DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

San Francisco hosted an anti-war demonstration on Saturday. I was suspicious and disheartened that the San Francisco Chronicle reported the crowd size at “tens of thousands of people”. See also the headline: Huge protests for peace / Tens of thousands in S.F. demand Bush abandon war plans

Within the latter article, two more estimates are given:

The protest’s organizers, an umbrella coalition called International ANSWER, or Act Now to Stop War & End Racism, estimated the crowd at 200,000. Police put the number at 55,000.

Here is the report from A.N.S.W.E.R: 200,000 March in San Francisco. I understand that it is in the organizer’s best interests to overestimate attendance. But I don’t understand why it’s in the Chronicle’s best interests to underestimate it.

Today the SFPD realized their numbers were impossibly low: Protest numbers don’t add up / Police now say 150,000 safe guess. This makes the Chronicle’s earlier headline even more irresponsible and inaccurate. Kudos to the SFPD for admitting their mistake. Kudos to the Chron for publishing the SFPD’s recount. But I’d still like to see them publish a recant.

In other Peace Rally news, here’s the Chron’s Peace Rally Photo Gallery.

Here are aerial photos (with yet-another crowd-size estimate over 100,000).

Here is a gallery of rally photos taken by Bim Lipp, a participant who according to the Chronicle’s reporting could not possibly have been in San Francisco that day, because at least “tens of thousands” of participants coming from less far away had already arrived.