Restoring Honor My Ass

I just finished reading an piece by Dr. Alveda King, niece of the late Dr. Martin Luther King. She will be addressing Beck's 8/28 “Resorting Honor” rally. She's pro-life, and is currently a senior-fellow for the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. They of anti-open source software, and pro-tobacco fame.

Let's keep in mind, that Beck didn't initially realize that 8/28 was the anniversary of the great speech. It was an open date on the Park Service calendar for reserving the Lincoln Memorial

And on Thursday, Beck repeated his claim that he didn't realize he was scheduling the event on the anniversary. "I'm sorry, oh so important media, that I forgot the date," he said in a mocking tone. "It's not the date. It's the message."

Here's the list of who's invited, from Beck's own page about the rally:

The speakers include representatives from SOWF, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Dr. Alveda King and Marcus Luttrell. Jo Dee Messina will be performing as well.

Ted Nugent was supposed to have been there, but it's unclear if he is still going to perform. Michelle Bachmann will be there as well. When was Dr. Alveda King added to speak? Before or after Beck became aware of the significance of the date?

So you have this being billed as a non-political event. You have Glenn Beck (right-wing media darling). Sarah Palin (very polarizing former right-wing half-politician, and right-wing media darling). You have Michelle Bachmann (very polarizing right-wing politician). You have Dr. Alveda King (pro-life, conservative think-tank member).

Non political? It's not even remotely possible. Where are the left-leaning speakers for the event? Or even some centrists would be nice. Why are there only right-wing figures (most of whom are extremely polarizing) at the podium?

The charity, SOWF, is the Special Operations Warrior Foundation that will be footing the bill for the event, and getting to keep any profits toward their cause; which is to give scholarships to children who lost parents that were in the Special Operations forces. The organization itself, seems on the up-and-up.

However, there are questions as to how much they will really receive. Several stories, such as this one on Salon, are suggesting that this rally is more about promoting Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin than for any other purpose.

We will know soon enough how this turns out. Will there be 300,000 (or more)? My prediction is around 50,000. I also predict that Dr. Alveda King will give a nice speech. Beck will be bombastic as usual, and it won't surprise me if he repeats Dr. Martin Luther King's original speech (or borrows from it). Palin will manage to offend half the country as she often does. She will mangle her speech; some of which will be written on her hand. Bachmann will say a number of crazy things that will get her trouble, and she'll eventually blame the media for her woes.

One thing is for certain. This will be a right-wing political rally and nothing more.

Say What?

Are right wingers so ideological that they just make math mistakes in their favor, or do they just not grasp math.

Take this report from a Fox affiliate in York, Pennsylvania. They start out with the undocumented number of 300,000 will be attending the rally. Several sites I've found have been touting that number, but none claim what data they use to come up with that figure. But remember, only 300,000 total will be attending. (Emphasis added)

YORK COUNTY - - The Glenn Beck rally in Washington, DC is expected to draw 300,000 people. Local businesses are getting a boost because of it.

At Bailey's Coach in York County, all of their seats are sold out. They are chartering 5 busses and sold individual tickets to fill the rest. That's a total of more than 450,000 people heading to hear Glenn Beck.

Okay that's five motor coaches sold out, and some undetermined number more have been sold. This is a local news story, from York, Pennsylvania. The will have 450,000 attending from York alone. So based upon my math, the "rest" would be (assuming 55 passengers on a typical long-haul bus) over 8,000 additional buses. From York, Pennsylvania.

If you watch the clip you'll find out that they did in fact sell out their five buses and managed to three three (that's 3, not 8,000) more and sold those out. Doing the math of about 55 per bus, and a total of 8 buses, I come up with 440 riders. That's a far cry from the 450,000 the article claims will be going from York, to a rally that's only expected to have 300,000 attendees anyway.

I realize that typically the local Fox stations have little-to-nothing to do with Fox News. But, when Fox News routinely throws out figures as facts, and routinely makes mistakes that are always in their favor, one has to wonder if there's something in the ideology that makes them this way; or are they just that stupid.

 

More Moon

Next night.  Got the manual (and very hard-to-use) reflector lens finally
dialed in on the focus, and the results speak for themselves.

Full Moon

Full Moon, 8/24/2010