Tag Archives: glenn beck

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“Honor” doesn’t Include Bag Taxes

Photo courtesy of
‘does he look angry to you?’

For our second Glenn Beck rally related post of the day (forgive me) the GW Hatchet reports that a pair of rally goers didn’t take kindly to DC’s tyrannical bag tax:

“Though the rally was a mostly peaceful gathering, two rally attendees got into a heated argument with an employee at the GW Deli over the D.C. bag tax, which ultimately resulted in the tea party member throwing a sandwich in the deli employee’s face.”

The deli employee, obviously being the author of said bag tax, was a perfectly reasonable target for anti-tax rage.  The rally goes, being voting members of the District of Columbia, had every right to be angry.  All in all, an entirely measured and well reasoned outcome.

I nominate Eric Johnson and Meegs Benavidez
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All I Know is that I Know Nothing about the Size of the Rally

Photo courtesy of
‘On the hill’
courtesy of ‘theqspeaks’

Glenn Beck says that 500,000 plus attended his rally.  NBC says 300,000 people were there.  Michelle Bachman swears she saw no fewer than 1 million.  CBS estimates 87,000.  My appraisal: neither  I, nor anyone else has a clue.  It seems that we go through some form of this debate every time a sharply political rally rolls through town.  Supporters always estimate astronomical numbers while detractors offer significantly more modest figures.  The issue came to a head in 1995 when the National Park Service, who up until that point used an imprecise but fairly logical aerial imagery method for estimating crowd density (basically taking square areas of space, counting the number of individuals in that area and then extrapolating that out to include the entire square footage of the event space), was threatened with suit by Louis Farrakhan for estimating that his “Million Man March” was more like a “500,000 Man March.”   Since that time, the Park Service has refrained from calculating crowd sizes, thereby leaving the job to people who may have ulterior motives affecting their conclusions. The trouble, of course, is that the average human so rarely sees crowds in excess of a few hundred that it’s really impossible for anyone to estimate the sizes of huge crowds.  So, let’s just be honest with ourselves: there were a lot of people at the Restoring Honor rally. No one knows how many and it doesn’t really matter.

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DC: We Are More Than What Others Say We Are

Fire and Ice
‘Fire and Ice’
courtesy of ‘bhrome’

To the Tea Party tourists visiting this weekend:

We’d like to welcome you to the nation’s capital.

Please note that despite some serious misunderstanding and outrageous assumptions made beyond the Beltway, DC really is a safe city to visit. We do recommend, however, that you just avoid Baltimore completely. Think of it as our certifiably insane sibling to the north, with delusions of class. (And yes, I am kidding. We DCites do have a sense of humor, especially at Baltimore’s expense. And Philadelphia’s.)

Despite some ramblings of various cantankerous individuals, the District does have a lot to offer you on your visit. We bust a lot of myths about our fair city here on this site; please take a moment to see if we’ve answered any of the ones you’ve heard. We also showcase a lot of amazing arts, theater, restaurants, individuals, and other great things about the DC area here; I invite you to check out what else lies beyond the Mall and maybe sample some of our wares. Continue reading →