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How many people will be at the 8.28 Restoring Honor Rally tomorrow in D.C.?

How many people will be at the Restoring Honor Rally?


  • Total voters
    16
  • Poll closed .
It was an anti-climatic flop.

No one will remember it a year from now.

It will never appear in any history books.

They had no clue what they wanted to say/accomplish and it just became a mish-mash of vague religious notions about restoring something. The audience had to do a lot of filling in the blanks.

Rush should have been there... or would that have been 1 too many egos on the same stage?
 
Here's perhaps a crazy thought....

Rather than one side quoting CBS and then quoting other articles REQUOTING CBS, and then the other side quoting the NYT supposedly quoting NBC without any additional backup, why not try and look at a wide range of numbers and realize that an exact estimate is likely hard to make and get a more realistic range.

Event organizers are saying 500k according to statements to the NYT.

CBS is saying between 78k and 96k based on crowd photo analysis.

CNN simply reported it filling 6 blocks, suggesting that counting it would be like counting jelly beans in a Jar.

ABC reported "more than 100,000 people".

NBC Nightly News reported "tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands".

The AP gave a conservative estimate, stating it numbered in teh "tens of thousands".

Fox News didn't give a direct number, simply refering it as "strong" or "huge" with "thousands in attendance".

LINK

The organizers seems to give the high total, which isn't surprising. CBS gives the low number on the totem pole with the under 80,000 number on their low end. ABC gives a more middle ground with the over 100,000. NBC Nightly news and Fox News seems to coincide with this with the notion of potentially hundreds of thousands. Additionally, CNN pointing out the blocks makes a good point with regards to counting based on photos when its something that long and sprawled out. It is not like the mall is in and of itself a compact area, as it extends a long way straight back from the monument while still allowing people to move off to its sides and still eaisly view.

Honestly, looking at all the various reports of it and the various photos, I would say its far more likely to be in that 100,000+ range. I think under 100,000 is likely short selling it, though going over 200,000 is likely way over selling.

Either way, I agree with what some of the others have been saying. Even if you go with the LOW estimate of CBS its still a very good turn out, let alone if you take a more moderated number in the low 100,000's. Hardly something to scoff at. I think the argument is more due to the fact one side is latching onto the highest number available as gospel truth while another is latching onto the lowest numbers, on their lowest side of their estimate, as the gospel truth.
 
Here's perhaps a crazy thought....

Rather than one side quoting CBS and then quoting other articles REQUOTING CBS, and then the other side quoting the NYT supposedly quoting NBC without any additional backup, why not try and look at a wide range of numbers and realize that an exact estimate is likely hard to make and get a more realistic range.

Event organizers are saying 500k according to statements to the NYT.

CBS is saying between 78k and 96k based on crowd photo analysis.

CNN simply reported it filling 6 blocks, suggesting that counting it would be like counting jelly beans in a Jar.

ABC reported "more than 100,000 people".

NBC Nightly News reported "tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands".

The AP gave a conservative estimate, stating it numbered in teh "tens of thousands".

Fox News didn't give a direct number, simply refering it as "strong" or "huge" with "thousands in attendance".

LINK

The organizers seems to give the high total, which isn't surprising. CBS gives the low number on the totem pole with the under 80,000 number on their low end. ABC gives a more middle ground with the over 100,000. NBC Nightly news and Fox News seems to coincide with this with the notion of potentially hundreds of thousands. Additionally, CNN pointing out the blocks makes a good point with regards to counting based on photos when its something that long and sprawled out. It is not like the mall is in and of itself a compact area, as it extends a long way straight back from the monument while still allowing people to move off to its sides and still eaisly view.

Honestly, looking at all the various reports of it and the various photos, I would say its far more likely to be in that 100,000+ range. I think under 100,000 is likely short selling it, though going over 200,000 is likely way over selling.

Either way, I agree with what some of the others have been saying. Even if you go with the LOW estimate of CBS its still a very good turn out, let alone if you take a more moderated number in the low 100,000's. Hardly something to scoff at. I think the argument is more due to the fact one side is latching onto the highest number available as gospel truth while another is latching onto the lowest numbers, on their lowest side of their estimate, as the gospel truth.

I entirely agree. As I said above, take this:

Inauguration2009Estimation.JPG


And this:

828.jpg


And do some geometry and math.
 
Looks like a lot more than 200,000 to me judging by the estimates in the first picture and comparing them to the space in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
 
I'm still kind of confused by whoever said only 200,000 were at Obama's inauguration....
 
And to help you further:

estimate.png
 
MSNBC reported right before the rally that Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman and Dick Armey were going to speak. Gee, I must have missed Bachman and Armey. Where did they get that, I wonder....?
 
Looks like a lot more than 200,000 to me judging by the estimates in the first picture and comparing them to the space in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

Glenn Beck Rally Attracts Estimated 87,000 - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

AirPhotosLive.com gave its estimate a margin of error of 9,000, meaning between 78,000 and 96,000 people attended the rally. The photos used to make the estimate were taken at noon Saturday, which is when the company estimated was the rally's high point.

Looks like CBS split the difference along their margin of error.

I haven't heard any other media dispute these numbers. Seems like most media are keeping it general.

How big was the crowd at the Glenn Beck rally?
The Glenn Beck rally on the National Mall Saturday drew between 300,000 and 500,000, according to Beck. CBS News hired a consultant with an expertise in aerial photography and came up with a total of 87,000. Other media outlets either wussed out and just said "thousands" or came up with their own estimates, mostly in the 80,000 to 200,000 range.

Counting crowds has become a political no-fly zone, and Beck, like organizers of the Million Man March and other such major Mall events, was quick to carp at the news media for failing to offer estimates as large as his own. The size of the crowd has produced divisive arguments over just about every big gathering on the Mall in recent years. (See a gallery of photos of historic crowds on the Mall here.)
 
So my wild stab in the dark - voting for the bottom poll option just for the hell of it - was likely too high.
 
Again, anyone with half a brain who looks at those pictures will say there are more than 87,000 people there.

Glenn Beck - Current Events & Politics - Restoring Honor: Crowd, Page 1


It was 3 people that looked over the aerial photos to come up with that consensus estimate, so even if they only had half a brain each there was a combined brainpower of 1.5.

Picture #2 - there are people underneath the trees that you can't see from this perspective.

From one of the three half brains who counted the crowd:

Yes, I included the crowd areas under the trees; the full-size Airphotolive images were detailed enough to discern the edges of the crowd even there.

The rest of his write up expounding on the whole issue is a rather interesting read IMO:

Fulbright in Portugal » Blog Archive » Counting heads

dismiss it if you want, but this appears to be the most methodologically sound estimate out there (close second is Bachmann claiming that she was there and saw it and will accept nothing less than a million) -and yes it is still an estimate, so take it with a grain of salt, but I personally will use the majority of my salt grains on the others that just seem to be wild speculation.

all in all the entire crowd size bickering is petty.. a lot of people showed up, a respectable amount went to a good charity, Beck proselytized, people ate it up, others scratched their head and wondered how some people can be so gullible, and I am sure Beck's radio program, tv show, book sales, tshirt sales, and University enrollment saw a nice spike out of the deal.
 
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To many. They will be there to drink the koolaid, buy some overpriced goldline coins, and die a little inside for helping Beck make some money off of someone else's back just like he did with the 9/12 bs.

I love your centrist thinking. :lamo
 
MSNBC reported right before the rally that Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman and Dick Armey were going to speak. Gee, I must have missed Bachman and Armey. Where did they get that, I wonder....?

Every day I have to laugh (or cry) at how wrong MSNBC gets things. Most of it, I think is intentional (like the racist map thing to Becks rally) However, I think they need to start trying to be a little more accurate or stop spending so much time bashing Fox. MSNBC is about as unbelievable as they come.
 
Every day I have to laugh (or cry) at how wrong MSNBC gets things. Most of it, I think is intentional (like the racist map thing to Becks rally) However, I think they need to start trying to be a little more accurate or stop spending so much time bashing Fox. MSNBC is about as unbelievable as they come.

Geez as I just hit send Ed Shultz MSNBC just chopped the hell out of the clip with Beck and Wallace on Beck saying Obama was racist.
MSNBC you should be ashamed of yourself
 
All I can say, after stomaching about 5 minutes of info about the revival in DC, is that I'm even more happy now that I wasted absolutely no time reading about this religious activism stunt. It was pretty much what I pegged it to be: Perfectly pointless and meaningless.
 
All I can say, after stomaching about 5 minutes of info about the revival in DC, is that I'm even more happy now that I wasted absolutely no time reading about this religious activism stunt. It was pretty much what I pegged it to be: Perfectly pointless and meaningless.

Hey, you're only about two hours away. We should have lunch. :lol:
 
Glenn Beck Rally Attracts Estimated 87,000 - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

Looks like CBS split the difference along their margin of error.

I haven't heard any other media dispute these numbers. Seems like most media are keeping it general.


It was 3 people that looked over the aerial photos to come up with that consensus estimate, so even if they only had half a brain each there was a combined brainpower of 1.5.

All you boys have to do is look at the pics.

estimate.png


828.jpg


There's no magic to USA Today's methodology; they took the actual area and estimated at a person per 2.5 square feet. That's simple math.

The north glen alone is about half the size of the area estimated to hold 946,000. So, be conservative, round it down, say 400,000.

In the pic, it's filled, but not very densely, so say 1/4 of the density contemplated. That's 100,000 people right there.

The mall area, too, is almost that size; also being conservative, if it were all solid ground, it too would hold about 400,000. The reflecting pool takes up about 75% of the space, but of the people there, it IS densely packed, so it's a pretty fair estimation that it, too, is about 100,000.

That doesn't include the people around the memorial, around the middle pool, in the pathways, and obscured by the trees.

So, looks like at least 200,000 to me, through simple, conservative calculations.

And I really don't even care how many are actually there; I'm just fascinated with the need of some people to diminish it as much as possible and not admit it could possibly have been more than the lowest estimate one could find.
 
There's no magic to USA Today's methodology; they took the actual area and estimated at a person per 2.5 square feet. That's simple math.

square root(2.5) = 1.58113883 1.6 x 1.6 for eaxh person? You've got to be kidding me, how do they breath when they are that close. BTW, Michelle Backmann says there was at least 1 Million there. She must go fishing a lot. :lamo
 
square root(2.5) = 1.58113883 1.6 x 1.6 for eaxh person? You've got to be kidding me, how do they breath when they are that close.

Your body isn't a square, so you don't figure a square. :roll:

BTW, Michelle Backmann says there was at least 1 Million there. She must go fishing a lot. :lamo

Like I give a crap what Michelle Bachmann says.
 
All you boys have to do is look at the pics.

This is exactly what the cbs commissioned estimate did, looked at the pics, broke it up into grids, estimated density for each section of the grid (as opposed to the blanket density you are promoting). simple math.. which you touted in your post takes account that density is not a constant but rather a variable.

from one of the analysts:

to make density estimates across different zones of the crowd; a variety of ground-level images from news photographers and attendees who posted their photos on Flickr; and Google Earth to measure the square footage of the different zones...

...My estimate is that about 80,000 people were at the rally. Ryan Shuler, an Airphotoslive image analyst, used the same images and a different grid-density method to produce an estimate of 87,000. Considering the error margins around our separately-calculated estimates, they are statistically identical.

Is their estimate correct? probably not, it is an estimate as I stated, but also as I stated it appears to be the most methodologically sound estimate out there.

The correct answer to how many people were there: quite a few.. and we have no way of knowing so we just have to go with the most reasonable guesstimate. I choose to put more stock in the methodology of a guesstimate that employs integrating the density and not treating it as a constant, and then uses a statistical comparison of independent findings to gauge the accuracy, over "X sq ft * 2.5 = estimate."

I did not do this out of a need to promote the low ball number, I jut saw the bickering, became curious, looked into it, and came to the conclusion that their methods were fairly sound, although the entire art of crowd estimates is basically guesswork, the arialphotos estimate at least seems to attempt to make the most accurate guess they could, and to try to make it as sound as they could.
 
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An addendum to my previous post.. I was curious of how CBS got their numbers because their estimate felt like it was a lowball, and seemed a bit off.

After reading the process behind it from one of the estimators who was involved, I started to become not so sure.. I still feel as if their estimates are a tad low, and again I make the disclaimer I have made previously that I think they should be taken with a grain of salt, it is just after satiating my curiosity of the matter I also feel their methods to get their estimate are sound, and it seems they attempted to make their guess as scientific and as accurate as they possibly could, and as such I started to think that they may not be so far off after all.. it is still a guess though.
 
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All you boys have to do is look at the pics.

estimate.png


828.jpg


There's no magic to USA Today's methodology; they took the actual area and estimated at a person per 2.5 square feet. That's simple math.

The north glen alone is about half the size of the area estimated to hold 946,000. So, be conservative, round it down, say 400,000.

In the pic, it's filled, but not very densely, so say 1/4 of the density contemplated. That's 100,000 people right there.

The mall area, too, is almost that size; also being conservative, if it were all solid ground, it too would hold about 400,000. The reflecting pool takes up about 75% of the space, but of the people there, it IS densely packed, so it's a pretty fair estimation that it, too, is about 100,000.

That doesn't include the people around the memorial, around the middle pool, in the pathways, and obscured by the trees.

So, looks like at least 200,000 to me, through simple, conservative calculations.

And I really don't even care how many are actually there; I'm just fascinated with the need of some people to diminish it as much as possible and not admit it could possibly have been more than the lowest estimate one could find.
In that second pic, there's noticeable greenness in some areas - And unless all that green is people wearing completely grass-colored clothing and skin paint, I see grass.

One person per 2.5 square feet is a bit tight, considering the green; I would say about one person per 10 square feet.

10.00 square feet = A square ~ 3.16 x 3.16 feet, plenty of space for a person (unless REALLY large).
 
In that second pic, there's noticeable greenness in some areas - And unless all that green is people wearing completely grass-colored clothing and skin paint, I see grass.

One person per 2.5 square feet is a bit tight, considering the green; I would say about one person per 10 square feet.

10.00 square feet = A square ~ 3.16 x 3.16 feet, plenty of space for a person (unless REALLY large).

There was a lot of open space, I was able to drive my car right up close to the stage...

wtf-pics-grass-salesman.jpg
 
In that second pic, there's noticeable greenness in some areas - And unless all that green is people wearing completely grass-colored clothing and skin paint, I see grass.

One person per 2.5 square feet is a bit tight, considering the green; I would say about one person per 10 square feet.

10.00 square feet = A square ~ 3.16 x 3.16 feet, plenty of space for a person (unless REALLY large).

I think that's why Harshaw calculated this rally as having 1/4 of the density.
 
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