Washington. But from Woodstock to the Million Man March, figuring out the number of people who show up at big events has never been easy.
Can we really get an accurate count of the number of people who attended Saturday's Glenn Beck Restoring Honor rally? The answer might be, No, we cant.
Crowd-counting science is far from exact. Much of it is based on examination of overhead photos to calculate crowd density and related statistics. It reminds us of the old intelligence agency practice of shedology, in which the Central Intelligence Agency and others estimated Soviet weapons numbers by looking at overhead photos of military sheds and calculating how many tanks they might hold.
Plus, numbers are inevitably colored by an estimators interest. Rally organizers usually say crowds were huge, bigger than expected. Critics will say the numbers were less than anticipated. Thats been the case for years.
Thats led to controversy in the past. In October 1995, the National Park Service estimated that about 400,000 people attended the Million Man March organized by the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan. Organizers were so angry they sent lawyers to meet with the Park Service.
Shortly thereafter, the Boston University Center for Remote Sensing estimated that the crowd had been 837,000, plus or minus 20 percent. What was the difference? The Park Service counted via pictures taken from videotape. The Center for Remote Sensing used original photo negatives.
Photos of the Beck event clearly show a big crowd. The weather was great whatever the exact figure, there were a lot of people there.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
My same thoughts, isn't the focus on the wrong "gathering" here?
But wait, didn’t one of the MSM (code word for propaganda) stations say it was about 87,000? They wouldn’t lie to the American people would they? Or would they? (sarc.)
Perhaps you should refer to post #21 above. The problem was with the original title. It implied that the remote sensing technique had estimated Beck’s rally at >800,000. The original poster graciously concurred with my observation.
Most people are not concerned with the exact numbers, as it is next to impossible to get them right. It is, however, the blatant lies of ‘ten of thousands people’ when it’s clear it was in the ‘hundred of thousands people’-range, that make people angry.
Sharpton had 10s of 10s.
I can vouch for that. It was a mess.
Nope.
And they left the place spotless!
Mea Culpa, I completely overlooked that part.
The article was not well constructed. The paragraph break was probably not in the best place and it would be easy for a quick reader to come to the wrong conclusion.
Glenn spoke about the bullet proof vest on today’s show
It was an enormous crowd, and it was pathetic how MSM tried to spin Rev. Al’s.
How can you tell or how do you know.
I could tell on Glenn, but what do I know about women's clothes and vest-type top she is wearing.
How can you tell or how do you know.
I could tell on Glenn, but what do I know about women's clothes and vest-type top she is wearing.
RE: Accompanied by this public service ad to counteract the Restoring Honor attendees.
Obama did respond when asked whether he watched the rally. He said he didn’t and then gave a standard == “I’m glad that people are exercising their freedom of speech”.
In other words, he’s not interested in what hundreds of thousands (perhaps a million) Americans are concerned with.
But then he has the time to wade in to the matter of the ground zero mosque when a handful for Muslims are agitating for it.
Talk about where his priorities lie...
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