Peace out, dawgs!

[plutherus]

A few thoughts/observations about the weekend's peace march:

1. SF Police are now saying their estimate is around 150,000 attendees, which is a slight revision of their earlier estimate of 55,000. The protest organizers estimate around 200,000. Organizers always estimate higher than the police, and I usually suspect the number to be somewhere in between. However, the paper quoted the police spokesman describing how they arrived at that estimate: They counted on one corner as the main march went by, at various times, and said there was an average of 1,000 people a minute, and that they continued passing for 170 minutes. Which would, alone, put the number above the 150,000 estimate. But there were also three other organized marches (albeit smaller) that converged in the Civic Center that day. And, also, a lot of people just went to the Civic Center on their own, without meeting at any of the four "official" locations. Not to mention the fact that BART stopped letting people off at the Embarcadero station (the main meeting place for the march) because it was too clogged for people to get in and out of, and let several trains full of people off directly at the Civic Center station, or others along the way. (I don't know the exact count, but a standard 10-car BART train can easily hold over a thousand people). I'm wondering if the protest organizers estimate might be low.

2. Yesterday, France announced they may veto any UN resolution authorizing war. Every other country except the UK said they wanted to give the inspections more time to work. This was, apparently, not what the US expected any of them to say. Nobody claimed this was related in any way to the peace marches around the world.

3. We have peace now. This was a protest *before the war even started*, as a reaction to Washington saber-rattling. I wonder what it'll be like once Bush actually starts a full-fledged invasion/occupation of Iraq?