Entries Tagged 'Blogburst: stop the Murdoch Flight 93 memorial' ↓

…from Alec:

On Saturday, the conflict over Islamic symbolism in the Flight 93 memorial got its first international news coverage. One highlight is the conversation that Leonard Doyle, U.S editor of the UK Independent, had with Tom Burnett Sr.:

Tom Burnett, whose son Tom Jnr died in the crash, said of the design that it is “aesthetically wonderful,” but “a lot of it contains Islamic symbols”. He added: “We ought to just throw the design out and start anew because it really dishonours those who died.”

Towards the end, Doyle moseys around to the bombshell, reporting the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent as a fact. The bad news is that Doyle immediately tries to dismiss this explosive information by making a completely irrelevant and factually preposterous counterclaim:

Part of the blame must lie with Paul Murdoch, architect of the winning design who initially described it as a “Crescent of Embrace”. The title caused the internet to erupt with conspiracy theories. Then someone noticed that the arc actually pointed towards Mecca. The fact that this was also the direction to Washington DC was lost on the conspiracy theorists.

No, the direction to Mecca is NOT the direction to Washington. The shortest-distance direction to Mecca (the way that Muslims calculate the direction to Mecca) heads northeast from the western Pennsylvania crash-site. Some people find that counterintuitive, but Pennsylvania and Mecca are both in the northern hemisphere, with Mecca being about 2/3rds of the way around the hemisphere. Thus the direction to Mecca takes a shortcut towards the north pole. D.C., in contrast, lies southeast from the Shanksville crash site.

The errant claim that D.C. and Mecca lie in the same direction is a red herring anyway. what difference would it make if people facing into the giant crescent were facing Washington? Is there a religion of facing Washington five times a day for prayer? Were the hijackers of Flight 93 followers of such a religion. No. They faced MECCA five times a day for prayer. That is why the Mecca direction matters.

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 memorial now being built in Shanksville will be the world’s largest mosque by a factor of about fifty (and there are some really big mosques).

Doyle is not the first person to try to dismiss the Mecca orientation of the Flight 93 crescent by claiming that the crescent also points to something else. Of course it DOES point to a host of other places. It points to everything on the line between the crash site and Mecca. Earlier this year the crazy Dr. Daniel Griffith noted that one of those points turns out to be the Vatican. So what? There is no religion of facing the Vatican for prayer.

The Independent should issue a correction

Given that Doyle’s attempt to dismiss the Mecca orientation of the crescent was based on an absurdly wrong factual claim (that the direction to Mecca is the same as the direction to Washington), the Independent ought to issue a correction, especially given the importance of this error to Doyle’s reporting. Without the factual error, his illogical pretense that the Mecca orientation would not matter if the crescent happened to also point to Washington simply disappears. The Mecca orientation would then stand in naked disgrace before the Independent’s international readership. Is that enough of a prize to make a serious push for?

Doyle has already been asked for a correction, without reply. Our petition, however, gives us a new tool for dealing with such recalcitrant parties. We are up to about four hundred signees after one week, and over half say they are willing to engage in activist measures like forwarding emails. Maybe this is a good opportunity to fire a test shot, and unload a minor deluge of correction requests on the Independent.

If you want to pitch in, just copy and paste the following short note into an email:

To the Editors of the Independent:

Please correct a glaring factual error in Leonard Doyle’s article on the Flight 93 Memorial (”Conspiracy or coincidence? Flight 93 memorial attacked over crescent shape,” March 29, 2008). Doyle’s reporting of the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent is much appreciated, but he then tries to dismiss the significance of this orientation by making the factually ridiculous assertion that the direction to Mecca from the Shanksville Pennsylvania crash-site is also the direction to Washington:

… someone noticed that the arc actually pointed towards Mecca. The fact that this was also the direction to Washington DC was lost on the conspiracy theorists.

The shortest distance direction to Mecca is to the northeast from Shanksville. Washington is to the southeast.

It is important to correct Mr. Doyle’s errant excuse for dismissing the Mecca orientation of the crescent because orientation on Mecca is actually very significant. 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 planned memorial will be the world’s largest mosque. Please include this significance of the Mecca orientation in your correction.

Respectfully yours,

If you haven’t yet signed our online petition, please give it a look. Also, Tom Burnett Sr. just released a public appeal for people to spread the word about our petition effort. If anyone wants to forward or post Tom’s letter, it is available for copy and paste here (scroll to bottom for HTML format).

Glaring omissions in Doyle’s report, amounting to cover up

If the Independent’s correction policy extends to dishonest reporting by omission, there are two other key facts, fully known to Mr. Doyle, that the Independent should publish. While he was driving to Shanksville, Mr. Doyle talked to Alec Rawls by telephone for almost a half an hour, mostly about the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent.

Doyle was fully apprised of the double dealing of Memorial Project spokesmen who in private conversation admit the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent and make excuses for it (basically, they all assume it is coincidental), while in the newspapers they deny that the crescent points to Mecca. For example, when Superintendent Hanley was asked directly about the Mecca orientation by a reporter for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette last summer, she claimed that:

“The only thing that orients the memorial is the crash site.”

Thus Doyle was fully aware of the controversial nature of the Mecca orientation claim, yet he did not report it as a matter of contention. He reported it as an fact. That means one of two things. When Doyle talked to Hanley (who is quoted in his article), she may have acknowledged the Mecca orientation of the crescent to him. Alternatively, Doyle could have checked the Mecca orientation of the crescent for himself. (Alec Rawls told him how. It takes literally 2 minutes to verify.)

Which is it Mr. Doyle? Either is explosive and should be reported. If a reporter for a major newspaper verifies for himself that the Flight 93 crescent points to Mecca, he damned well ought to say so! If Memorial Project personnel admitted the Mecca orientation of the crescent, after a long history of denying it in to the press, that is newsworthy!

Why is Doyle holding back? This is cover-up, just like his attempt to dismiss the Mecca orientation with the red herring about the direction to Mecca also being the direction to Washington.

A perverted concept of “balance”?

Doyle’s behavior is a puzzle. If he wanted to cover up the Mecca orientation of the crescent, why did he report it at all? In two and a half years, only one other reporter bothered to fact-check and report the orientation of the crescent. (Kirk Swauger at the Johnstown Tribune Democrat wrote last summer that: “[The Mecca orientation claims] seem to be backed up by coordinates for the direction of qibla from Somerset that can be found on Islam.com. When superimposed over the crescent in the memorial design, the midpoint points over the Arctic Circle, through Europe toward Mecca.”)

One possibility is that Doyle may be pursuing a perverted concept of balance, akin to the left wing preference for equality of outcomes over equality of opportunity. The facts tilt in favor of the critics of the crescent, so in order to write a story that presents the two sides as equally valid, Doyle buries the facts, not completely, but enough to write a story that does not advantage either side. Of course if the facts went against critics of the crescent, this concept of balance would go out the window (as it should). But when the facts support conservative voices, this perverted concept of balance seems to be a second mode that the West’s left wing media falls into.

That’s just a theory. Perhaps Mr. Doyle can offer a better explanation. His article is in many ways quite a nice one, telling the story of Flight 93, and of Tom Burnett Jr.’s decision to do something to stop the hijackers. Give Doyle credit also for reporting the most explosive fact (the Mecca orientation). Then he dismisses the Mecca orientation with a completely fraudulent dodge, and omits how the Project has been denying the Mecca orientation for years. Very odd.

Doyle also fails to mention that every particle of the original Crescent of Embrace design remains completely intact in the so-called redesign.

In contrast to his fabricated grounds for dismissing the Mecca-orientation of the crescent, Doyle simply repeats without comment the Memorial Project’s claim that the design was changed to remove “any perceptions relating to Islamic symbolism”:

The crescent became a circle, with two symbolic breaks, one where visitors will walk along the flight path, the other at the crash scene.

Would it have been too much to note, as was clearly explained to Mr. Doyle, how every particle of the original Crescent of Embrace design remains completely intact in the so-called redesign, which only added a few irrelevant trees to the rear of a person facing into the giant crescent.

The circle is still “broken” in the exact same spots, creating the exact same crescent. This is even how architect Paul Murdoch explains the crescent design: the terrorists broke the circle, turning it into a giant (Mecca-oriented) crescent. The only change in the “redesign” was to include a broken off chunk of the circle, which now floats out behind the mouth of the crescent.

After long conversations with Tom Burnett, Alec Rawls and Bill Steiner (who has been organizing opposition on the ground in Pennsylvania for two years) Doyle actually knows more about the Islamic symbolism in the crescent design than any other reporter who has covered this story. If he would just report the truth, he could do some real good, and advance his own career at the same time, by breaking the story of a lifetime. Instead, he has decided to hide the truth, even using blatant disinformation to do it. Sure looks like ideological bias.

Click here to insist on a correction.

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

…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.)

…from Alec:

Reader Max K. found another Islamic website with a Mecca-direction calculator. It can be used to construct yet another graphical demonstration that the Flight 93 memorial points to Mecca.

Muslims face Mecca for prayer, with the direction to Mecca calculated by the great circle method. Enter your street address into the search field at QiblaLocator.com and it brings up a Google map with a red line showing the Muslim prayer-direction (or “qibla”) from your home.

At the Flight 93 crash site, Skyline Road passes through the center of what is to become the giant central crescent of the planned memorial. Enter “Skyline Rd, Shanksville PA” into the QiblaLocator search box and it generates this map:

Red line points to Mecca. (Azimuth, also in red: 55.19° clockwise from north.)

To see how this direction to Mecca compares with the orientation of the planned memorial, first impose some orientation lines on the Crescent of Embrace design:

The short black line connects the two most protruding tips of the half-mile wide central crescent. The long black arrow shows the orientation of a person standing between the crescent tips and facing into the center of the crescent. (Every particle of this original design remains completely intact in the so-called redesign, which only disguises the giant crescent with a few additional trees.)

Next just lay the site-plan graphic on top of QiblaLocator’s Google map:

The red and black lines are almost parallel.

To be precise, the upper crescent tip is the end of the thousand foot long, fifty foot tall, Entry Portal Wall. The bottom crescent tip is the last pair of red maple trees at the bottom end of the crescent walkway. Connect these tips, and the perpendicular bisector (black arrow) points 53.5° clockwise from north (within two degrees of the exact direction 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 will be the world’s largest mosque.

Earlier Mecca direction graphics

In 2005, Sarah Wells constructed a somewhat similar graphic. She used the Mecca direction calculator at Islam.com to get a qibla line that she superimposed onto the memorial site plan:

Green “qibla” circle shows direction to Mecca from nearby Pittsburgh. Again you can see that a person standing between the tips of the crescent and facing into the center of the crescent will be facing almost exactly at Mecca.

Sarah’s graphic and the QiblaLocator graphic both demonstrate that the giant crescent points to Mecca in the way that Muslims define the direction to Mecca (by the “great circle” or “shortest distance” method).

The first graphic to show the Mecca orientation of the crescent memorial was posted by the pseudonymous Eaotin Shrdlu on September 10, 2005, two days after the crescent design was unveiled:

The large map projection and the small site-plan inset both have north at the top. Etaoin’s graphic shows that direction to Mecca from crash site (green line) and direction of person facing into crescent (red line) are the same.

University of Pennsylvania Professor Tim Baird, a member of the Flight 93 Advisory Commission, says that everyone involved in the Memorial Project is fully aware of the factual accuracy of the Mecca direction claim. Nevertheless, they all stand by as Project spokesmen keep denying the Mecca orientation in the newspapers. The Project even found an academic fraud to tell the press that there is no such thing as the direction to Mecca:

Daniel Griffith, a geospatial information sciences professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, said anything can point toward Mecca, because the earth is round. (Pittsburgh Post Gazette, August 18, 2007.)

Any Muslim would have denied this absurdity, but the Post Gazette does not want Griffith’s fraud exposed, because the Gazette itself has been fully complicit in covering up the Mecca orientation of the memorial since 2005. Post Gazette reporter Paula Ward told Alec Rawls in 2006 (download 3, p. 108) that editors and reporters at the Post Gazette saw all of the demonstrations of the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent back in 2005 and made a top level editorial decision not to publish this explosive information. Editor Tom Birdsong thinks it would hurt the Democrats, so he is not going to publish it, and neither are other newspapers.

This shouldn’t be a right-left issue, but try telling our newspaper editors that. Which leaves it up to the rest of us to get the word out about Islamic and terrorist memorializing symbolism in the Flight 93 Memorial. This is going to have to be passed person to person.

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

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.

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.

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