Half a Million Syrians Protesting Today?

On this protest Friday, there are estimates that half a million Syrians turned out to protest today. The total population is only 22 million or so; if that number is real, or even approximately real, we need to pay close attention in the coming weeks, I think. I suspect that, like the Mayan calendar, Bashar al-Asad's calendar runs out in 2012.

As noted here, the Syrian protesters are going back to the first post independence flag, with a green stripe in place of the current red, and three stars instead of two. As in Libya, they're adopting a pre-UAR, pre-Ba‘ath flag as their symbol.