Entries Tagged 'September 11, 2001' ↓

…from Alec:

A petition to stop the crescent memorial is now being circulated on the ground in western Pennsylvania. As a complement to this old fashioned canvassing effort, an electronic petition has also been created at ipetitions.com. Please circulate far and wide!

The petitions highlight four cases of apparent Islamic symbolism in the memorial design. Here is the text (electronic):

Call for Congressional investigation of Islamic symbolism in the Flight 93 memorial

Many features of the chosen Flight 93 Memorial design are intolerable:

1. THE GIANT CRESCENT. The centerpiece of the original “Crescent of Embrace” design was a giant red Islamic shaped crescent. Every particle of this original crescent design remains completely intact in the so-called redesign, which only added a few irrelevant trees. The giant crescent is still there.

2. IT POINTS TO MECCA. The giant crescent points to Mecca. A crescent that Muslims face into to face Mecca is called a “mihrab,” and is the central feature around which every mosque is built. The Flight 93 Memorial is on track to become the world’s largest mosque.

3. THE ISLAMIC SUNDIAL. The minaret-like Tower of Voices is a year-round accurate Islamic prayer-time sundial (one of many typical mosque features that are realized in the crescent design, all on the same epic scale as the half mile wide central crescent).

4. THE 44 BLOCKS. There are 44 glass blocks on the flight path, equaling the number of passengers, crew, AND terrorists.

Intentional or not, these features are entirely unacceptable. This travesty must stop and investigations must begin.

1. We the undersigned call on our state and federal legislators to undertake their own thorough and independent investigations of the Flight 93 Memorial design. The truth must come out.
2. We ask that the crescent design be scraped entirely and that it be replaced with a new design that is not tainted by Islamic or terrorist memorializing symbolism.
3. We demand a fitting and proper memorial that HONORS the brave men and women of Flight 93.

Please take a minute to electronically sign this petition. All signatures collected by the end of April will be printed out and delivered to the May 3rd public meeting of the Memorial Project, along with Xeroxes of the hand-signed petitions.

That is just the start. There will be another public meeting in August, where we hope to present a much larger pile of petitions, and all signatures will eventually be delivered to the Pennsylvania state legislature and to Congress. Keep sending until the crescent design is stopped!

In the short term, we have a number of supporters in the Pennsylvania legislature at this point who are working to gain backing for an investigation. A demonstration of public demand should help that effort.

The paper petition

In order to make the paper petition self-sufficient, there is a second page, to be printed on the back of the petition, that provides explanations and graphical documentation of the four highlighted cases of Islamic symbolism. The idea is to have a petition that can circulate virally. Anyone can print it out and have enough information right on the petition itself to know that the objections are legitimate. (Mailing instructions are also included.)

Here are the back-side explanations of the four intolerable features:

1. THE GIANT CRESCENT

The original Crescent of Embrace design was a giant Islamic shaped crescent with the crash site placed between the crescent tips, in the position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag:

The redesign was supposed to eliminate these Islamic symbol shapes, but as Congressman Tom Tancredo wrote to the Park Service in November 2007, these features remain completely intact in the so-called redesign, which only disguised the crescent with a few additional trees. Architect Paul Murdoch’s refusal to eliminate the Islamic symbol shapes suggests intent, but intentional or not, these symbol shapes are unacceptable. Congressman Tancredo is now calling for the crescent design to be scrapped in its entirety, and we join in that request.

2. IT POINTS TO MECCA

Several credible analysts have found that a person facing directly into the giant crescent (still present in the redesign) will be facing almost exactly at Mecca:

The green “qibla” circle in the graphic above is from the prayer-direction calculator at Islam.com. It shows the direction to Mecca from Somerset PA (ten miles from the crash site). The red arrow shows that a person standing between the crescent tips and facing into the center of the crescent will be facing almost exactly at Mecca.

This Mecca orientation claim must be authoritatively investigated and answered. If it is true that the crescent points to Mecca, and hence can serve as an Islamic prayer direction indicator (the central feature around which every mosque is built), then whether this construct was intentional or not, it indelibly taints the design.

3. THE ISLAMIC SUNDIAL

Anyone can see the overt similarity between a traditional Islamic sundial (left-hand image) and Tower of Voices part of the Flight 93 Memorial (right-hand image):

When the shadow of the traditional sundial reaches the outer curved vertical in this photo, it will be time for Islamic afternoon prayers. Shadow calculations confirm that, on any day of the year, when the shadow of the 93 foot tall crescent shaped Tower of Voices reaches the inner arc of trees, it will also be time for Islamic afternoon prayers.

4. THE FORTY-FOUR BLOCKS

Tom Burnett Sr. does not want Tom Junior’s name inscribed on one of the 44 translucent blocks that are to be emplaced along the flight path. Forty-four is the number of passengers, crew, AND terrorists:

The left side of this graphic shows the Memorial Wall, which follows the path of Flight 93 down to the point of impact. At eye level are 43 glass blocks. Forty are inscribed with the names of the 40 heroes. Three are inscribed with the 9/11 date.

Right-hand image: the 44th glass block sits at the end of the Entry Portal Walkway, where the flight path crosses the upper crescent tip. It marks the spot where, in architect Paul Murdoch’s description, the terrorists broke our humanitarian circle, turning it into a giant (Islamic shaped) crescent. This circle-breaking, crescent-creating feat is memorialized by the inscription: “A field of honor forever.”

The Park Service dismisses the suspicious block count on the grounds that the 44th glass block is much larger than the others. Mr. Burnett is not comforted by the magnificence of the 44th block, and neither are we. This design must be stopped, and investigations must be launched!

Other petition formats

The same four intolerable features are described in the annotated “Map of Betrayal” that was the subject of one of last month’s blogbursts. Thus the map makes a perfectly serviceable back side for the petition, providing an alternative petition/flyer combination.

The information on the map is denser than the explanations above, but has its own intrigue, showing how the different terrorist memorializing parts fit together like an elaborate puzzle.

The petition being circulated on the ground now in Pennsylvania is still another variation. It has slightly different wording than the electronic petition, and slightly different explanations of the four points than presented above. All the different formats are interchangeable. They all highlight the same four objectionable features, and they will all be delivered together to state and federal legislators.

Until we get a Congressional investigation, the petition will be an ongoing tool for raising awareness and registering opposition. If you participate in any activist fora or email lists, please forward the text and links along. (The electronic and paper-petition links are collected together on this petition Page at CrescentOfBetrayal.com.)

Alec Rawls did a 45 minute interview with Washington D.C talk-radio host Joe Ardinger Saturday night (3-8-08, Segment 3).

“It rips,” says Alec. “We exposed a lot of the terrorist memorializing parts of the Flight 93 Memorial, and went over the clear proofs of intent that architect Paul Murdoch included in the design.”

Joe’s interests: “Ghosts, UFO’s, The Lizard People from The Hollow Earth, Politics, True Crime, Conspiracies, you get the idea…” If he wants outlandish, the truth about the Flight 93 Memorial is tops, which could just make Joe the man for the Job.

Alec knows nothing about the Lizard People, or Joe’s politics, but this issue ought to transcend all domestic divides, and for Joe it certainly does. “Very fun interview,” says Alec: “Joe is a great host, and he says he wants to keep after this.”

That’s excellent. Thank you Joemericans!

(If Joe’s 3-8-08 Segment 3 link ever disappears, there is a backup copy here.)

To join our blogbursts, email Cao (caoilfhionn1 at gmail dot com) with your blog’s url.

Pennsylvanians know about the Islamic symbolism in the Flight 93 Memorial, and have stopped donating. The first indication came last September when State Senator Jane Orie came aboard as a fundraiser. She got a quick education in growing controversy.

In a 9/11 radio interview with Pittsburgh talker Fred Honsberger, Orie explained why she hoped the Flight 93 families would get back together and revisit their design choice:

Orie: “No matter who it is, and no matter where I went today for 9/11 events, everybody brought up this crescent. Whether it is intentional or not, it is disturbing to people.”

Honsberger: “So everyone is bringing it up to you.”

Orie: “Absolutely.”

At that time, the Memorial Project had collected about $12.5 million, far short of the huge design’s anticipated 60 million dollar price tag. Six months later the amount sits at “A little more than $12 million.” It is possible that they are actually spending more on their fundraising efforts than they are raising.

Bill Steiner, who has been rustling up opposition on the ground in PA, dropped by Somerset recently and had a conversation with Memorial Project Superintendent Joanne Hanley. She appeared beleaguered, and confided that fundraising was sluggish, suggesting that the memorial would probably have to be built in stages. Presumably she meant something other than the normal stages of building, but was anticipating delays.

Now this week the Somerset Daily American has an editorial complaining that the whole state seems to be dumping on Somerset County, bemoaning amongst other things the lack of funding for the Flight 93 Memorial.

This is not the preferred way to stop architect Paul Murdoch’s terroist memorial mosque from being built. The damn thing ought to just be stopped by those in government who are in a position to stop it, so that a new and fitting design can be selected. At that point, money will be needed, but for now, with Murdoch in full command of the hijacked memorial, lack of money is what is needed. Starving the engines of fuel is one way to keep the hijacker from reaching his target, and until the hijacker is stopped, nothing else matters.

The people get it, and are voting with their pocketbooks. When are our our elected representatives going to step up and do their part?

Senator Orie is not the only Pennsylvania state legislator who has expressed concern, but Congressman Tancredo is as yet the only politician to actually call for the crescent design to be scrapped. If our representatives can’t be leaders, can’t they at least be followers?

To join our blogbursts, email Cao (caoilfhionn1 at gmail dot com) with your blog’s url.

Click thumbnail to view high-resolution flyer (300dpi) in PDF format. Fits letter size paper. Suitable for “flyering” your town or campus.

From the Perspective of a Lifelong Republican

By CzechRebel

Well, if you want to consider the 21st century to have begun January 1, 2000, it would be a tough choice between Clinton and Bush, as Clinton’s last thirteen months in office were pretty hideous. More traditionally, though, we have considered the year ‘01 to be the actual beginning of each century. From that perspective, while Clinton’s last three weeks in office were no improvement over the rest of those eight years, the damage he managed to do in that time period was trivial by comparison.

But if any president in the next 92 years really wants to look worse than George W. Bush, he or she is going to have to work pretty hard at destroying the Republican Party; promoting the socialist agenda in the United States; aiding and abetting Islamic terrorism; planting “time bombs” in the economy that are set to go off after he or she leaves office; promoting tyranny against the American people; destroying our relationship with the one nation on the planet that has most in common with us and that has the strongest reasons to be our ally; and last, but certainly not least, supporting a criminal gang of Islamic terrorists in establishing a stronghold in the Balkans.

Destroying the Republican Party

In January of 2001, an historic event took place. Or so we thought. A supposedly conservative Republican became President with the backing of a conservative Republican Congress. What could have been better? Cut taxes, raise revenue, promote business growth, provide jobs, cut federal regulation, recognize States’ rights. But George W turned out to be no Ronald Reagan.

We got some temporary tax cuts, slow to take effect and all too quick to expire. Most notably, the draconian death tax, enacted right out of the Communist Manifesto, will spring back to life soon after Bush leaves office. And every Republican in Congress was told to be a “good Republican” and back the President’s plan rather than hold their ground and insist on something better - so such legislation passed.

George W let Ted Kennedy, one of the leading Senate Communists in all but name, write an education bill that firmly entrenched left-wing propaganda into our youth “re-education camps” - otherwise known as “public schools.” And every Republican in Congress was told to be a “good Republican” and back the President’s plan; so such legislation passed.

The list goes on and on. The end result is that Republicans looked more and more like socialists, and less and less like Conservatives, and - surprise! The party lost the Congressional majority that countless Conservatives had worked decades to achieve.

If George W does not get invited to speak at Democratic convention this summer, it will be a sign of the Democrats’ ungratefulness. After all, no one has done so much to bolster the Democratic Party since FDR!

Promoting a Socialist Agenda

You would think that allowing legislation that cuts taxes for a few years, only to bring them back with a vengeance, not to mention the “No Child Left to Grow Up Without Socialist Indoctrination” legislation, would be enough. But not for George W, he stood by passively and allowed a major frontal assault on freedom of political speech in the form of the McCain-Feingold Act. Yes, THAT McCain – he is an enemy of the freedoms that this blog seeks to protect. Under the new law, the leftist news media can say what they will, but all other will be under the gun of government-controlled censors. It’s ironic – and obviously no accident - that John McCain seems to be one of the three finalists to replace George W as America’s next dictator.

George W let pork-barrel spending run wild, and in doing so, he has betrayed the legacy of his party, and he has betrayed the principles of limited government embodied in the Constitution he swore to uphold. Thirty years ago, everyone knew that the Republicans were fiscally conservative and many leftists feared their rise to power would finally doom socialism in America. Would that it were so!

Twenty years ago, we had already seen some hypocrisy from a Republican-controlled Senate. Even so, Ronald Reagan’s veto pen had pretty much kept the GOP’s image intact, no matter who was in control of Congress. However, in this decade, little boy Bush did not even have the guts to veto his own Republican party’s pork-barrel spending. Now, there is no longer any major party in America that Eugene Debs would have hesitated to embrace. Thanks, George W!

Of course, if George W had ever bothered to read the Constitution, and the Articles of Confederation that preceded it, he would have known that the primary task of the federal government is, and has always been, to secure the homeland. No, like a true socialist, this Georgie Porgie el presidente created a new bureaucracy to do the job that he had already taken an oath to do. Now we have a Department of Homeland Security, multiplying layers of bureaucracy, providing another arena for turf battles, and putting even more roadblocks in the channels of communications. Just try getting rid of that outsized and pointless boondoggle. No matter how well, or indeed how poorly, the DHS does its job – that department will remain in power. So we have more bureaucrats, more spending, more taxes to support it and more socialism, thanks to the present US dictator.

Aiding and Abetting Islamic Terrorism

On September 11, 2001, Islamic terrorists flew four kamikaze missions against US targets. George W was either too stupid to notice that fact that the terrorists were Mohammedans, or he simply wanted to aid and abet their cause. But then, his family is in the oil business. If he forgets for an instant which side his bread is buttered on, they’ll remind him.

So George W sidestepped the issue. He declared war on “terrorism” rather than on the terrorists themselves and their hate organization, which we allow to masquerade as a religion. Make no mistake about it, Islam and religion, as the rest of the world defines religion, have nothing in common. You don’t see Baptists hijacking planes and flying them into buildings. You don’t see Jains strapping on suicide belts and walking into places were they can kill innocent civilians. You don’t see Hindus killing people for having left their faith. You don’t see Buddhists blowing up trains in Spain. You don’t see Jews getting all bent out of whack because someone makes a political cartoon that includes Moses.

But you do see followers of Mohammad doing all these things, and other heinous things besides. And it happens often. George W. had a golden opportunity to expose Islam for the hate organization that it is now, and has been for 1400 years.

Yet, he praised Islam after 9-11. Instead of interning the enemy, as FDR had the courage to do during World War II, he invited one of them to pray with us right after the horrible event. It should surprise no one that the imam he invited, Hamza Yusuf, turned out to be no moderate at all, but a radical Wahhabist convert who played George W for all he’s worth. And then there’s George W’s other friend, Imam Hassan Qazwini, closely linked to various Islamist organizations in the US.

He even aided and abetted the relatives of Osama bin Laden in their efforts to leave the US, post 9-11. We must agree with our liberal friends on one thing they often say – though not for the reasons they claim. George W. is, in fact, a terrorist, because he aids and abets terrorists.

Economic Time Bombs

1389, the primary admin of this blog, has a degree in economics, and she would not allow the following data to be posted on this blog if she were not 100% certain that it is true. High taxes discourage economic activity. It’s the working poor, those of modest income, those who are in debt, and most of the middle class, who really suffer when taxes are high. When taxes are low, economic activity is stimulated and those at the bottom benefit the most from those opportunities. (Politicians like to talk about “soaking the rich” – but when was the last time a poor person hired anybody? And anyway, rich people will never pay that much in taxes, no matter what you do. They are comparatively few in number. Moreover, they are mostly smart people and that is why they are rich!)

Bush could have insisted that his tax cuts, especially the estate tax cuts, must remain permanent. He did not. After all, “we can always do that later.” Well, later came and no one has been in a tax cutting mood. Income taxes will increase. Estate taxes will revert to what they had been, back in the day when you could still get something for a dollar or so. Tax shelters and estate planning will prevent the rich from losing anything. Middle class families, especially small businesses and family farms, will suffer, as they always do when taxes go up.

Historians don’t always understand economics, so they may even make George W look as though he was a “good president” for the economy. But unless someone steps to the plate, which seems mighty unlikely, economic woes are soon to follow.

Anti-Semitism

We’re tired of hearing the widespread myth that “the Jews” control the media and American thought, and that, because of their influence, US policy is highly pro-Israel. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. The US is no ally of Israel, not by any stretch of the imagination. Israel had no problem caring for itself before America supposedly became its “ally”. Witness the way Israel defended itself in 1948, 1967 and 1973. American became its “ally” and convinced it to give back territory. (Note that Israel never asks the US to give Texas or California back to Mexico.) Anybody with normal powers of observation can figure out that, ever since the Carter Administration, it’s petrodollars that have been doing the talking.

Israel is a tiny strip of land surround by Islamic states. Only 7/24 vigilance and sheer determination to survive secures this Jewish homeland. The Arabs have many countries in which to live. Yet, a number of these Arabs have been camping out in Israel – mostly in the hopes of a better economic future than what was available in Muslim-controlled lands – and calling themselves “Palestinians.” Well, the Romans did start calling Judaea “Palestine” and anyone living there when it was called that – including Christians and Jews, had they thought in those terms – would have had every right to call themselves “Palestinians.” But that cannot make “Palestinian” an ethnic identity any more than living in New York City could create an ethnic identity of New Yorkers.

Yet, George W still insists on squandering tax dollars on financial aid to the Palestinian terrorists, who are our enemies. He even supports providing them a terrorist base so they have a safe haven from which to kill more Jews. Calling it a “homeland for the Palestinians” is like calling the area around Auschwitz a homeland for the caretakers of a concentration camp.

Make no mistake about it, support for a Palestinian “homeland” is vile anti-Semitism, and serves as proof that George W is every bit as anti-Semitic as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

Anti-Patriot Acts

It is clear to anyone who has at least half a brain, or who has any reading comprehension ability at all, that radical Islam has declared war on the US. Osama bin Laden’s fatwa against the US was in the news well before 9-11. And there was no question about what he meant – none at all. He meant to destroy us, and his followers still mean to do exactly that. And the only way to change their minds is to defeat them.

In World War II, after the Empire of Japan perpetrated an act of war on the US, Japanese-Americans who remained loyal to the Emperor of Japan, and other Japanese-Americans who wished to remain on the West Coast, were watched very carefully. Many were interned. Those who were decidedly in support of the Japanese war efforts were even held as foreign enemies. We won the war and very few of them bothered to complain. They knew what was at stake and they were willing to help the US war effort in that fashion.

FDR never even thought of stripping all Americans of their basic rights and their financial privacy. But George W has done exactly that. Much as I detest FDR, I have to say he was a better man than George W in this regard.

The Holy Land of Kosovo

George W promised to remove US troops from the Balkans, and to honor the treaty with the Serbian people that ended the 1999 Kosovo War (a/k/a the Kumanovo treaty or UN Security Council Resolution 1244). Did he keep his promise? No way! Camp Bondsteel is still alive and well. The Serbs should have known better than to trust the US to honor a treaty. Ask any American Indian. Once you disarm, withdraw, or abandon your struggle in any way, the tendency is for the US to keep whatever the other side gave, and to keep on doing whatever it had been doing. We had expected George W to be a man of character and to keep the agreement with the Serbs. But clearly, little boy Bush has no character.

According to the Kumanovo treaty that ended the 1999 Kosovo War, the Serbs had the right to move their forces back into Kosovo to protect their church property and to protect their people who had been abandoned when the KFOR peacekeeping troops took over that war-torn Serbian province. The Serbs were willing to fight to the finish, perhaps to the last living person, to keep Kosovo as part of their homeland.

When the Clinton Administration had so depleted the American conventional arsenal that the security of US interests elsewhere had been severely compromised, Clinton and company finally agreed to Slobodan Milosevic’s original terms of peace. For some reason, the same wonder weapons that allowed the US to devastate Saddam Hussein’s forces in the 1991 Gulf War were making little, if any, dent in Serbia’s commitment to keep Kosovo as part of Serbia. Yet, the dumb-dumb son of the earlier President Bush, who claimed to be a Christian himself, never could understand that Christian people of Serbia were very committed to keeping the most important part of Serbia as part of Serbia.

Well, yes, it may be hard for anyone who is not a Serb to understand the importance of Kosovo to the Serbian people. Kosovo is the place where the Serbian people pledged themselves and one another to serve the Lord. That is not a familiar concept these days! It may even be impossible for anyone who is not an Orthodox Christian to understand it fully. However, it would be liking telling any Christian—be he Roman Catholic, Protestant or anyone else who adheres to the traditional definition of the faith, as agreed upon in the Seven Councils—to preach the Gospel, but to leave out the part about God walking on Earth as a mortal man and the part about Jesus Christ rising from the dead. There simply would be nothing left.

Kosovo is Serbia. Those words are embedded in the heart of every Serb I have ever met, and trust me, I have met many of them. To a Serb, Serbia is Kosovo – just as, to a Serb or any other Christian, the Gospel message is our Lord coming to Earth as a mortal man and Jesus Christ having risen from the dead.

Yet, because of George W’s love for the pseudo-religion, or rather, the expansionist totalitarian ideology, of Islam, George W recognized the claim of radical Mohammedans that Kosovo should be torn away from Serbia and placed under the rule of a criminal gang of thugs who were nothing less than the local branch of al Qaeda.

The Friend of Terrorists

Clearly, George W. Bush prefers Islam over Christianity. He prefers helping al Qaeda to honoring his oath of office and his pledge to uphold the Constitution. He is obviously working on behalf of al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists, both in the Israel and in the Balkans. In siding with terrorists, he has become one himself.

So, we must agree with our liberal friends on this one point – though our reasons are, of course, very different. We at 1389 Blog consider George W. Bush to be every bit as much a terrorist as those nineteen quasi-human wastes of protoplasm who flew hijacked airliners into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.

Links:

• Category Link: Articles by CzechRebel on 1389 Blog
  (Note: To page back through the archive of older articles in a category link, please scroll down and click
  the ← Previous Entries link at the bottom of the page.)
• Category Link: Balkans for Dummies Series on 1389 Blog
• Category Link: Articles about the Balkans
• Category Link: Articles about Kosovo
• Category Link: Articles about Orthodox Christianity
• Category Link: Articles about Serbia
• Never Knew that the Church was Orthodox
• What Happened in 1389?
• Kosovo News and Views Roundup 2/23/08
• Serbianna News (feed widget available; see 1389 Blog sidebar)
• AFP: Man Killed At US Embassy In Belgrade Was Serb Student
• AP: UN shoots at Kosovo Serbs
• AP: Serbia hunts down rioters
• AFP: Czech President Fears Post-Kosovo Separatist Snowball
• Israel Matzav: Kosovo: First they came for the Jews?
• Daily Record - George Galloway: We’re On The Brink Of A Balkan Bloodbath
• Chronicles - Serge Trifkovic: Kosovo as a Symbol of Anti-Postmodernism
• Chronicles - Serge Trifkovic: Kosovo: A New Day of Infamy for a New Century
• Political Mavens - Julia Gorin: The Serbian “Myth” of Greater Albania Strikes Again
• Doctor Bulldog and Ronin: Kosovo Recognition a Tricky Question
• Dhimmi Watch: Fjordman: Why We Should Oppose an Independent Kosovo
• “NATO has become the aggressor”: The Case of Kosovo and Metohija, by Bishop Artemije
• Victory or Death: Kosovo
• Victory or Death: London Demonstration
• Victory or Death: Towards Renewal and Renaissance

Flight 93 is the symbol of our woken vigilance. We are supposed to be alert now, to jihadist enemies that hide amongst us, pretending to be trustworthy friends.

Those charged with the memorialization of Flight 93 have instead embraced an anti-spirit of Flight 93, regarding vigilance as somehow beyond the pale even of contemplation.

Listen to the words of Clay Mankamyer, one of the founders of the Flight 93 Memorial Project, describing the Project’s reaction to warnings of Islamic symbolism in the Crescent of Embrace design. They asked the accused architect Paul Murdoch about it. They agreed with him that it was "too big a stretch" to think that he had conspired to intentionally include Islamic symbolism, and so they decided that: "we’re just not going to address the issue." They made an up-front decision NOT to look at the facts.

Here is the audio (50 seconds) followed by a transcript:

The controversy then arose. When I first heard it, it was a street preacher who had drawn attention to the similarities to the red crescent, and when you heard what he had to say about it, and looked at the design, there were without a doubt some striking similarities. He went to, I went to, Paul Murdoch and expressed some concern and wondered what they were going to do about it. Their decision was that, well, certainly everybody is going to see that any similarity is going to be just coincidental and it’s too big a stretch to think that anybody conspired to create anything but a memorial to the heroes who WON the battle that fateful morning, and so they decided that, ‘we’re just not going to address the issue.’

Mankamyer is not ideologically disposed to be politically correct. He is a conservative Christian patriot, speaking in this instance to a Christian Coalition meeting (recorded by Bill Steiner, with the knowledge and permission of those in attendance, 9-18-2007, Greensburg PA). What seems to be operating here is a generous spirit of goodwill, unwilling to believe anything bad about this architect they had all worked with and put their trust in.

Goodwill only towards the man accused of an enemy plot

The problem is that Mankamyer et al. failed to similarly give the benefit of the doubt to those who were issuing warnings about the design. If they had treated the critics as credible people too, they would have let the facts decide, and Murdoch’s dishonesty would have been quickly exposed.

When the controversy over the crescent name and shape first erupted, Murdoch denied that his giant crescent had the same shape as an Islamic crescent:

Theirs is a lunar crescent. Ours isn’t based on that.

Oh yeah? Zombie posted a "throbbing crescent" animation (no longer active) that showed otherwise, and Michelle Malkin broadcast it to the online masses. Here is a three panel re-creation:

"Throb on" shows the Tunisian crescent, matching the geometry of the Crescent of Embrace almost exactly: about 2/3rds of a circle of arc, with a circular inner arc. (Most definitely NOT a lunar crescent, which covers half a circle of arc and has an elliptical inner arc.) "Throb off" shows bare crescent site plan. (Click pic for larger image.)

All that people like Mankamyer had to do was actually look at what people were telling them and they would have known immediately that Murdoch was deceiving them. Instead, they explicitly decided that they were NOT going to look at the facts. They extended good will only to the man who was accused of perpetrating an enemy plot, while extending nothing but ill will towards his accusers.

"A shrine to Micky Mouse"

Mankamyer’s presentation includes some wrenching examples of just how willfully blind he and others have become as they continued down their chosen fact-free path. Listen to the crazy excuse he comes up with for not being concerned about the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent (ten seconds):

You see what we are up against though. I could come in here and say… I could draw a point from this window to that window, and it goes right to Orlando Florida and this is a shrine to Micky Mouse. [laughter]

This is clever? A Mecca-oriented crescent or arch shape is the central feature around which every mosque is built. A line across two windows does not orient anything, and the scumbags who hijacked Flight 93 did not pray to Micky Mouse five times a day.

Of course Mankamyer was intentionally offering the stupidest example he could concoct as a way of suggesting that it is just as stupid to be concerned about planting a giant Mecca-oriented crescent on the Flight 93 crash site. If he had said that directly everyone in the room would have been disgusted, so instead he made the most disingenuous comparison he could come up with.

This is what their spirit of goodwill has degenerated into: pure malignant bias.

They all know about the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent

Notice that Mankamyer does not deny the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent. This squares with what Flight 93 Advisory Commission member Tim Baird told Alec Rawls in July 2007: that everyone involved in the Memorial Project is fully aware that the giant crescent does in fact point within two degrees of Mecca. They all just have excuses for why they are not concerned about it.

"I won’t be concerned unless you can prove intent," Baird said, "and it is impossible to prove intent." i.e. Baird does not care what the facts are. There is absolutely nothing that could ever wake him up from his anti-vigilant slumber.

They all know that the public would never accept a giant Mecca oriented crescent on the crash site, regardless of whether it was intentional or not, so they lie about it. One project spokesman after another keeps declaring that factual claims like the Mecca orientation of the crescent are false and "preposterous."

How long before one of these fine upstanding citizens recognizes that it is wrong to keep lying to the public about explosive information that they all know to be true?

Mankamyer says that he would like to see a Congressional investigation

The scenes are quite astounding. Clay Mankamyer, a conservative Christian, manages to get a Christian Coalition meeting laughing about the Mecca orientation of the Flight 93 crescent. How do you ever live that down?

You start by trying. In the question and answer part of the meeting, Bill Steiner asked for an independent investigation, and Mankmyer said he would join Bill in that (10 seconds):

Bill Steiner: "The only concerns we have is that this design be fully vetted by a Congressional investigation before it goes any further."

Bill talks over Mankamyer’s reply, but Mankamyer repeats himself enough to be heard: "And I would like … I would join you in that."

If Mr. Mankamyer would insist publicly on a Congressional investigation, it would go a long ways. So would admitting to the public that he and others in the Project are aware of the factual accuracy of the Mecca-orientation claim.

Tom Burnett Sr. is asking everyone to help him get state and Congressional investigations started. It would certainly help if at least a few people from inside the Memorial Project would start telling the truth.

"I came into this world to be a witness for truth"

The heroes of Flight 93 did not obfuscate. They faced the harsh truth of their situation and acted as love required. Mankamyer understands that. He is a genuine patriot, who dedicated himself to the memorialization of Flight 93.

Somehow–apparently at the urging of architect Paul Murdoch–he let himself be guided by presumption, finding excuses to avoid unpleasant truths. (It was in talking to Murdoch that Mankamyer and others decided it was "too big a stretch to think anyone conspired" and they should therefore "not … address the issue.")

Facing threat of death, Jesus told Pilate that he "came into the world to be a witness for truth" (Jn 18:37). This is his most fundamental instruction to his followers: trust in truth. Never EVER put presumption ahead of witness. For those who make this mistake, it is never to late to undo it.

To join our blogbursts, email Cao (caoilfhionn1 at gmail dot com) with your blog’s url.

Dr. Daniel Griffith (”anything can point to Mecca, because the earth is round“) is still trying to convince the press that the Flight 93 crescent does not point to Mecca. In an email to the Park Service and the press this week, he tried to make it sound as if Alec Rawls is calculating the orientation of the crescent by using techniques that can be manipulated to achieve any desired result:

Based on Alec’s arguments, one could claim that the memorial is oriented toward the Vatican.

The Flight 93 crescent can indeed be seen as pointing to the Vatican, for the simple reason that the Vatican sits on the great circle line between the crash site and Mecca.

This is what Griffith represents as some concocted method for calculating the orientation of the crescent: the great circle method!

This “shortest distance” or “straight line” direction to Mecca (curving only in the over the horizon direction) is the relevant direction because this is the way that Muslims calculate the direction to Mecca. (There was a debate about it in the 1980’s and 90’s, largely settled by this nondescript looking analysis.)

Here is the great circle line from the Flight 93 crash-site to Mecca:

(Click-pic for larger image. Great circle calculator here.)

Here is the great circle line from the crash-site to the Vatican:

This calculator rounds to the nearest degree, so Mecca and the Vatican both are presented as lying on the great circle line that, from the crash site, proceeds 55° clockwise from north.

Of course a person who faces Mecca is also facing everything else that happens to lie in the direction of Mecca. When Griffith acknowledges that the crescent points to the Vatican, he is not debunking of the Mecca-orientation of the Flight 93 crescent, but confirming it.

Reductio ad Hitlerum

Griffith pulled the same trick last July, telling reporter Kirk Swauger of the Johnstown Tribune Democrat that the crescent can be seen as pointing to a Nazi concentration camp if you want:

Griffith said Rawls suggested memorial organizers would be outraged if the crescent pointed to a Nazi concentration camp instead, the professor said it actually could be done.

Of course Rawls never suggested that anyone should care if the crescent pointed at a concentration camp. Is there a worldwide religion of facing Nazi concentration camps for prayer? Was Flight 93 hijacked by people who face Nazi concentration camps for prayer?

An unpublished report that Griffith wrote for the Pittsburgh Tribune Review in 2006 clarifies his concentration camp reference. It notes that there was a Nazi concentration camp (Drancy) located just outside of Paris, which as you can see on the maps above is also (like the Vatican) on the great circle line between the Flight 93 crash-site and Mecca. In his 2006 report, Griffith acknowledges that the crescent points to the Drancy camp, yet is still unwilling to acknowledge that it points to Mecca. Somehow, the crescent points to everything on the line to Mecca except Mecca.

When Griffith told Swauger that you can see the crescent as pointing to a Nazi concentration camp if you want, he was clearly trying to mislead Swauger into thinking that you can see the crescent as pointing wherever you want. This dishonest intention was made clear by another statement that Griffith made to Swauger (not reported by Swauger, but related by Swauger to Alec Rawls at the time). Griffith told Swauger that: “You can face anywhere to face Mecca.”

He is doing the same thing when he tells the Park Service now that the crescent can be seen as pointing to the Vatican, without being clear that this is because the Vatican sits on great circle line to Mecca.

Pecksniff

In his email, Griffith complains that Rawls has been trying to bully him into changing his analysis. Nobody is trying to bully Griffith into changing anything. We are trying to expose him as a fraud.

Griffith is practically in tears about being called a Pecksniff (a character from Martin Chuzzlewit “who lies and cants whether he is drunk or sober”). It is the perfect epithet. Look in the dictionary under Pecksniff and you will see Daniel Griffith’s picture.

Not that anyone should bother to read Griffith’s email, but if anyone wants to, it puts front and center another astounding example of Griffith’s free-form dishonesty.

Griffith quotes Rawls’s January 2006 report to the Memorial Project as saying that:

…the orientation to Mecca “take[s] a short cut over the North Pole … even though Mecca is south of Shanksville.”

From this supposed quote, Griffith goes on to construct an elaborate fantasy about how, since the great circle line between the crash-site and Mecca does not actually go over the North Pole, it was really Rawls, not he, who started this idea that you can face different directions to face Mecca.

But Rawls’s report to the Memorial Project did not say that a person facing the north pole from the crash site is facing Mecca. Rather, it includes an aside explaining why the shortest-distance line to Mecca “points in a northeasterly direction” (not due north), even though Mecca is south of Shanksville. The reason is because both are in the northern hemisphere. To illustrate, the report includes the simplest possible example: “The shortest distance between points on the opposite sides of the northern hemisphere will take a short cut over the North Pole.”

Griffith quotes only the second half of this sentence, omitting the part about connecting points “on the opposite sides of the northern hemisphere.” That allows him to pretend that the points referred to are the crash-site and Mecca. Of course Shanksville and Mecca are not on opposite sides of the hemisphere. Mecca is about 2/3rds of the way around the hemisphere from the crash-site.

Having misrepresented Rawls as saying, not just that a person facing into the giant crescent is facing Mecca, but also that a person facing due north from the crash site is facing Mecca, Griffith then writes:

I fail to be convinced that only 2, rather than the infinity of possible, arcs are acceptable to Muslims.

Bwahahahaha! Griffith just finished saying how wrong it is to think that a person facing north from Shanksville is facing Mecca. Then he turns around and uses this face-north-to-face-Mecca claim (misattributed to Rawls) as justification for saying that a person facing any direction is facing Mecca. Just how much peck has this idiot been sniffing?

To join our blogbursts, email Cao (caoilfhionn1 at gmail dot com) with your blog’s url.

Related

Where is the lizard army? (push it)

A plea from Tom Burnett Sr. (push it)

The fraudulent Park Service investigation of the Flight 93 memorial (push it)

Listen to this podcast

Where is the lizard army?

Pennsylvania is on fire. Tom Burnett’s color advertisement in the Somerset Daily American, asking the people of Somerset to protest the crescent memorial to Flight 93, raised a great deal of awareness. At least four television stations covered the controversy, and there were two news stories in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review alone.

Those who went on to read Alec Rawls’ more detailed advertisement (exposing the fraudulent Park Service investigation of the giant Mecca-oriented crescent) are burning mad, and are taking up Tom Sr.’s call for state and Congressional investigations. Word is that two Pennsylvania state representatives, one Democrat and one Republican, are hot enough to co-sponsor a resolution initiating a state investigation.

That is a long way from actually getting an investigation. The hurdles are still huge, and it would sure be a big help if the high traffic conservative bloggers were pitching in. Charles Johnson and Michelle Malkin played a critical role in raising the initial alarm when the Crescent of Embrace design was unveiled in September 2005. Both also helped to expose the phony redesign, which leaves every particle of the original design completely intact.

But since 2006, nothing. For two years, as the revelations about the Memorial Project have become ever more explosive, the fire-hoses have ignored what will undoubtedly become one of the biggest scandals in American history.

This is a difficult story for our high traffic bloggers. With Flight 93 family members on both sides, no one can weigh in without checking the facts, and our high traffic bloggers are all stretched too thin to check the facts. Charles Johnson only has two eyes and two ears. No one can say he ought to do anything, when there is no way he ought to even be able to do a quarter of what he does.

Johnson’s lizard army, on the other hand, has thousands of eyes and thousands of ears. The question is whether this sensory system is connected to the lizard brain. Is there any trickle-up at LGF?

To try to establish this trickle-up connection, Charles recently installed a new link-rating system at the top of his main page. Let’s see if we can get it to work! Come on lizards. Time to rejoin the fight. Please take the links to the two advertisements that are now setting Pennsylvania on fire and see if you can rally your fellow lizards to push these links up into the collective consciousness of the lizard army.

Over the next two weeks, these ads will continue to be published in the free weeklies for the cities of Somerset and Johnstown. We are putting tinder to the first licks of flame, and maybe even have a couple of sticks in the fire, but we are still a long way from an established blaze, never mind the bonfire of awareness, and the firestorm of awareness, that it will take to stop Murdoch’s plot.

We need lizard help to stop architect Paul Murdoch from stabbing a terrorist memorial mosque into the heartland of America! (That’s what a Mecca-oriented crescent is: the central feature of a mosque.)

This is YOUR story, lizards

It was five lizards who discovered, almost immediately after the Crescent of Embrace was unveiled, that the nearly one mile wide crescent points almost exactly to Mecca (kifaya, khamr, Edgren, bluemerle, and Etaoin).

Etaoin Shrdlu’s Mecca orientation graphic, posted by Ace of Spades September 11, 2005 (three days after the crescent design was unveiled).

Charles stayed with the fight until July 2006, when he rallied the lizards to participate in the Park Service’s open comment period.

Then he and Michelle and all the other high traffic bloggers disappeared.

No links when Tom Burnett Sr. publicly protested the memorial by refusing to allow Tom Jr.’s name to be inscribed on one of those 44 glass blocks on the flight path (matching the number of passengers, crew AND terrorists).

No links when the crescent design was discovered to memorialize, not just the 4 hijackers of Flight 93, but also the full complement of 19 9/11 terrorists. (There are two sets of 19 nested crescents in the crescent design.)

No links when Tom Sr. and Alec Rawls protested the crescent and star flag configuration of the memorial on national television.

No links when an academic fraud told the Park Service not to worry about the similarity between the giant Mecca oriented crescent and the Mecca oriented mihrab around which every mosque is built because there has never been a mihrab anywhere near this BIG before.

No links when Congressman and presidential candidate Tom Tancredo called in November 2007 for the Park Service to scrap the crescent design entirely.

The usual difficulty for the blogosphere is to get the mainstream media to cover our discoveries. This has been inverted for the memorial story. Dozens of mainstream news stories have been written about the controversy, none of which were ever linked by any high traffic conservative bloggers. All the weight has been carried by a creditable collection of small and mid-traffic bloggers, starting with our three dozen blogburst participants.

The blogosphere has an Achilles heel. A controversial story that requires fact checking gets skipped over by our high traffic link-editors. Charles Johnson’s addition of a decentralized link-editing utility might be able to overcome this weakness, but it won’t happen automatically. For this tool to work, the lizard army has to step up and make it work.

To join our blogbursts, email Cao (caoilfhionn1 at gmail dot com) with your blog’s url.

Come and see http://caosblog.com and http://thewideawakes.org.

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