Construction drawings released: Flight 93 crescent now points less than 3° from Mecca

From Error Theory:

The original Crescent of Embrace memorial to Flight 93 faced less than 2° from Mecca. That made it a mihrab, the Mecca-direction indicator around which every mosque is built. (Some mihrabs are pointed-arch shaped, but the classic mihrab is crescent shaped.)

The Park Service dismissed concern about the Mecca-oriented crescent on grounds that the construction drawings had not yet been finalized. “Those trees could move fifty feet, or three hundred feet,” said Project Manager Jeff Reinbold in the Spring of 2006, as if this kind of “tweaking” would make any difference (Crescent of Betrayal Ch.8 p.145-6).

The construction drawings have now been released, and yes, they moved the lower tip of the half-mile wide crescent about 300 feet, enough to change the orientation of the crescent by about 4.5°. Instead of pointing less than 2° north of Mecca, the giant Islamic-shaped crescent now points less than 3° south of Mecca.

Here is the original Crescent of Embrace:

“Qibla” is the direction to Mecca, which you can verify using any online Mecca-direction calculator (just type in Somerset PA). A person standing between the tips of the giant crescent and facing into the center of the crescent (red arrow) would be facing 1.8° north of Mecca, ± 0.1°.

Here is one of the new construction drawings:

Instead of facing a titch north of Mecca, the giant crescent now faces a titch south of Mecca (2.7° south ± 0.1°).

As with the original Crescent design, the upper crescent tip is the end of the 50’ tall Entry Portal Wall and the lower crescent tip is the last of the 50’ tall Maple trees on the bottom. The landscape overlays make the details hard to see in the thumbnail image above, but at full resolution they are fully legible. (Copy of source PDF, without the superimposed orientations lines here. Large file warning. Graphic is on p. 30 of 233.)

The Park Service was SUPPOSED to remove the Islamic symbol shapes

When architect Paul Murdoch’s winning Crescent of Embrace design was announced in September 2005, it appeared to show a bare naked Islamic crescent and star-flag planted atop the crash site:

Burned by the resulting firestorm of protest, the Park Service to agreed to get rid of the Islamic symbol shapes, but they never did. They added an extra arc of trees, and they call it a broken circle now, but the unbroken part of the circle, what symbolically remains standing in the wake of 9/11, is still a giant Islamic shaped crescent.

This is explained on the Park Service’s own website, where the extra arc of trees is explicitly described as a broken off part of the circle:

In summary, the memorial is shaped in a circular fashion, and the circle is symbolically “broken” or missing trees in two places, depicting the flight path of the plane, and the crash site.

Those two breaks are the two ends of the extra arc of trees:

The extra arc of trees extends from blue circle to blue circle, marking the two “breaks” in the circle referred to in the Park Service’s official explanation of the broken-circle design. One is where the flight path breaks the circle (left), the other is near the crash site (center).

What is symbolically left standing (the unbroken part of the circle) is just this:

Remove the symbolically broken off parts, and you get the original Crescent of Embrace design.

The only change is that the crescent has now been rotated clockwise a few degrees. In the construction plans it faces slightly south of Mecca instead of slightly north of Mecca. For a parallel, imagine airline security discovering a terror bomber, then playing with the fit his suicide vest before escorting him to his plane.

They said they were going to remove the giant crescent. They claim they HAVE removed it, but they haven’t. Symbolically, the design remains completely unchanged. The terrorists are still depicted as smashing our peaceful circle and turning it into a giant Islamic-shaped crescent, still pointing to Mecca.

The giant crescent is actually a mihrab

Here is the mihrab at the Great Mosque in Cordoba Spain. Face into the crescent to face Mecca, just like the crescent memorial to Flight 93:

Confronted with evidence that the Crescent of Embrace is actually designed to be the world’s largest mosque, the Park Service sought advice from a pair of Muslim scholars. Both acknowledged the almost exact Mecca-orientation of the giant crescent and both offered overtly dishonest excuses for it. One said not to worry about the likeness to an Islamic mihrab because no one has ever seen a mihrab this BIG before:

…most mihrabs are small, rarely larger than the figure of a man, although some of the more ornamental ones can be larger, but nothing as large at the crescent found in the site design. It is unlikely that most Muslims would walk into the area of the circle/crescent and see a mihrab because it is well beyond their limit of experience.

Right. That’s why everybody scratches their head at Mt. Rushmore. No one has ever seen Abraham Lincoln so BIG before. They just can’t figure it out.

To be fooled by this excuse, you have to really really want to be fooled. The other Muslim scholar said not to worry, the crescent cannot be seen as mihrab unless it points exactly at the Kaaba:

Mihrab orientation is either correct or not. It cannot be off by some degrees.

In fact, a mihrab does NOT have to point exactly at Mecca, for the simple reason that, throughout most of Islamic history, Muslims in far-flung parts of the world had no accurate way to determine the direction to Mecca. As a result, it was established as a matter of religious principle that what matters is intent to face Mecca. This was recently affirmed by Saudi religious authorities, after Meccans realized that even most of their local mosques do not face directly towards the Kaaba. “It does not affect the prayers” assured the Islamic Affairs Ministry.

Faced with evidence of an Islamic plot, why would the Park Service send this evidence exclusively to Muslims for appraisal? Have they forgotten who attacked us on 9/11?

The Service has long since been apprised of the patent dishonesties retailed by its two Muslim advisors but they don’t care. They wanted to be lied to, they knew where to go to be lied to, and they got what they wanted.

Michelle Malkin and Ed Morrissey

So where are the patriotic stalwarts like Michelle Malkin whose objections were instrumental in getting the Park Service to agree to remove the Islamic symbol shapes in the first place? If they knew in 2005 that the symbolic outcome of 9/11 should not be a giant Islamic shaped crescent why are they silent about this exact same symbolism today, after THEY were promised that this perversion would be removed?

Ed Morrissey urged his readers “to tell the National Parks Service and the Secretary of the Interior to rethink their plans,” promising for his own part that “as long as that crescent remains in the design, I’m not donating a red cent to the memorial.” Well Ed, the crescent does remain in the design, so please rejoin the fight.

The desertion of Malkin et. al. makes a difficult gap to fill, but we had better fill it, or the Flight 93 crash-site will soon be home to the world’s largest mosque.

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No intellectual diversity here; totalitarian moonbats continue pursuing their agenda to crush the opposition is based on a three-pronged formula.  Glenn Beck calls it the Progressives’ three tactics.

It was great to see him put into words what I have been thinking about lately – a complete departure from reason and facts; their backing facts into their preconceived storylines and throwing out the rest.  It was already apparent to me at the protests that I’ve attended along with the comments I’ve received on articles I’ve quoted and written about-that the communist/socialist activists think that profit is evil, and the Saul Alinsky tactic of marginalizing their political opponents which stems from an emotionally hysterical nonsensical argument (mostly name-calling) is another.  In terms of the global warming scam, healthcare, the financial industry and the auto industry-we certainly we can agree all of these have been presented to us as a crisis – but the moonbatty idea that government is here to fix these things couldn’t be more ridiculous.  It’s never fixed any of the things that it’s attempted to do in the past; only made things worse.

The hatred of capitalism is what fuels the evil profits argument; but what I don’t understand is – these evil profits are what companies invest into R&D, which at some point produces new products and product and medical technology, cures, and improvements.  We all stand to benefit from that; and so does the rest of the world.  R&D is not cheap. But sadly, when companies enter hard times, it’s often one of the first areas to be cut. America is the only nation that I’m aware of that generates tremendous technological advances; breakthroughs in medicine; cleaner energy (with no government intervention) and so on.  “Progressives” are actually about “regression”, not progress.  And even more sad is how they are all about destroying good things that the entire world has relied upon up until this point.

But that is about to change.  Case in point: how they want to stop third world countries from developing to “save the environment” based on global warming – which doesn’t exist.  The earth is in a state of cooling and has been – since the late 90’s.  This horrifying fact is why the IPCC DESTROYED its so-called research.

…reaching a new consensus will be exceedingly difficult because the raw data on which the landmark 1996 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change based its conclusion has been destroyed.

It’s a deliberate case of sabatoge.

the last step in the scientific method is independent reproduction of results. But lost climate data cannot be reproduced, which is a huge problem for everybody. “Every time CRU massaged the temperature data, they were getting more warming from the same numbers. It’s incumbent upon scientists to find out why, but you can’t find out if you don’t have the data,” Dr. Patrick Michaels, senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, told The Examiner. “The data needed to verify the gloom-and-doom warming forecasts have disappeared.”

Foisting a myth upon us in the name of science when it isn’t science at all – is what the REAL scientists have a problem with, because, as it says in the Examiner article-

what has happened is global temperatures have dropped every year since 1998, recent peer-reviewed research has uncovered the decisive influence of hot and cold cycles in the oceans on land temperatures, and growing numbers of scientists with unquestioned credentials are stepping forward to question the conventional wisdom.

They’d better move quickly if Mr. Nobel Peace Prize is going to sign away American Sovereignty and more of our hard-earned money in that environmental scam treaty in Copenhagen in December.  In effect, what that will accomplish is to redistribute America’s wealth across the world to third world countries -and the US will be the highest paying country into it.  Because it would require the other countries to give the US permission to let it out of the treaty once it’s signed, and they have the most to benefit from the US staying in, we would be in quite a pickle at that point.  That treaty will also trump our own constitution and laws – and nowhere in it does it mention anything about “voters”, “voting” or “representation”.  This is precisely what we were warned about by our founders with regards to taxation without representation.

Clearly, when moonbats use the three-pronged formula to argue any issue (and yes, they use it in every case)–they’ve moved into what Bezmenov described as the useful idiot category where facts mean nothing anymore.  You’re dumb, we’re in a crisis, we need to destroy evil profits (which means crush capitalism).

And this is what we’re faced with now; we’re opposing a group of radicals who don’t see the world as we do; who refuse to acknowledge that you have a point of view; who ridicule and attempt to marginalize you and even call you a liar if you suggest anything different than the party line.

In short; it’s totalitarianism.

But, as Bezmenov also observed, it’s these individuals who will wind up in the concentration camps alongside their political opposition, once their goal of smashing “the evil empire” has been achieved.  Yuri Bezmenov was an expert on this – read about him at wikipedia and take a look at the youtube videos of his interview with G. Edward Griffin.  So much of what he describes when he talks about his fulfilling the goal of ‘disinformation’ for the Soviets fits the description of the tactics the Obama supporters use.

Reverend Wurmbrand’s story about having been imprisoned in communist Romania for merely being a Christian details what ends up happening to moral people in a communist regime.  And they did the same thing-marginalize Christians along with the Jews in Nazi Germany, too.  It wasn’t just people of faith-it was even educated people.  They rounded up all the so-called intellectuals, teachers, and leftists – and put them away and/or simply shot them.

It is the leftist who will be the worst enemy of the marxist/leninist regime, once they realize the horrors of what this system accomplishes in practice.  “Social justice” is an empty buzzword.  To each according to his hyphen is the least of anyone’s worries at that point.  It’s the hyphens that have merely succeeded in dividing a nation in order for leftists to force upon the population their version of “equality” which isn’t equal at all.

A message from Americans For Prosperity Illinois

Despite what the left-wing media has claimed, the state of Illinois does have official relationships with scandal-plagued ACORN; A 2008 report from the Illinois Housing Development Authority showed that ACORN’s housing subsidiary received a $100,000 grant from the agency to build its Predatory Lending Database Program.  Somehow, this grant just happens to not appear in the Illinois Comptroller’s database. Illinois has an ACORN problem and it’s time to call for a real investigation, immediately.

The housing grant could be just the tip of a huge iceberg. Right now, there’s just no way to know because our leaders in Illinois like Governor Pat Quinn have strong ties to ACORN. You can urge Governor Quinn to cut ties and put an end to ACORN right now.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for an investigation into the organization’s activities. In Georgia, Governor Sonny Perdue told the state government to cut contracts to ACORN. Similar efforts are ongoing in Louisiana, Minnesota, New York, and Florida. Tell Governor Quinn that it’s time Illinois gets serious about stopping corruption.

Through its numerous shell groups and affiliates such as SEIU Local 880, ACORN has been mixed up in corruption in Illinois politics for decades. Illinois State Board of Elections records shows since it began tracking contributions, SEIU has given over $12 million to Illinois political campaigns, both Republicans and Democrats. This includes $538,963 to disgraced former Governor Rod Blagojevich, and $30,750 to current Governor Patrick Quinn. Tell Governor Quinn that this corruption has to stop.

Recently, Congress has voted to defund ACORN but despite these necessary efforts in Washington, our Senators Durbin and Burris, as well as Representatives Davis, Jackson, Rush, and Schakowsky voted for ACORN to keep its federal funding, which suggests there may be more to the story here in Illinois.

This should not be a partisan issue.  It is a basic responsibility of government to investigate and prevent taxpayer dollars from going to corrupt and unethical organizations.  Join us and Say NO to ACORN.

Sign the petition and tell Governor Quinn that you want a real investigation to end corruption for good.

Sincerely,
Joe Calomino, State Director
Americans for Prosperity-Illinois

By the way, it was Kirk Dillard and Bill Brady who voted for that money going to Acorn’s housing subsidiary, and frankly I’m really disgusted that we don’t have better representation.

Hopefully we’ll be able to work something out that will be more acceptable during this next election cycle – which might be our last chance!

SAY NO TO ACORN! Sign the petition!

I ought to check this blog once in a while.  You loons are cracking me up…but keep yelling in the echo chamber…when I get some time, I’ll go through them all and see if there is anything worth either ridiculing or publishing.  In the event that I have found neither, they will be deleted.

Illinois Review has a youtube video up, but doesn’t really frame it very well for the reader.  But Illinois Review has a separate article they could have linked to in that post-Morrison is running for Illinois State Representative in the 54th District.

Morrison is the handsome rat-pack looking guy I’ve seen at gatherings.  He spoke at the Palatine Tea Party, and he was at the Activist/Candidate Educational session that was held at the Rosemont Holiday Inn last Saturday.

See more at Morrison2010.com

X posted at Illinois Crime and Politics and Illinois Chronicle and Cao’s blog.

Paul Mitchell, conservative candidate for the 62nd District in Illinois, announced on Friday his one-week-long online fundraiser. He posted on his blog “Thoughts of a Regular Guy”, a post entitled, “One Week, One Thousand Dollars”. You can access it here. http://regularthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/07/one-week-one-thousand-dollars.html The paypal button is on the post, he’s asking for $5.00 or $10.00; whichever you can afford.

As he said in his post, “Many hands make light work”. How many times have I heard people complain about liberal politicians in Illinois on both sides of the aisle? This is a chance to do something about it; and it won’t break the bank. Thanks.

July 6, 2009

For Immediate Release

“Overtaxing the people is immoral” says Lake County Man

Lake County, Illinois-Paul Mitchell, of Hainesville, a candidate for the Republican nomination for State Representative in the 62nd District, spoke before an estimated 200 people this past Independence Day at the Palatine Tea Party about the importance of morality in government.

Quoting John Adams famous remark that “Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other,” Mitchell told the cheering crowd, “I say, taxing the people into destitution is immoral!” Mitchell went on to stress the importance of morality as an element of the conservative agenda. He told the crowd that they must work for a culture of life, a culture of liberty, and a culture of prosperity.

Mitchell told the crowd, gathered under rainy skies for the demonstration, that they must find conservative candidates to support, even if that meant running for office themselves, as he is doing.

Later, Mitchell explained that he is running against two-term Republican Repesentative Sandy Cole of Grayslake, whom he describes as “a social liberal”, noting that she had this session had voted in committee for an extremely pro-abortion bill, which later died in the House.

“That bill,” explained Mitchell, “would have repealed Illinois’ parental notification law on abortion, it would have mandated sex education beginning in kindergarten, and it would have protected abortionists who harm women from malpractice suits, among other bad points. Whether you count yourself as pro-life or pro-choice, that bill was pro-abortion, and extremely so. I don’t believe that Lake County voters want a pro-abortion extremist representing them in Springfield.”

A spokesman for his campaign said, “Paul Mitchell is a regular guy who is stepping out of his comfort zone to offer an alternative to the arrogance of the entrenched liberals on both sides of the aisle. Paul is “change you can believe in”; changing from a culture of death to a culture of life; from a culture of crushing taxation on the middle class and the poor to a culture of keeping what you earn; from a culture of oppression to a culture of liberty. Three things that always accompany tyranny, he says, are economic depression, a culture of death, and religious oppression, and where we find one of these, the others will be advancing.”

We are experiencing that in Illinois, says Mitchell, but it is not too late to turn it around.

Visit his campaign website at http://paulfor62.com

For more on the Palatine Tea Party, see http://www.teapartypalatine.com

For media inquiries, contact: click here to email

Photos available on request

Dear Mr. President,

You face difficult challenges in matters such as achieving peace in the Middle East and protecting America from the threat of radical Islam and terrorism. These are challenges that have vexed past presidents, going as far back as our second president, John Adams. I have no doubt you appreciate both the gravity of these challenges and the enormous obstacles that exist to solving them.

I also have no doubt that you and your staff understood that, no matter what you said in your speech last Thursday (June 4, 2009) in Cairo, there would be those who would take issue with you. That is always the case when attempting to solve problems that are as deep and emotionally-laden as these challenges are.

I am assuming it is your sincere hope that the approach you have chosen to take, as evidenced by what I’m sure was a carefully crafted speech, will ultimately prove successful. However, it pains me to say this sir, but, while you said in your speech that you are a “student of history,” it is abundantly clear that, in these matters, you do not know history and thus, as Santayana noted, you are doomed to repeat it. In doing so your efforts, however well-intentioned they may be, will not produce what you profess to hope they will produce.

A wise man once said that if you start with the wrong assumptions, no matter how logical your reasoning is, you will end up with the wrong conclusion. With all due respect Mr. President, you are starting with certain assumptions that are unsupported by history and an objective study of the ideology of political Islam.

You began in your speech by asserting that “tensions” exist between the United States and Muslims around the world, which, of course, is correct. Unfortunately, you then proceeded, incorrectly, to lay virtually all the blame for these tensions at the feet of America and the West. You blamed western colonialism, the Cold War, and even modernity and globalism.

A student of American history, who is not trying to reconstruct it to fit a modern politically correct narrative, would state that tensions between America and Muslims began with the unprovoked, four-decades long assault by the Muslim Barbary pirates against American shipping in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. I find it telling that you mentioned the Treaty of Tripoli in your speech but <u>ignored</u> the circumstances that led to it. That treaty was but one of numerous attempts by the United States to achieve peace with the jihadists of the Barbary Coast who were attacking our shipping and killing and enslaving our citizens and our soldiers and who by their own admission were doing so to fulfill the call to jihad.

These jihadists were not acting to protest American foreign policy, which was decidedly isolationist, and there was no state of Israel to scapegoat. They were doing what countless Islamic jihadists have done throughout history, acting upon the hundreds of passages in the Qur’an and the Hadith that call upon faithful Muslims to kill, conquer or subjugate the infidel.

A student of world history would know that, for all the acknowledged evils of Western colonialism, these evils pale in comparison to the nearly 14 centuries of Islamic colonialism that began in Arabia under the leadership of Mohammed. The student of history would know that Islamic forces eradicated all Jewish and Christian presence from Arabia after Mohammed’s
death, and then succeeded in conquering all of North Africa, most of the Middle East, much of Asia Minor, and significant portions of Europe and India, eventually creating an empire larger than Rome’s was at its peak.

The number of dead and enslaved during these many centuries of Islamic imperial conquest and colonialism have been estimated to total more than 300 million. What’s more, the wealth of many of the conquered nations and cultures was plundered by the Islamic conquerors, and millions of non-Muslims who did survive were forced to pay onerous taxes, such as the
“jizya,” a humiliation tax to the Islamic caliphs. Indeed, in some areas Christians and Jews were made to wear a receipt for the jizya around their neck as a mark of their dishonor.

These facts have not been invented by Christian or Jewish historical revisionists, but were chronicled by Muslim eyewitnesses throughout the past 14 centuries and are available to be researched by any person seeking an objective understanding of how Islam spread throughout the world.

You say in your speech that we must squarely face the tensions that exist between America and the Muslim world. That is a laudable notion with which I agree, but by casting Islam as the historical victim and the West (and by implication, America) as the aggressor, you do not face these tensions squarely, but alleviate the Muslim world from coming to grips with the
jihadist ideology embedded in its holy books and acted upon for 1,400 years.

Even worse, you empower and embolden militant Islamists who regard your gestures as signs of weakness and capitulation.

The issue is not that all Muslims are terrorists or radicals or extremists. We all know that the majority of Muslims are not. We also know that many peace-loving Muslims are victims of Islamist violence.

The issue is this: what drives hundreds of millions of Muslims worldwide to call for the death of Jews?

What drives millions of Muslims to riot, destroy property, and take innocent lives in reaction to the Danish cartoons?

What drives tens of thousands of Muslims to demand the execution of a British teacher whose only “crime” was allowing her students to name their teddy bears “Mohammed”?

What drives countless Muslims worldwide to actively participate in, or fund, or provide nurture to terrorist organizations?

What drives Muslims in mosques in America to proclaim and distribute materials that call for hatred of and the destruction of infidels?

What drives entire Islamic countries to prohibit the building of a church or synagogue?

To assume, as you apparently do, that what drives these actions is not an ideology embedded in the holy books of Islam, but rather other “root causes,” most of which you lay at the feet of America and the West, is at best naïve and at worst dangerous.

Lastly, I must address your statement that “Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance.” Unfortunately, the examples you gave are the exception rather than the rule.

Historically speaking, I seriously doubt the Egyptian Copts, the Lebanese Maronites, the Christians in Bethlehem, the Assyrians, the Hindus, the Jews, and many others who have been persecuted by Islamic violence and supremacism, would agree with your assertion.

For instance, Christians and Jews became “Dhimmis,” a second class group under Islam. Dhimmis were forced to wear distinctive clothing; it was Baghdad’s Caliph Al-Mutawakkil, in the ninth century, who designated a yellow badge for Jews under Islam, which Hitler copied and duplicated in Nazi Germany nearly a thousand years later.

I witnessed first-hand the “tolerance” of Islam when Islamists ravaged my country of birth, Lebanon, in the 1970’s, leaving widespread death and destruction in their wake. I saw how they re-paid the tolerance that Lebanese Christians extended toward them. My experience is not an isolated one. When you make an unfounded assertion about the “proud tradition” of tolerance in Islam, you do a great disservice to the hundreds of millions of non-Muslims who have been killed, maimed, enslaved, conquered, subjugated or displaced in the cause of Islamic jihad.

Mr. President, those of us like me who are ringing the alarm in America about the threat of radical Islam would like nothing better than to peacefully co-exist with the Muslim world.

Most Americans would like nothing better than to peacefully co-exist with the Muslim world. The obstacle to achieving this does not lie with us in America and the West. It lies with the hundreds of millions of Muslims worldwide, including many of their spiritual leaders, who take seriously the repeated calls to jihad in the Qur’an and the Hadith Who regard “infidels” as inferior and worthy of conquering, subjugating and forcibly converting.Who support “cultural jihad” as a means to subvert non-Muslim societies from within. Who take seriously the admonitions throughout the Qur’an and the Hadith to convert the world to Islam by force if necessary and bring it under the rule of Allah.

Unless you are willing to courageously and honestly accept this, your aspirations for worldwide comity and peace in the Middle East are doomed to fail.

Sincerely,

Brigitte Gabriel

Well that sucks, wordpress doens’t allow the script to embed the player.

Well here is the link to her blog talk radio show.

Mother of Flight 93 hero calls for “a full and transparent review” of the crescent-shaped memorial

For two years, Tom Burnett Sr. has been speaking out against the crescent-shaped memorial to Flight 93. This week Beverly Burnett (mother of Flight 93 hero Tom Burnett Jr.) stepped into the public eye to support her husband, and to make her own appeal for a full investigation:

Today, I am adding my voice for a full and transparent review of the National Park Service and Flight 93 design selection process that produced Crescent of Embrace. Does it have Islamic symbols or doesn’t it? Let’s settle this once and for all.

Why do you think Tom Sr. opposed this design? It is pretty simple; Tom Sr. saw the Islamic symbols and knew those symbols did not belong at the crash site of Flight 93.

Tom Burnett Sr. traveled to Pennsylvania last August to attend the Task Force Meeting to voice his opposition to the memorial design. A Family Board member as well as a commissioner accused Tom Sr. being “just like the Islamic terrorists” that killed our son.

Why didn’t someone speak up and defend Tom Sr.’s right to voice his opinion?

Thanks to The Somerset Daily American for publishing Mrs. Burnett’s complete statement, which she also entered into the record of the most recent Memorial Project meeting. Read the whole thing.

Two other mentions of the memorial controversy in the local PA press this week

In a letter to the editor, a local woman echoed Mrs. Burnett’s sentiment in favor of preserving the site as it is, instead of demolishing the highly regarded Temporary Memorial and radically transforming the landscape, as the Memorial Project intends.

At present the Temporary Memorial looks down over the “field of honor.” Because this temporary memorial is located roughly in the center of the planned half-mile wide crescent, it will be eliminated. Visitors who stand at the location of the Temporary Memorial will no longer look out over the original landscape, but will instead see the crash-site framed between the pincer tips of the giant Islamic-shaped crescent.

They call the crescent a broken circle now, but the unbroken part of the circle, what symbolically remains standing in the wake of 9/11 (originally called the Crescent of Embrace) remains completely unchanged.

Nice words from a local columnist, but no fact-checking

In the area’s second local paper, The Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, columnist Ralph Couey offers a very nice tribute to the heroes of Flight 93 in which he mentions Mr. Burnett’s opposition to the planned memorial. Unfortunately, Mr. Couey goes on to describes Mr. Burnett’s opposition as “hopeless intransigence,” and expresses his optimism that it can be gotten past.

Given that newspapers are supposed to get to the truth, one would hope that those who gain the privilege of this public platform would bother to check the facts. If Mr. Burnett is correct in his warnings about Islamic symbolism, then finding a way to get past these objections is like finding a way to sneak a hijacker past gate security. It is a bad thing, not a good thing.

The petition that Mr. Burnett sponsored along with our blogburst group lists four damning facts about the approved design that can all be verified in a matter of minutes. Can Mr. Couey check just one: that a person standing between the tips of the giant crescent and facing into the center of the crescent will be facing within 2° of Mecca?

The Muslim prayer direction in this animation (qibla) is from the Mecca-direction calculator at Islam.com. (If you have trouble getting their calculator to work–your Java has to be configured correctly–there is another Mecca direction calculator at QiblaLocator.com.)

This Mecca-orientation makes the giant crescent a mihrab, the Mecca-direction indicator around which every mosque is built. Does Mr. Couey really want to see the world’s largest mosque planted on the Flight 93 crash site? It is fine to speak highly of the heroes of Flight 93, but it would be a lot more meaningful if he would honor the Burnett’s urgent appeal for fact-checking by stepping over to a globe and checking this one simple factual claim.

Mr. Couey is not the only one who wants the crescent controversy to go away without caring to know the truth. Sorry, but that is insufficient. Planting a giant Mecca-oriented crescent on the crash-site will dishonor the heroes of Flight 93, and it fails to follow their example. They didn’t just have good intentions. They got the job done, and we have to get the job done too. We can’t be asleep at the wheel while an al Qaeda sympathizing architect hijacks our memorial.

What? Is it just too outlandish to think that the enemy might try to hijack one of our memorials? The same way that it is just too outlandish to think that the enemy might dare to hijack our commercial airliners? Do these people even know what they are memorializing?

But they CAN wake up. All they have to do is actually check the facts. Then they will know. So please Mr. Couey, take the time to check a few facts, then write a second column, reporting your findings. Somebody out there in Somerset needs to start telling the truth. It might as well be you.

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Redesigned Flight 93 memorial still an Islamo-fascist shrine
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