It seems there way too much going on at a much higher level, as we, collectively, suffer from the early onset of Presidential politics.Thanks to the new feature that Charles installed at Little Green Footballs called the “Link Viewer,” I have been collecting links to, hopefully, sort in a logic order and then make some points.Personally, I used to see the “news” a day or two ahead of the MSM at LGF. Kinda fun, actually, seeing the MSM getting scooped by thousands of “intelligence collection agents” (all working for free, mind you). Now, with the volume of links there, I find some very interesting reading, yet it seems even the LGF “cycle” is not as speedy as I once thought. On the other hand, the pages are crowded with great tidbits, and larger stories from all points of the globe.

My collection effort began with a section: “The Coming Tsunami.” Relates to the sweeping tide of Islamist culture, driven hard into use using explosive techniques. I have subfolders for “Head in the sand” and “Destroy the ability to fight.” The latter mentioned is getting lots of interest, as those who we pay to represent us are on holiday, leaving their in baskets full of the people’s business, and it’s not because they are overworked, but more invested in making politic points for their own gain..all the while, spending my and your money. I have also included a “Push back” folder, which, thankfully, is showing some activity.

When will it all come together? Not sure. But, like others who have been involved in having to look at piles of hard copy inputs, then make a reasonable assessment of it all, while being paid, I’m finding it is still something I’m drawn to do.

Now, for my friends in Congress, who would allow trial lawyers to earn more multi millions, if not billions, while exposing the very foundations of our economy and therefore society to destruction while out shaking hands and kissing the very babies they care not if they are killed at the mall, here is my completely unconflicted message to you:

Bonus found via the referenced Link Viewer): “The Liberal Mind” by Dr. Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr. He says they are just like angry little children. Gee, who woulda thunk it?

Far more eloquently than I would, SteelJaw Scribe has a tribute to that day in his Flight Deck Friday series.

Words and powerful pictures take you back to a different time in the history of our Nation, and that of the world.

In September 2005, Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo said that he would not be happy so long as the Flight 93 Memorial still included the giant crescent. He has kept his promise. The crescent is still there, and Tom Tancredo is NOT HAPPY.Alec Rawls has just received from Representative Tancredo a letter of complaint that Mr. Tancredo sent to Park Service Director Mary Bomar this afternoon. It notes the continued presence of the crescent:

Unfortunately, it appears that little if any substantive changes to the most troubling aspect of the design – the crescent shape – have been made.

And it calls for scrapping the crescent design entire and starting anew:

And while I regret having to contact the Park Service again about this issue, I sincerely hope that you will direct the committee to scrap the crescent design entirely in favor of a new design that will not make the memorial a flashpoint for this kind of controversy and criticism.

Thank you Tom Tancredo! The full text of Mr. Tancredo’s letter is pasted below.

G Gordon Liddy is on it

Alec Rawls will be on G Gordon Liddy’s radio show tomorrow morning (Tuesday) from 11-12, talking about the many Islamic and terrorist memorializing features in the planned memorial. The show should be a blockbuster.

Tom Burnett Sr. is going to call in. Tancredo or his press secretary TQ Houlton may call in.   And YOU can call in:

1 800 GGLiddy

Streaming audio and broadcast stations here. Podcasts here. For the full expose, see Alec’s Crescent of Betrayal book, available for free download until the print edition of the book comes out in February.

A crescent and star flag on the crash site

For those who are not familiar with the memorial debacle, the original Crescent of Embrace design would have planted a bare naked Islamic crescent and star flag on the crash site:

Architect Paul Murdoch’s job is to work with symbols. He did not plant an Islamic flag on the crash site by accident. But even if this were somehow coincidence, it would still be wrong to build the memorial in a shape that the hijackers claimed as their own.

Representative Tancredo was the only Congressman to state the obvious, that “the crescent’s prominent use as a symbol in Islam–and the fact that the hijackers were radical Islamists,” raises the possibility that “the design, if constructed, will in fact make the memorial a tribute to the hijackers.” (Tancredo Press release, 9/12/2005. See Crescent of Betrayal, download 1, page xiii.)

Two days later, Tancredo’s press secretary laid out Tom’s conditions:

… that the congressman would be happy with the changes only if the crescent shape is removed.

Nothing was changed

All the Memorial Project did was add some surrounding trees. Every particle of the original Crescent of Embrace design remains completely intact in the Bowl of Embrace redesign. The crescent shape was NOT removed. It was only very slightly disguised:

The graphics were recolored, and a few trees were added outside of the mouth of the crescent (lower left). Every particle of the original crescent and star structure remains. (Click here for site plan view.)

Representative Tancredo was right to demand removal of the crescent. It turns out that a person facing directly into the half mile wide crescent will be facing Mecca. That makes it a mihrab, the central feature around which every mosque is built. You can plant as many trees around a mosque as you want and it will still be a mosque. This is the world’s largest mosque, by a factor of a hundred.

If you want to thank Tom Tancredo for keeping his Flight 93 promise and standing up again for the honor of our murdered heroes, his phone numbers and online email form are here.

Full text of Representative Tancredo’s letter to Park Service Director Mary Bomar

November 5, 2007

The Honorable Mary A. Bomar
Director
National Park Service
U.S. Department of Interior
1849 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20240

Dear Director Bomar,

I am regrettably writing you in reference to the proposed memorial to commemorate the victims of Flight 93 which crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. As you may know, I contacted Director Mainella in late 2005 about my concerns with the design.

The appropriateness of the original design, dubbed the “Crescent of Embrace,” was questioned because of the crescent’s prominent use as a symbol in Islam – and the fact that the hijackers were radical Islamists. As I pointed out in my September 2005 letter, the use of the crescent has raised questions in some circles about whether the design would make the memorial a tribute to the hijackers rather than the victims whose mission the flights passengers helped to thwart.

When I received Director Mainella’s response to my letter on October 6, 2005, I was pleased to read her assurance that the advisory committee and the architect were amenable to “refinements in the design which will include negating any perceptions to the iconography.” I was also pleased to learn that the name of the memorial was to be changed.

Unfortunately, it appears that little if any substantive changes to the most troubling aspect of the design – the crescent shape – have been made. This deeply concerns me. As I told Director Mainella in 2005: Regardless of whether or not the invocation of a Muslim symbol by the memorial designer was intentional, I continue to believe that the use of this symbol is unsuitable for paying appropriate tribute to the heroes of Flight 93 or the ensuing American struggle against radical Islam that their historic last act has come to symbolize.

I remain committed to ensuring that this memorial is a powerful symbol for the whole nation and a testament to the courage and will of the passengers of the flight – as I am sure you are. And while I regret having to contact the Park Service again about this issue, I sincerely hope that you will direct the committee to scrap the crescent design entirely in favor of a new design that will not make the memorial a flashpoint for this kind of controversy and criticism.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Tom Tancredo, M.C.

The phony redesign

To see clearly how the redesign leaves the original Mecca-oriented cescent fully intact, note that the orientation of the crescent is determined by connecting the most obtruding points of the crescent structure, then forming the perpendicular bisector to this line (red arrow):

The green circle shows the direction to Mecca (the “qibla” direction) from Somerset PA. It was generated using the Mecca-direction calculator at Islam.com. Just place this qibla graphic over the original Crescent of Embrace site plan and the Mecca-direction line almost exactly bisects the crescent.

Looking closely at the above graphic (click for larger image), you can see that the most obtruding tip at the bottom of the original crescent structure is the last red maple at the bottom. On top, the most obtruding tip of the crescent structure is the the end of the thousand foot long, fifty foot tall, Entry Portal Wall. Here is an artist’s rendering of the end of the Entry Portal Wall as seen in the Bowl of Embrace redesign. It shows how overtly this upper crescent tip remains intact in the redesign:

The redesign only added the extra row of trees on the left, behind the visitors in this graphic. Notice that these trees are not even visible to a person who is facing into the crescent. They do not even affect a visitor’s experience of the crescent, never mind affect the presence or integrity of the crescent itself.

When Tom Burnett Sr. came out against the Flight 93 Memorial, the press asked architect Paul Murdoch if there were really going to be 44 inscribed translucent blocks emplaced along the flight path (equaling the number of passengers, crew, AND terrorists). Murdoch acknowledged 43 of the blocks, but denied knowing about a 44th:

[T]here are 40 inscribed marble panels listing the names of the passengers and crew at the gateway to the Sacred Ground, where their remains still rest.There is then an opening in the wall, Mr. Murdoch said, and three additional panels, which would include the date, Sept. 11, 2001.

“Where the other one is being fabricated, I don’t know,” he said.

Yes he does. Paul Murdoch is fully aware of the large dedicatory glass block at the end of the Entry Portal Walkway:

Man and child stand in front of the 44th block, which forms the railing at the end of the Entry Portal Walkway. The glass block will be inscribed: “A field of honor forever.” This Walkway provides visitors with their first view of the inside of the giant crescent. (From the Entry Portal page of the original design PDFs. Click pic for wider view.)

The flight path

The Entry Portal Walkway is built along the flight path. It signifies, in Paul Murdoch’s own description, the terrorists breaking the circle and turning it into a giant crescent. The flight path then continues down to the crash site, which sits in the middle of the mouth of the giant crescent (in roughly the position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag).

Just before the impact point is the Memorial Wall, also built along the flight path. This two part wall is where the other 43 blocks will be placed (the ones described by Paul Murdoch above):

The forty translucent blocks that run horizontally through the left hand section of wall (closest to the impact crater) will be inscribed with the names of the forty murdered heroes. The three on the right will be inscribed with the 9/11 date. (From the Sacred Ground Plaza page of the original design PDF’s. Click pic for larger image. The alternating white and gray depicts the zig zag layout of the translucent blocks.)

Challenged by the father of one of our murdered heroes, Murdoch told a desperate lie, feigning ignorance of one of the most prominent features of his own design: the huge glass block that dedicates the entire site. This should have been the end of his hijack attempt, but Murdoch’s deception was abetted by both the Memorial Project and the press.

The abettors

“That has been disproved so many times,” said Bill Hayworth, the Memorial Project’s PR flack, when asked about the 44 blocks. Would it have been too much for reporters to ask for this proof?

In fact Murdoch is the first one to ever even deny that there are 44 glass blocks on the flight path. The only earlier Memorial Project statement about the 44 blocks was from Project Manager Jeff Reinbold, who told Alec Rawls in an April 2006 conference call that the giant glass block can’t be counted with the small glass blocks because it is bigger: “If we are going to count the big glass block with the small glass blocks,” he said, “then we have to count the windows in the visitor center too.” (Crescent of Betrayal, download 3, p. 146.)

“The windows in the visitor center are not on the flight path,” Rawls replied. He never said they were all the same size, and he never said there are no other panes of glass in the Memorial. Reinbold’s silly dodges do not contradict Rawls’ 44 glass blocks claim in any way.

The press was also in on the deception. Kecia Bal, the reporter who quoted Hayworth’s dismissal of the 44 blocks claim had already verified the block count for herself. Mr. Rawls had earlier sent her close ups of all 44. She responded with a request for copies of the original design PDFs, so she could check the veracity of these close-ups for herself.

When Bal quoted Hayworth, she knew he was wrong, and allowed him to mislead the public by suppressing her own fact checking of the 44 blocks. People can think that the 44 blocks are innocuous if they want, but lying about the block count certainly is not innocuous. Similarly for many the other lies that are being told in defense of the crescent design.

Memorial Project members insist that it is just coincidence that a person facing directly into the giant crescent will be facing almost exactly at Mecca, but that isn’t what they are telling the public. They are telling the newspapers that the Mecca-orientation claim is false, while acknowledging amongst themselves that the Mecca orientation is real.

Again and again Murdoch, the Memorial Project and the press are lying in concert to cover up the facts of the design. Some people will be unsure what to make of the many suspicious features of the crescent design but no one should doubt the need to expose and condemn those who lie about the facts.

Tracked back @: Cao’s Blog

Read this one.

Is it getting better? How about way better. It’s working….it.is.working. Rich Lowry brings us the story that you will most likely not see in the MSM.

Chip in with your 2 cents, in the comments section on that post. Leave your mark for a better world to live in.

When Tom Burnett Sr. was helping to pick a memorial to Flight 93, he objected vehemently to the planting of a huge Islamic shaped crescent on the crash site. The Project asked if he would be okay with the Crescent of Embrace design if they didn’t call it a crescent. He said no way:

What the hell? You change words. A pig is a pig!

No doubt about that.

“How about if we don’t CALL it a crescent?” (Click pic for larger image)

See that Memorial Plaza that is situated roughly in the position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag? It marks the crash site. It doesn’t have to be CALLED an Islamic star for this placement as the star on an Islamic flag to be inappropriate.

Mountain Goat and the 44 blocks

From PJ Country comes news of the Memorial Project’s latest effort to help architect Paul Murdoch adjust the disguise on his terrorist memorializing design, just enough for him to slip through gate security.

“Mountain Goat” called the Memorial Project a few weeks ago to ask about the 44 inscribed translucent blocks that are to be emplaced along the flight path. (There were 40 heroes and 4 terrorists on the flight.)

The person he spoke to said that the three translucent marble blocks that were to be inscribed with the 9/11 date are going to be replaced with a single block, “roughly the length three of the other blocks would have been.”

That would reduce the block count from 44 to 42, but would it actually fix anything?

Whether the 9/11 date is inscribed on three blocks or one, these blocks are to be built into a separate section of Memorial Wall that is centered on the bisector of the giant crescent. That is the exact position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag. Thus the date goes to the Islamic flag–the date goes to the terrorists–no matter how many blocks are used.

See that trail that enters the Memorial Plaza (the star on the flag) from the left? It divides the Memorial Wall into separate upper and lower sections. The upper section has the 9/11 date inscribed. You can see that this upper section of wall is centered on the bisector of the giant crescent (the exact position of an Islamic star). Click for larger image.

End it, don’t mend it

No amount of tweaking the design can alter its terrorist memorializing intent. “Fix” every one of the half dozen large scale terrorist memorializing features in the design by making them all a little bit “off,” and it only establishes the long term Islamo-fascist goal of one day restoring the Crescent mosque to its intended configuration, the same way the jihadists now use re-possession of the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem (the Dome of the Rock) as a motivation driving the Jews out of Israel.

Most ridiculous of all is the Bowl of Embrace redesign, which leaves every particle of the original Crescent of Embrace design completely intact, only adding some surrounding trees. http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z36/AlecRawls/CrescentandBowlstacked65.jpg “Here, put on this burka, then you can sneak your bomb on board the airplane.”

The proper answer, when someone is caught trying to sneak an Islamo-fascist plot through gate security, is not to tell him to go back outside and try again. It is to cart him away.

If you want to join us outraged protesting bloggers

1. in objecting to planting an Islamic symbol instead of an American one on the crash site,
2. in objecting to its pointing to Mecca and the terrorists’ intended target,
3. in objecting to dishonoring the memory of the people who fought the terrorists on Flight 93
4. in pointing out how Paul Murdoch cleverly and symbolically cast the passenger and crew out of the Islamic heavens in the design while the terrorists are inside the Islamic heavens
5. in pointing out how the date and the site are dedicated to the terrorists
6. in pointing out the numerous redundant mosque design features
7. in pointing out the terrorist memorializing features
8. and post along with us on Wednesdays,

please contact caoilfhionn1 at gmail dot com with your website url. She will, in turn, add you to the email list, send you the blogroll code (if you want to put it in your sidebar), and will send you the prewritten text to post. You should receive the email from Cao a day or two prior to the Wednesday it should be posted, and tracked back to Cao’s blog and Error Theory, if your blog has that capability. This will help us track who in the blogroll is posting the blogburst.

Stop the Memorial Blogburst

Tracked back @: Cao’s Blog

Watch the video. Read the description of the precise Mecca orientation of the design which the press and others have been denying.

The exact Mecca orientation of the Flight 93 Memorial

A person facing directly into the giant central crescent of what was originally called the Crescent of Embrace will be facing 1.8° north of Mecca. Defenders of the crescent have used the inexactness of its Mecca orientation to dismiss concern.

•Patrick White, Vice President of Families of Flight 93, argues that the giant crescent cannot be seen as a tribute to Islam because the inexactness of its Mecca orientation would be “disrespectful to Islam.”•Both major Pittsburgh newspapers are denying that there is any such thing as the direction to Mecca.

•The internal investigation conducted by the Park Service denies that there is any such thing as “almost”:

…mihrab orientation either points to Mecca or it does not … [it] cannot be off by “some” degrees. [From page 2 of report summary. Page 1 here.]

All of this willful blindness about the simple orientation of the crescent structure has been effective in keeping public inquiry from reaching a second startling fact: that the crescent design also contains a hidden exact Mecca orientation, corresponding to architect Paul Murdoch’s own description of how the crescent structure should be interpreted.

Physical crescent tip vs. thematic crescent tip

What points not quite exactly at Mecca is the physical Crescent of Embrace structure (every particle of which remains completely intact in the Bowl of Embrace redesign). Connect the most obtruding tips of the physical crescent, form the perpendicular bisector to this line (the bisector of the crescent), and it points 1.8° north of Mecca:

Click for larger images. The green circle with “qibla” direction marked is from the Mecca-direction calculator at Islam.com. “Qibla” is Arabic for “prayer direction,” which Muslims calculate as the “great circle” or “shortest distance” direction to Mecca.

But Paul Murdoch has also given a thematic explanation for the crescent structure, indicating how the thematic or “true” upper crescent tip should be understood. In Murdoch’s description, the flight path breaks the circle, turning it into a giant crescent. Thus the thematic upper crescent tip is what is left of the crescent structure after the parts that are “broken off” by the flight path are removed. Take away the parts of the Entry Portal Walls that extend out beyond the flight path, connect the most obtruding tips of the remaining structure, and a perpendicular to this line points within a couple hundredths of a degree of Mecca (i.e. it points exactly at Mecca, as far as can be determined given the pixel resolution of the graphics).

The flight path is represented in the Crescent/Bowl design by the Entry Portal Walkway, which comes down from the NNW. The Walkway passes through the Entry Portal Walls and projects out into the crescent:

Take away the parts of the crescent structure that are “broken off” by the flight path, and the remaining crescent structure is oriented exactly on Mecca.

[The above graphic was created by laying the Crescent of Embrace and the Bowl of Embrace site plans on top of each other. This was done to accurately capture the one real change that Murdoch made in the Bowl of Embrace redesign: the lengthening of the Entry Portal Walkway. (See “Memorial riddle #2: Why did Paul Murdoch lengthen the Entry Portal Walkway?) So that the new Walkway length can be seen, the low resolution Bowl of Embrace site plan is enhanced by overlaying it with the high resolution Crescent of Embrace site plan.]

The 44th inscribed translucent block on the flight path

At the end of the Entry Portal Walkway (marking the thematic or “true” upper crescent tip, according to Murdoch’s own description), sits a large glass block, inscribed with LAFD Captain Stephen J. Ruda’s dedication: “A common field one day. A field of honor forever.”

This will be the 44th inscribed translucent block emplaced along the flight path, matching the number of passengers, crew, AND terrorists. 40 will be inscribed with the names of the 40 heroes (despite Tom Burnett’s demand that Tom Jr.’s name not be used). Three more will be built into a separate section of Memorial Wall that is centered on the bisector of the giant crescent (the exact position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag). These three blocks will be inscribed with the 9/11 date. Thus the date goes to the Islamic star. The date goes to the terrorists.

By having the 44th glass block mark the thematic “true” upper crescent tip, and by having that thematic crescent tip create a hidden exact Mecca orientation for the giant crescent, Murdoch is able to tie his Islamic and his terrorist memorializing design features together into a perfect bin Ladenist embrace.

TACKLE THE BARE NAKED HIJACKER!

After all, it does not get much more naked than this:

Or this:

Or this:

The Walkway riddle: When Paul Murdoch extended the Entry Portal Walkway, he was doing more than just perfecting the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent. This slight adjustment in the placement of the 44th block also perfected two other terrorist memorializing elements of Murdoch’s mosque. Anyone who can figure out either of these elements before looking at the answer wins a glorious prize.

—————

If you want to join the blogroll/blogburst for the Crescent of Betrayal blogburst, email Cao at caoilfhionn1 at gmail dot com, with your blog’s url address. The blogburst will be sent out once a week to the participants, for simultaneous publication on this issue on Wednesdays.

Crescent of betrayal/surrender Blogburst Blogroll

1389 Blog – Antijihadist Tech
A Defending Crusader
A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever
And Rightly So
Big Dog’s Weblog
Big Sibling
Cao’s Blog
Chaotic Synaptic Activity
Error Theory
Faultline USA
Flanders Fields
Ft. Hard Knox
GM’s Corner
Ironic Surrealism II
Jack Lewis
Kender’s Musings
My Own Thoughts
Nice Deb
Ogre’s Politics and Views
Part-Time Pundit
Right on the Right
Right Truth
Stix Blog
Stop the ACLU
The View From the Turret
The Wide Awakes
Thunder Run

Listen to this podcast

Lest we forget 17 of our shipmates.

She, like the USS SAMUEL B. ROBERTS (FFG-58), are back at sea, showing the flag and is a “Determined Warrior.”

Naval Station Norfolk Memorial to the USS COLE (DDG-67). Photo: W. Paisley

from the terrorists…. Great job, Hill! Can I call you unpatriotic now or does this prove you are a patriot?

From World Net Daily:

It’s official: Terrorists endorse Hillary in ’08
On the record, Mideast jihadi leaders say she’s best hope for victory in Iraq
Posted: October 7, 2007 10:29 p.m. Eastern

© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON – With presidential primaries approaching and the race for the White House heating up, Muslim terrorist leaders in the Middle East have offered their endorsement for America’s highest office, stating in a new book they hope Sen. Hillary Clinton is victorious in 2008.

“I hope Hillary is elected in order to have the occasion to carry out all the promises she is giving regarding Iraq,” stated Ala Senakreh, West Bank chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorist group.

Senakreh is one of dozens of terror leaders sounding off about American politics in the new book, “Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, Jihadists Reveal their Global Plans – to a Jew!” by WND Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein.

Abu Hamed, leader of the Al Aqsa Brigades in the northern Gaza Strip, explained in “Schmoozing” Clinton’s repeated calls for a withdrawal from Iraq “proves that important leaders are understanding the situation differently and are understanding the price and the consequences of the American policy in Iraq and in the world.”

“The Iraqi resistance is succeeding,” stated Hamed. “Hillary and the Democrats call for withdrawal. Her popularity shows that the resistance is winning and that the occupation is losing. We just hope that she will go until the end and change the American policy, which is based on oppressing poor and innocent people.”

The Brigades, together with the Islamic Jihad terrorist group, took responsibility for every suicide bombing in Israel the past three years. The Brigades also has carried out hundreds of recent shootings and rocket attacks.

Abu Ayman, an Islamic Jihad leader in Jenin, said he is “emboldened” by Clinton’s calls for an eventual withdrawal from Iraq.
[…]

Read the article….better yet…read the book.

When will she (Hillary) wake up and see they see her as just another woman to despise? She plays weak on them and they will treat her like they do their own women in the dedicated Muslim faith?

When will the American people see it, also?

She can prattle on all she wants about “we help make more terrorists” she wants, but if she wins the high privilege to be our President and the Commander-in-Chief, she will be forced to become even more aggressive than President Bush is now, or they will turn up the heat and show her they mean business, as a reward for their “endorsement” of her election run.

Will she resist this urge to act presidential and push even more troops into combat roles, with loosened rules of engagement to show them she isn’t going to be pushed around, or will she fear her ratings from the vocal, left of left wing who “get her elected” (along with the terrorist help), and bring the troops home?

She has the choice now: Talk tough, or prepare to be steam rolled. If she choses tough, then be prepared to loose your “base” come 2012, with the screams of anguish because “HILLARY LIED!” beginning as soon as it becomes apparent (most likely within months of January 2009) she is not going to fulfill her “promise” to her constituency to end the war.

No advice here. I’m thinking “YEEHAW! IT’S GONNA BE ONE WILD RIDE!”

Trackbacked to Cao’s blog and Error Theory.Pennsylvania Newspapers Pretend There is No Direction to MeccaIn September 2005, a half dozen different bloggers verified that a person facing into what was originally called the Crescent of Embrace memorial to Flight 93 would be facing almost exactly at Mecca. Some surrounding trees have been added to the design, but the giant central crescent remains completely intact in the Bowl of Embrace redesign:With Tom Burnett Sr. condemning the crescent design and refusing
to allow Tom Jr.’s name to be used, there is now a big public controversy in western Pennsylvania over whether the giant crescent really is oriented on Mecca. In response, the Memorial Project has decided to deny that there is any such thing as the direction to Mecca, and Pittsburgh’s two major newspapers are both backing up this transparent falsehood.Professor Daniel Griffith, who is serving as a consultant to the Memorial Project, told the Post Gazette that: “anything can point toward Mecca, because the earth is round.” …He made similar statements to the Pittsburgh Tribune Review and the Johnstown Tribune Democrat. None of these papers asked for a second opinion from any of the one billion Muslims who face Mecca five times a day for prayer, and it isn’t that the media has been duped by Griffith.Editors and reporters at both the Post Gazette and the Tribune Review are fully aware that a host of bloggers have independently verified the Mecca orientation of the crescent design. It was actually the Tribune Review that first commissioned Professor Griffith to analyze the blogosphere’s Mecca-orientation claims. Alec Rawls, who has written a book about the many Islamic and terrorist memorializing features in the crescent design, has a copy of Griffith’s report for the Tribune Review posted online. The first thing Griffith does is calculate the direction to Mecca:

I computed an azimuth value from the Flight 93 crater site to Mecca of roughly 55.20°.

“Azimuth” is the technical term for “direction,” measured in degrees clockwise from north. Now Griffith is denying that there is any such thing as the direction to Mecca, and the Tribune Review refuses to tell its readers that Griffith is contradicting the report that he wrote for them.

The Post Gazette is even more outrageous. Rawls was told by Post Gazette reporter Paula Ward that she and her editors saw all the blog posts on the Mecca orientation of the Crescent of Embrace back in September 2005 and decided not to publish this explosive information. (Crescent of Betrayal, download 3, p. 108.) At the same time, the Post Gazette was running editorials that called critics of the crescent paranoid bigots:

But like those who look at innocent kids trick-or-treating at Halloween and see only the devil’s work, a few small and suspicious minds couldn’t look past the crescent to see a remarkably sensitive design.

When Tom Burnet Sr. asked the American people last month to please take his and Mr. Rawls’ warnings about the crescent design seriously, the Post Gazette responded with an editorial titled:
“Efforts to sully Flight 93 memorial deserve scorn.”

What is the significance of a crescent that a person faces into to face Mecca? Such a structure is called a mihrab, and is the central feature around which every mosque is built. That is why the surrounding trees added in the Bowl of Embrace redesign do nothing to alter the Islamic significance of the design. You can plant as many trees around a mosque as you want and it will still be a mosque.

One local paper actually did fact-check the orientation of the giant crescent and validated the Mecca orientation claim in print, but the larger papers are all refusing to pass this fact checking on, or to do their own, even though it is simple one-two operation. All that Tribune Democrat reporter Kirk Swauger had to do was use the Mecca direction calculator at Islam.com to print out a graphic of the direction to Mecca from Somerset PA, then place this print out over the Crescent of Embrace site-plan PDF on his computer screen:

The green circle, marked with the qibla direction (the direction to Mecca), is from Islam.com. Graphic shows that a person standing at the midpoint between the most obtruding tips of the crescent structure and facing into the center of the crescent (red arrow), will be facing almost exactly at Mecca. (Hat tip Sarah Wells.)

As Swauger put it in his news
article:

[Rawls’] 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.

Having suppressed this information for two years, Pittsburgh’s major newspapers are desperate to keep it suppressed now, or they will be ruined. Thus they find themselves camped out on the very spot that the blogosphere ranged with its artillery two years ago. They know full well that the Mecca-orientation of the crescent has been verified numerous times and are counting on their
control of public information to keep this knowledge from getting out to the general public.

The challenge to bloggers could not be more overt. Can the blogosphere retrieve its earlier fact checking from the memory hole and bust these news frauds? Easy and permanent access to existing fact checking is the blogosphere’s natural advantage, but we still have to take advantage of it.

This information was also mentioned at Newsbusters here on September 27, 2007.

———–

If you want to join us outraged protesting bloggers

1. in objecting to planting an Islamic symbol instead of an American one on the crash site,
2. in objecting to its pointing to Mecca and the terrorists’ intended target,
3. in objecting to dishonoring the memory of the people who fought the terrorists on Flight 93
4. in pointing out how Paul Murdoch cleverly and symbolically cast the passenger and crew out of the Islamic heavens in the design while the terrorists are inside the Islamic heavens
5. in pointing out how the date and the site are dedicated to the terrorists
6. in pointing out the numerous redundant mosque design features
7. in pointing out the terrorist memorializing features
8. and post along with us on Wednesdays

Please contact caoilfhionn1 at gmail dot com with your website url. She will, in turn, add you to the email list, send you the
blogroll code (if you want to put it in your sidebar), and will send you the prewritten text to post. You should receive the email from Cao a day or two prior to the Wednesday it should be posted, and tracked back to Cao’s blog and Error Theory, if your blog has that capability. This will help us track who in the blogroll is posting the blogburst.

Let’s roll.

Stop the Memorial Blogburst

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Riddle me this:

What was Paul Murdoch, the design’s architect, thinking? What was his ulterior motive? When controversy over the original name “Crescent of Embrace” and the bald Islamic symbol planted on the crash site brought a public outcry, the entire memorial was hastily re-titled “40 Memorial Groves.”

As Alec is apt to do, he’s having some fun with this: So why only 38 Memorial Groves?

His answer should appear today at Error Theory, go check it out!

Trackedback @: Cao’s Blog and Error Theory