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Are you that special person who - weary from trudging the endless superhighways - just longs to camp next to a glorious oasis of the mind? Do you desire to explore new frontiers, splash in shared ideas, fill your belly with the refreshing fruits of inspiration, and bask in the gentle rays of fond reflection?

Well, you can fuck right off. This, my friends, is not that place. This place is... The ShadowLands.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Two million's a crowd

There is no question there was a huge number of people at Obama's inauguration, but was there really 1.5 (or as reported in Australia) 2 million people? Anyone who has been to a large sporting event will know that 100,000 people also looks pretty damn impressive.

If it's true that the crowd was 1.5 million, it needs to have been more than 16 times larger than this crowd of 93,000.

There is a revealing statement in the last sentence about crowd counts here - namely, they are greatly influenced by political pressure.

For these reasons, and because when it comes to crowds, journalists are generally lying liars who like to lie, The ShadowLands is willing to say with confidence - bollocks

All the same, some amazing satellite photos of the inauguration here.

UPDATE: If every individual stood a loose arm's length from each other, it "is at least physically possible to pack something approaching 2 million Americans into the 2.1-mile stretch between the Capitol steps and Lincoln's feet." However, if you check the aerial photos, you will see this is not even close.

The ShadowLands says: the crowd was about 600,000.

3 comments:

Boy on a bike said...

Take the official number and divide by 4 - that will get you close to the truth.

Anonymous said...

It's staggering how many people don't have hobbies.

Anonymous said...

Yes but
1.5 American is about (or as reported in Australia) 2 million Australian?
So it should be right, just be glad it wasn't estimated by Lancet!