Fear? Sanity? Sanity? Fear? We'll go with...

I'll go with a little bit of insanity. For the three or four of you who weren't on the Mall on Saturday for the Rally to Restore Sanity/Keep Fear Alive, it was a bit of a, hmmm, mad house. I heard an estimate on CNN that 200,000 people attended Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's throw down this past weekend. The anchor did take a bit too much satisfaction in relaying the news this was double the number people who came for the Glen Beck event in September.

Here's my photographic journey from Saturday. I should point out, these are not the best pictures I've ever taken. It was way too crowded for that and the light was really weird. But I think they're representative, especially in that there's none of the stage or any of the performers. I never got close enough to even see the stage. I did hear a bit. The Mythbusters doing something with a wave and Colbert emerging from his Fear Bunker. Aside from that, nada.

Anyway, we got an inkling of what the Mall would be like when we weren't able to get on the first two trains that came through the station because they were so full. When we arrived at Navy Memorial/Archives, it looked a little like this:

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That was the ground-level shot with the camera held above my head. This next one is the bird's-eye view:

The signs were pretty interesting, for example:

Considering my love of The Princess Bride, this was one of my favorites:

Very funny ... Of course, considering the double meaning of the word, that might not be such a bad thing. On a side note, I can't believe there's a Wikipedia page for this.

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Another of my favorites:

Somebody also had a sign reading, "Abortions for some, tiny American flags for others," a fine nod to the Treehouse of Horrors.

I find myself in agreement with Ben on this ...

Franklin didn't say this, but I'm sure he'd agree ...

This is looking west toward the Washington Monument. I have no doubt the 200k estimate is accurate. There were, to use a technical term, a metric fuck ton of people at the rally.

Indeed...

Well, I guess this answers that question ...

Is it really worth climbing up a light post to get a better view?

Or, for that matter, a porta shitter...

There's always one asshole in every crowd ... Seriously dude ...

And the winner for one of the best costumes of the day ... You can't see it in this shot, but it was an anatomically correct penis ...

Recycling is good, unless it's a protest sign from four years ago ...

And, on a lighter note, I saw this wonderfully decorated house up on Capitol Hill. Somebody takes their Halloween seriously ...

Hope everyone who went had a good time. Now, there's one thing left to do: Get out and vote tomorrow. Going to a rally is fine, but you've got to follow up on that enthusiasm.

Vote to restore sanity tomorrow.