About that cap-and-trade rally …

I wanted to make sure that Coal Tattoo readers saw the Gazette’s coverage of Saturday’s rally against the cap-and-trade bill down at the Capitol.

My buddy Paul Nyden covered it, and the Gazette’s Kenny Kemp took photographs (including the one above). They’re all available here. The quote of the day probably came from retired WVU football coach Don Nehlen:

I am a friend of coal. I am not an expert on the environment. I am not an expert on global warming. But I am a friend of coal …  This bill is bad for West Virginia. It is bad for the coal industry. And it is bad for America.

There’s also coverage of the rally, and a related event in Beckley, from West Virginia MetroNews and the Beckley Register-Herald. West Virginia Red also has coverage and video.

Recall that on Friday I write a story for Coal Tattoo about who was leading the charge on this series of protests against taking action to stem to damage from global warming.  Apparently, I hit a nerve, because Greg Thomas tweeted at me — well, he tried to tweet at me; Greg doesn’t quite have Twitter down yet (put the @ symbol before my screen name, dude) –

@ Charleston rally to protest Cap & Trade. Hey Ken Ward, our mind control is working because over 500 showed up at the town hall meeting

West Virginia Red was also tweeting that there were 500 people at the event.

Personally, I don’t like to get into big arguments over the numbers of people at a protest. As reporter, you just can’t win — somebody always says you were too high or too low, etc. And in my view, if you get 100 or 150 people even out to a rally on a Saturday in Charleston, that’s not a bad showing.

Anyway, I did want to point out that Dr. Nyden put the crowd at 400 people. But Bray Cary’s media empire put the number at half that — More than 200 rally at the state Capital against cap and trade, said the headline on WOWK-TV’s Web site. I wonder if West Virginia Read and the rest of the state’s conservative activists will complain to Bray about that …