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I didn't go to the March. I was home watching the Michigan-Notre Dame game (among others). Michigan stadium holds 110,000 people. That picture looks like at least 3 or 4 Michigan Stadiums worth of people.

To understand how the left gets its figure of 70,000 you must remember how socialist math works. It isn't based on statistical analysis, visual observation, or even actual counting. Socialist math is based on picking a number that supports the agenda.

This is how Socialist math can claim a million jobs were saved when 2,000,000 were actually lost. It's how they can claim Bush's deficits were worse than Obama's. It makes possible the ability for Democrat voting precincts to produce more votes than eligible voters and thus get Al Franken in the senate and Christne Gregoire in the governor's mansion.

Using the WaPo's own diagram for estimating attendance at Chairman Zero's coronation, the area from the Capitol steps to the back of the first lawn segment (aka the "Ticketed area") holds 240,000. There are obviously more people than that appearing in the panorama.

Diagram here

There were zero arrests at the Obama inaugural too.

wignutlicker, would you focus on my right nut for a while? I know your preference is naturally for the left one.

mmmmph mmmph....sure whatever you say!

We're not asserting there were arrests at maximum leader zero's coronation, (I don't know specifically) just putting the lie to the assertion that the tea parties are unruly mobs. Also, did you check out the "after" pictures of the two events? I think our guys actually left the place cleaner than they found it.

I wonder what that photo really is. I saw the aerial coverage of the 'protest'... there were far, far fewer than the gazillions that the crazies are claiming.

The natural assumption is that it is yet another poorly-constructed fake - clearly there were NOT more than 70k or so people there. If there were it would not be so difficult to find someone reputable to confirm it...

HuffPo... 'nuff said.

Gallup: Obama under 50% on Afghanistan, economy, health care, deficit

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/09/17/gallup-obama-under-50-on-afghanistan-economy-health-care-deficit/

Posting a link to the Huffington Post is equivalent to posting a link to The Onion.

I was feeling risky so I ventured over to the HuffPo cesspool... one commenter posted this link to shut-up those blind, willingly ignorant fools.

Apparently all that was faked... twisters couldn't POSSIBLE be any more delusional...

POSSIBLY* - go go typo.

denial of reality is sop for leftists.

Um, I'm looking at the picture, and they are right. it doesn't include the National Museum of the American Indian. It would be there if that photo was from September 2004 or more recently. THUS, is is a fake. QED.

This is once again the crazies trying to pretend that they were anything but a ragtag assembly of nuts and whiners. Fail.

just putting the lie to the assertion that the tea parties are unruly mobs.

The appear, however, to be largely ignorant uninformed mobs. That's what mobs tend to be, of course, no matter who they are out cheering for.

And what were the cheering for, exactly? "Obama bad no matter what"? Is that meant to be something to be proud of?

Also, did you check out the "after" pictures of the two events? I think our guys actually left the place cleaner than they found it.

Kudos to them for that... But the clean streets do rather point to a rather undense crowd. Just sayin'.

And what were the cheering for, exactly? "Obama bad no matter what"? Is that meant to be something to be proud of?

Congratulations on asking a question then answering it in the next sentence. Glad to see you have your mind made up.

Essentially, what you've done is chosen the result/angle that you're going to develop facts around. Brilliant way to ignore the truth and create a "fake, but accurate" determination of reality.

it sickens them that they cannot get a "pro-obama" rally going(aside from 20 people circling a fountain), these basement-dwellers are really starting to foam at the mouth big-time.

Ignorant AND uninformed, wow, though I guess there is a shade of difference between the two; but yeah, maximum leader zero is pretty much wrong about pretty much everything, so yeah, you're catching on.

"There were zero arrests at the Obama inaugural too."
No, but at ultra- liberal protests, there tend to be many arrests, as many liberal protestors go there with the intent of deliberately pushing the cops' limits and causing trouble (I'm looking at you, Communist/ Anarchist college students).
That's what I've noticed: Comparing the Tea Party movement with the countless liberal protests reveals a lot about the grassroots followers of each side of the political spectrum.

"they cannot get a "pro-obama" rally going"

Uh, that couldn't possibly be because we aren't slavering throngs of goons who believe Glen Beck's drivel to be reality, could it?

The smart, rational people have no need to turn out en masse to say... what, exactly? "Good work?" "Stay the course?" "Ignore those crazy-ass fools out your window"?

Hard to rallly around that, I think... and pointless to boot.

Nice point there. Guess you are yet another graduate of the Glen Beck University of I Don't Remember, huh?

"Clam and Sane"?????? You better ask for a refund from MIT there sparky. I can understand all your anger,you and your hopey change crowd thought you had everything dicked with obooboo getting elected and now the wheels are coming off. There there little fella mommy will change your underroos and get you something for that diaper rash.

How profound. Anyone with a polysyllabic vocabulary and something to say care to weigh in?

Well, I knew it was coming. In fact, I predicted it quite a long time ago when I said that Miss Anonypussy Troll would teach vulgar concepts to children. And now that she has, we must unequivocally hammer out solutions on the anvil of discourse. What follows is the story of how Anonypussy can be so rich in the rhetoric of democracy and yet so poor in its implementation.

Anonypussy has gotten away with so much for so long that she's lost all sense of caution, all sense of limits. If you think about it, only a woman without any sense of limits could desire to funnel significant amounts of money to irritable nincompoops. I don't just want to make a point. I don't just want to take up the all-encompassing challenge of freedom, justice, equality, and the pursuit of life with full dignity. I'm here to give an alternate solution, a better one. I don't just ask rhetorical questions; I have answers. That's why I'm telling you that I can't make heads or tails of her politics. I mean, does Anonypussy want to step on other people's toes or doesn't she? Okay, I've vented enough frustration. So let me end by saying that Miss Anonypussy Troll's incessant jactancy is really getting on my nerves.

Git yer eyes checked there, reality, the National Museum of the American Indian appears right there about a quarter in from the left and up a little. It's a pretty big building there, easy to miss I guess.

I assume that when you say "the wheels are coming off", you actually mean "the lunatic fringe has now gone so far off the deep end that only the echo chamber propaganda arm of the GOP still talks about it as anything but entertainment"?

I think there is an essential fallacy in so much of what is written here; you people think you are some sort of giant group... but you aren't.

The people who call Obama a Nazi or a socialist or whatever else they can think of, as they complain about literally everything, represent a tiny minority in America. Sure, there are lots of self-descibed 'conservatives'... but the actual insane people like the ones around here are a thankfully small % of those conservatives.

What is your dream, huh? That one day there are a few thousand batshit crazy people standing on the lawn, and Obama says "you know, they're right. We should just let america turn into a theocracy, abandon all hope for a better future, and oh also i QUIT. Let Palin fuck things up awhile. And while i'm at it, i am a nazi and a communist. Who cares?"

Odds of that happening? Anyone?

Essentially, what you've done is chosen the result/angle that you're going to develop facts around. Brilliant way to ignore the truth and create a "fake, but accurate" determination of reality.

...and that's why the site is called moonbattery.com, right?

I'm not the one saying that everyone who doesn't agree with me is nuts. It's perfectly possible and reasonable to oppose Obama's plans for healthcare, governance, foreign policy, etc. on rational grounds.

You don't see much of that on this site, however, or on Glenn Beck, or at Teabagger rallies...

I relish the fact that you can hate Beck, but not provide ANY bit of information where he lied, mislead, or was outright wrong. Where you may disagree is in opinion (which he has, no debating that)... but you're instead attacking his opinions and not that which he has laid out as pure fact (which are immediately able to be researched for legitimacy and accuracy).

Case and point, you lack substantive info but have a healthy dose of talking points.

Getting back to the thread topic, there is no reason to assume that the crowd was as small as 70,000 given the photographs and footage we've seen of the event. 70,000 would only fill a little more than a quarter of "the ticketed area" and it's clear that was full and far beyond it. Further, it was reported that the police were completely taken by surprise by the size of the crowds. Do you honestly believe a crowd of 70,000 people would surprise the police?

And you know something funny? I tried to call up the HuffPo piece and it wouldn't come up. All it said was "Done, but with errors". Ha! Now that's truth in advertising!

I've got my degree sparky,how about you?

AtC - I trust that is a joke, right? Beck spends a huge amount of time with a chalkboard, scribbling bizzare conspiracy-theories that are completely nonsensical. You really want a list? (Jon Stewart does this every freaking day, but I'll play along in case you are incapable of watching anything BUT Beck...)

How 'bout as recently as this week? Beck says that Obama has 350 gazillion 'czars' and they are all evil, apppointed by Obama completely out of public scrutiny, and that it is completely unprecedented in American politics. He even has a nifty graphic of all those 'czars'. On that graphic, fully half of the people are CONFIRMED BY THE SENATE. Therefore they are NOT, in fact, without oversight. Fail #1. Of those remaining, 13 were appointed by BUSH and Obama merely kept them. Fail #2. In fact, the entire fixation wirth 'czars' (who are not in fact czars, but often things like undersecretaries for the interior (one of the guys on that graphic, in case you are not aware) and are not called 'czars' by anyone but Beck.

(And seriously, to misspell 'oligarchy' on 2 consecutive days?)

Go back to the "University of I Don't Know" for your 'don't know shit, and proud of it' reunion and stop pretending that Beck is anything but a transparent schill.

'Do you honestly believe a crowd of 70,000 people would surprise the police?"

Only if those cops were lunatic-fringe GOP-ers who were expecting 2 billion people... who were in fact surprised at their weak turnout.

How 'bout as recently as this week? Beck says that Obama has 350 gazillion 'czars' and they are all evil, apppointed by Obama completely out of public scrutiny, and that it is completely unprecedented in American politics.

Let's see, in that statement, you're talking about his opinion and equate public opinion to congresscritters opinion (which is clearly false). Thanks for making the leaps.

He even has a nifty graphic of all those 'czars'. On that graphic, fully half of the people are CONFIRMED BY THE SENATE. Therefore they are NOT, in fact, without oversight.

He has made it a point to mention that some of them are confirmed and that, even with congresscritter oversight, that is not the public scrutiny that he is asking for.

Of those remaining, 13 were appointed by BUSH and Obama merely kept them.

He made that point and bashed Bush just as much for it. Just because Bush did it, it's ok that Obama expand on it? You're just validating wrong behavior with more wrong behavior. Also, the main czars that Obama is required to have (by logical appointment, confirmation) are the exact ones that Obama has fired and has yet to replace (Israel Czar ring a bell)? Therefore, he has yet to fill positions that were there previously but has since expanded positions that previously didn't exist... yet it's ok? Woo logic.

In fact, the entire fixation wirth 'czars' (who are not in fact czars, but often things like undersecretaries for the interior (one of the guys on that graphic, in case you are not aware) and are not called 'czars' by anyone but Beck.

He was specifically contacted by the WH and told not to call Van Jones a czar (special advisor) but he has yet to be reprimanded for his overuse of the term. By their omission, the others are justified. Plus, nobody really knows the power they have or what legislative abilities they have. He and many others have asked for them to clear this up but they have since refused to divulge any of that information. One can take this as an assumption that their powers extend beyond typical secretaries.

(And seriously, to misspell 'oligarchy' on 2 consecutive days?)

One day, first off. Second, he admitted the mistake and cleared it up. This is something that the twister media doesn't do, nor does Obamadinejad. It's called personal responsbility, which he owned up to.

Go back to the "University of I Don't Know" for your 'don't know shit, and proud of it' reunion and stop pretending that Beck is anything but a transparent schill.

Explain this transparency when he lays out all the information, offers up questions to ask... and you attempt to derail the argument about the information by attacking his style of presentation and minor grammatical flaws.

You are realllllly out of your league.

You've got to love libturds in denial.

Oh God. Get out the bug bombs.

"We should just let America turn into a theocracy..." Where in the hell do you get that? We are constitutionalists in that "mob" and here as well. We just want America to be as the founding fathers envisioned. Which is a free society based on liberty. Now, the liberal lefttards want to turn the joint into a nanny state, which is just like a theocracy. "You can't do anything. Put that down. No having fun. Oh except for gay sex, you can do that."

"Posting a link to the Huffington Post is equivalent to posting a link to The Onion."

Posted by: J at September 17, 2009 9:23 AM

The Onion has more credibility.

AtDC - You don't get how 'facts' work, do you?

You asked about factually inaccurate things Beck has said. He said: the czars are outside public scrutiny (Wrong). He said that it was unprecedented. (Wrong). And that is ONE DAY worth of Beck craptacularness. Oh, and the 2nd day, when he tried to rewrite 'oligarchy', he ONCE AGAIN GOT IT WRONG. More fail for you...

There are almost certianly entire websites devoted to debunking the nonsense he spews on a daily basis, but no matter what you will defend with your life what amounts to a chimp in a bad suit making things up.

Good for you.

Anon you are no longer allowed to use the word chimp for it has been deemed by your liberal rulers to be racist. Care to list all those many websites that debunk what Beck has to say. I didn't think so.

Compare the above photo to this one that shows 100,000+ people in a stadium.

http://pennstategameday.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/PennState-BeaverStadium.jpg

Ahh, but did anyone see how earth-shatteringly awesome (note: sarcasm) the 9/13 anti-anti-government march was?

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2009/09/16/whatever-happened-to-the-913-march/

Well that confirms it. If there were 110,000 at that Penn State Game, there were way more than that in DC on 9-12. It's clear from the photos that throngs of people were extending for blocks and blocks, and the people at Penn Stadium are surrounding a football field, which is approximately one city block long.

Reality, you seem to be under some impression that logic and facts have a place at Monnbattery.com. They don't.

You do have to wonder how far they can make it from reality before they suffer some sort of psychotic breakdown...

Ooh, we been told. Oh wait, that was andy, nevermind.

OMG!! The left doesn't get this riled up unless they are trying to kill a TRUTH! THAT is enough evidence of crowd density to me! The twenty idiots walking around the fountain is the typical million man march they produce. ;-)

He's posting here, is that you ptet!?

Sorry Track-A-Crat, in the panorama above you can see that the street crowds fade out opposite the reflecting pool. There are two blue buses visible on either side of the General Grant statue. Those buses are on 3rd St. Look at Google maps to see how much space this crowd takes up.

The pictures you mention of people filling "blocks and blocks" were taken on Pennsylvania Avenue as these same people walked to this site.

There are way more people in that Beaver Stadium picture.

Here's a better close-up of the center portion of the panorama above.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2633/3914299074_28fdec29a2_b.jpg

Compare that portion to the Beaver Stadium picture.

Two things about the last photo you posted, Lao. First, it is taken from an extremely flat perspective, which doesn't give a good sense of the depth of the crowd. Much as changing the scale on a chart can give the impression of greater or lesser deviations in data, changing the perspective from which a crowd shot is taken out can give a false impression of the number of people. For example, the picture from Penn Stadium was taken from a higher vantage point, which allows you to have a better sense of how many people are in a crowd. Therefore, the picture you posted of the 9/12 rally was worse from the standpoint that it obscures how many people are really in the crowd by bunching them up so you can't see them.

Second, the picture you posted cuts off the huge numbers of people on the side that are moving toward the protest. How is that honest in any way, shape, or form?

Judith, my second post acknowledged that the picture was of the center portion of the panorama. That's honest to me.

My first post suggested looking at Google maps to get a top-down perspective of the area the people in the panorama occupied. Note my comment re the buses on 3rd St. which pretty much defines the back of the crowd. Bear that thought in mind if you happen to see pictures of the PromiseKeepers rally from '97 or the Obama inauguration where people occupied most of the mall and beyond.

I agree, crowd depth in the panorama is hard to judge. For that you can check out the many, many photos of clusters of people available on the web. People were not packed together. In the stadium shot, thanks to people in rows of seats, the people are arranged methodically and there are no gaps at all.

I used Google to determine the scale, Lao, and as nearly as I can tell, the distance from the lower lefthand corner of the page is roughly 5.5 football fields, as is the distance from the monument to the lower righthand corner. The distance from the leftand corner to the righthand corner, is again, roughly 5.5 football fields long. The pictures look pretty packed with people, so I'm goint to say, accounting for the roads and trees, there are at least twice as many people as there were at Penn Stadium, but there is no reason to think that the picture, even the panaromic picture, captured all the protesters.

70,000 is a ridiculous underestimation of that crowd, but thanks for challenging me to determine the scale of the area for myself. It's a good exercise in intellectual honesty.

Well Judith you have challenged me in turn. I will agree that the panorama did not capture all the protesters. Certainly, the main block of protesters is visible but, as you say, some are hidden behind trees and so on.

You adopted the measure of a "football field". You talk about "the page" and "corners" and I have no idea what you mean. You mention "the monument" which I'm guessing means the Washington Monument but that monument is nowhere near the edges of the 9/12 demonstration, far from it.

So, what does the panorama actually show? The back of the main body of the crowd is 3rd St. where two blue buses can be seen. This is easily visible in the center of the crowd picture I linked before. Traffic is also visible on this road. From that point back to the white tents near the Washington Monument is lots of empty green grass. The white tents were part of another event and people back there have no connection to the 9/12 demonstration. Similarly, the crowd can be seen ending at 3rd Street on both Maryland Ave and Pennsylvania Ave. The sides of the crowd were in the park areas between those two avenues and Independence Ave and Constitution Ave.

The main body of the crowd occupied park areas within Capitol Circle. Not completely though. Green fences can be seen restraining the crowd above the words "prevail" and "to set brush" in the panorama quote. The walkways towards the capitol were also kept clear and the clear path towards Garfield Circle is visible. Lots of cars can be seen parked on Maryland Ave, between the Capitol and 3rd St. and I presume the same is true for Pennsylvania Ave. Above the trees in front of the Museum for the American Indian, lots of green grass is visible. Above the words "keen to" a large space of pavement near Peace Circle is visible. All of this shows that the crowd did not "fill" this entire area.

According to my calculations from the scale on Google maps, the distance from Independence Ave to Constitution Ave is about 1650 feet and the distance from the curved edge of the pavement at the capitol to 3rd St. is about 1250 feet. Within that area is the reflecting pool which is about 350 x 800 feet.

1650 x 1250 = 2,062,500 square feet less 280,000 square feet for the reflecting pool = 1,782,500 square feet. We also need to take out about 102,400 square feet for the Botanical Garden which leaves 1,680,100 square feet. From that we also need to remove a significant amount of space for trees, statues, hedges, gardens, open paths, fenced off areas etc. Let's simplify and assume we have 1,600,000 square feet of "demonstrator space". That's 22,300 square feet less than the area of the Botanical Garden. Given some of the constraints already mentioned I think I am being very generous.

Some people say we should assume 6 square feet per person in the crowd. Bear in mind, that would be a space 3 feet x 2 feet for every person in the crowd.

6 square feet per person gives a crowd of 266,666 people and that would be the very highest end estimate. But, is 6 square feet per person reasonable?

Look at pictures and videos from within the demonstration itself, here:

http://novatownhall.com/2009/09/13/photos-of-9-12-project-tea-party-demonstration-in-washington-dc-september-12-2009/

What do we see? Lots and lots of empty pavement space, and lots of people taking up room with their big signs and flags. People are constantly shown, within the demonstration area, easily moving around. They are nowhere near as packed in as the fans in that stadium picture. At about 3:18 in the second video we see that the police have cordoned off a large pavement area near the Peace Circle that I noted above. I presume it was the same over at Garfield Circle. Once again, we see that assuming the outlined area is packed with people is in error.

What do we get if allow 24 square feet per person? That would mean 4 feet x 6 feet per person which seems pretty reasonable given those crowd pictures.

24 square feet per person gives us 66,666 people. That's within the estimated range that most media have adopted.

20 square feet per person (4 feet x 5 feet) = 80,000.

16 square feet per person (4 feet x 4 feet) = 100,000.

Oh, and by the way, how much personal space would 1,000,000 demonstraters have had? 1.6 square feet.

A short video of the crowd between 3rd and the reflecting pool.

Note the space available.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO4aoXG4vXs