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.”
Dutch parliamentary member Geert Wilders has announced that his Islam critical film named “Fitna” will be ready at the end of this week. The film, he announced, will soon have its own website:
Revealing fact is that the Dutch parliamentary member choose to host the website not from a server in The Netherlands, but from a server located in North America. Presumably to hold it out of reach of the Dutch government.
Next week, says Wilders, he will start negotiating with Dutch broadcasters to get his 15 minute film broadcasted in The Netherlands. A process that, according to him, can take up to several weeks. This could be sign that the movie will not be released the end of this week. But it could also be a way to put pressure on the Dutch broadcasters who don’t want to broadcast the whole movie, because they all politically oppose Wilders, but who at the same time would even sell their own mother for a scoop.
We keep you posted about the developments around the film Fitna. In the meantime, if people like to provide some free PR to the movie, they should create as many back links as possible to the website “fitna the movie”. This can be done by simply placing links to www.fitnathemovie.com. This can be done on you’re personal blog, other people’s blog comments, discussion forums, websites, etc.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities on Tuesday lifted a ban on popular video-sharing website YouTube after it removed “objectionable content” insulting Islam.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had ordered about 70 internet service providers last week to block the website because it had hosted a trailer for a “blasphemous film” by Dutch politician Geert Wilders that portrays Islam in a negative light.
The move by Pakistani authorities to block access to the website caused an accidental near global blackout of YouTube on Sunday.
YouTube , which is owned by Google, said on Monday that an ISP complying with Pakistan’s ban had caused a blackout of the website on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Senate or upper house of Parliament strongly condemned the republication in Denmark of the blasphemous cartoons caricaturing Prophet Mohammed that were also posted on YouTube.
A resolution passed unanimously by the Senate said “serious tensions” are also brewing because of a “sacrilegious film against Islam” made by Wilders.
(Emphasis is ours.)
That’s right… the controversy even brought down YouTube!
These crude and heavy-handed efforts to stop people from watching Fitna will eventually backfire. The harder our foes work to censor vital political speech, the more attention it will get, and the more curiosity will be aroused. That’s just human nature; after all, if the movie warrants that much consternation, then what it contains must be very important indeed.
But even though totalitarian censorship fails in the long run, before that happens it always does enormous damage to human societies and to the human spirit. Geert Wilders’ movie is going to be huge - and it deserves every opportunity to reach its eagerly-awaiting audience.
Here’s where YOU come in:
Cross-post the Fitna movie announcement on your own blog.
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.
WARNING: This video contains some strong language and graphic elements. It is intended for a mature audience.
Each day, I see events unfolding around the globe that cause me concern. Yet most of the people I encounter seem to be oblivious, or at best, only peripherally aware of the grave threats facing our nation - and civilization as a whole.
Our enemies are counting on our short attention spans, our over-confidence and our stubborn complacency to keep the blinders on our eyes until it’s too late.
Each day, the future of freedom and democracy in Europe seems bleaker… and the United States is already taking steps down the same path.
1389 Blog has posted this video because it makes many vital points - especially about the failure of the US and other western nations to acknowledge, investigate, and respond to suspicious incidents.
That said, we vehemently disagree with George W’s handling of foreign policy - though not for the same reasons as the liberals disagree with it. We claim - and we have repeatedly provided the facts to back up this claim - that GWB has, all too often, appeased jihadists when he should have stood against them.
Update 2/27/08:What did the near-worldwide YouTube outage have to do with Geert Wilders’ new movie? Click here to learn more!Fitna, The Movie: Due Out This Week
Courageous Dutch MP Geert Wilders has faced such threats from the beginning: 2/1/2005: Dutch politician Geert Wilders watches the latest Internet video clip calling for his beheading. He has adopted an aggressively anti-Islamic position, saying that Islam and democracy are “not compatible, not now and not in a million years.” (Keith B. Richburg — The Washington Post)
From Expatica, with thanks to Fjordman, who keeps an eye on the international reporting on Dutch affairs. Something we at KV should be doing a lot more, instead of relying on internal MSM reporting. Because this bit of news should have made headlines in the Netherlands, but didn’t. Not by a long shot. One wonders why not…
MP Geert Wilders was threatened with a suicide attack last week. Two young men reportedly planned to shoot the politician down and detonate a van full of explosives next to the politician. “Many innocent people were to die in the chaos.”
This has emerged from the report Wilders filed with the Haaglanden police. A warning of the attack planned for either The Hague or Amsterdam came via the anonymous hotline for crime tips. A similar, but less detailed, death threat came in via the hotline this week. It is unusual for this hotline to be used to announce death threats.
The initial, very concrete warning spoke about an attack planned for early February. Wilders would first be shot, and then a man would drive a white delivery van into the victim and detonate the 500 to 600 kilos of explosives in the vehicle.
[…]
The person who called the hotline said that the perpetrators were not fundamentalists, but “just wanted revenge.”
Well, that’s okay then. Just as long as they’re not fundamentalist. Because that would be, eehm… awkward?
According to Wilders, Islam is a violent religion. “If Mohammed lived here today, I would propose tarring and feathering and hunting him out of the country as an extremist. (…) If Muslims want to stay here, they must tear up and throw away half the Koran. They must not listen to their Imam. I have read the Koran. (…) And I know that there are enough terrible things in it. If Muslims do assimilate, they are fully-fledged citizens, not a millimetre less valuable than you or I.”
Wilders believes his new PVV party - it obtained 9 Lower House seats in November - can grow into “one of the biggest parties” in parliament. “Other parties avoid the themes that threaten us in our existence. Everything we are proud of, we sell to the devil. (…) You feel that you are no longer living in your own country.”
On his thoughts about Israel:
The only criticism he has of the country is that “I find Israel sometimes listens to Europe too much. It should have intervened in Lebanon much earlier. I am more inclined to consider that Israel does not go far enough than that it goes too far.”
THE HAGUE (AFP) — Dutch far-right deputy Geert Wilders said in an interview published Saturday that his controversial anti-Islam film will be called “Fitna” , arabic for ordeal, and will be aired in March.
The leader of the Freedom party (PVV), which has nine of 150 seats in parliament, said in November that he planned to make a short film showing that Islam’s holy book, the Koran, is “a fascist book” that “incites people to murder”.
According to the interview with Dutch GPD news agency, Wilders’ 15-minute film is almost done, and he hopes it will be shown on Dutch television in March. He had initially said it would air at the end of January.
Wilders said he has called the film Fitna, an Arabic word that in Islam is used to describe all things that can test the faith and is sometimes synonymous to evil.
“I use the term in an inverse sense because for me Islam … is fitna,” he said.
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?
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(Stein hoist: 
