Said Richard Nixon @ 4:11 pm Comments (0) | Permalink
Shake it off. Stand up. Take a few deep breaths.
It’s game time. Put on “The Face.”
Get over here and “ENGAGE!”
We’ll need all the thinkers we can get in on this one. Good ending are worth the effort, but the effort comes first.
And: Have a safe and Happy New Years celebration. See you on the other side.
Said xformed @ 1:18 pm Comments (0) | Permalink
And in it all, let us not forget the reason we are enjoying a few days off, and retailers make most of their money for the year right about now on each annual accounting.
Without the messenger of God to us, in the form of Jesus Christ, where would we be? It was that foundation that turned the world’s eyes towards each and every human being being a precious entity, and not just another cog in the machinery of life as it was known.
After millenia, that philosophy fueled a change on Earth, and brought forth a nation that laid a foundation of the inalienable rights granted by the Creator.
Fight it as you wish, but tell me what other influence in history has made men, women and children equals, regardless of lineage, gender, or physical ability?
It was the life of Christ that aloowed humanity to become more human.
Merry Christmas to your an yours!
Said xformed @ 10:26 am Comments (0) | Permalink
Besides work being a factor, in addition to the holidays, the entire cultural, politcal and economic environment is raging at full tilt. No sooner do I have some thought for a post, when the news blasts forth another incidence of idiocy, and the (my) mind wanders…telling me I’ll get to it soon.
It’s quite disappointing to try and wrap my thoughts around all that has happened. 6 months ago, I was filling the car up for close to $50, generally 2.5 - 3 times a week. Now, working in a static location, I fill up every 6 days and it’s generally less than $25 a tank now.
6 months ago, it looked like a close, but winnable election for the Republicans. Now, we have a man who cannot speak to us without a teleprompter (a whole other subject), has made sure the MSM knows who will be called on and what questions are off limits.
6 months ago, things weren’t the best, but since then, the “ruling class” all of a sudden declared the sky was falling, that we have to regulate things more to protect the consumers from themselves. Now, a whole class of people can keep picking my pocket to pay for a roof over their heads that’s beyond their means. As far as regualtion, it’s tremendously ironic that the very wealthy and “brilliant” of our society were ripped off by one of their own, to the tune of a number so large I really have trouble conceiving he could get people to give him that much.
The leaders of the finacial market, who cajoled us (the middle class) to enter the stock market, directly or indirectly, did the same thing. One huge ponzi scheme. They took our money, promised us a return (but past performance is no guarantee of future earnings!), handed the money over to others, who mismanaged it, and then…(wait for this line:) they come to tell us, the “experts” in the financial market have lost our money, so they have none to loan us (it’s getting bizarre by the simultaneous complexity and simplicity all at once), so our businesses and paychecks are all at risk unless…you guessed it: We hand over more of our money.
And that’s not the half of it. President Bush tried to get movement on the larger ponzi scheme, brought to you by the “New Deal,” Social Security, and the country (well, at least the Democrats and MSM) booed him into backing down from reform. Same thing: People, give us your money, we’ll make it more, and BTW, we’ll be handing it to other people, then asking people coming up behind you to hand us money, so we can give it back to you when you need it. Note: Looming on the economic horizon is the national equivalent of the Madhoff announcement: “Sorry, I lost all your life savings!”
The wealth of the middle class, as I’d suspect it actually comprises the majority of the invested money in the stock markets, helped us believe we could be living on the edge of the debt wave, but now…the wave broke and we’re underwater, off the board, hoping (and praying) the undertow will soon release us and we’ll get the surface to get the next gasp of life giving air.
What’s really maddening is the very people who have, after telling us how smart they are, are now telling us they know the way forward, and it’s another “hand over your money, now and for the future, and we’ll fix it.”
Who will stand and say: “No!”?
The politicians are too busy shoring up the rich and union-connected (got to keep someone with a cash flow to get contributions) so they can keep their seats of power, so they can keep bending us over and placing the burden on our backs.
At least in India, the heads of the police and some security had enough courage to stand and say: “It was my fault. I resign.” In our country, it has become “Hey! IT’S HIS(HER) FAULT! GO JUMP ON THEM!” No shame. No courage. No guts, and add to that, based on passive observation, completely outclassed for the positions these people hold. Despite some of those in Congress being there several to many more decades, they just don’t seem to have a clue of what to do, except hold more hearings, while the cash is getting cold in the freezer. Oh, wait…they’ll have to have more printed up in order to be able to do that, but don’t worry, The One will get the printing presses going on 1/21/2009.
I have often taken a swipe at the NEA. Now, I will again: You morons of the NEA, who are supposed to be educated (nice to be if you’re planning on educating someone else) have given us an electorate who believe the highest priority in life is their self-esteem, and don’t even understand that the Federal Government only gets money to spend by taking it from them. They don’t get that to get it back, it has to pass through the filter of hundreds, if not thousands of civil servants and their supporting contractors, making it an, at best, ineffective, and, as we see now, essentially non-functional, method for letting us have money to spend.
So, besides the UAW getting their bailout from the President today, the NEA, by derivation, was handed a victory, the victory of destroying the basic economic and civics knowledge of the electorate. All I can think is some people really hate this nation, to have played a part in all of this.
I predict, there will be no shame on the part of the NEA. They’ll just keep lobbying against home schooling and any voucher system, that would actually cause them to become competitive in the educational environment. Hmmmm…sounds like the auto industry, doesn’t it.
Hang onto your cash as best you can. The One will be confiscating it, along with Governor Patterson, and giving it to those who will vote them back in.
Term limits? Your time has come.
Oh, and it’s time to begin a campaign to not vote for any one running who cannot give a speech without a teleprompter. One hint: Toastmasters, you politicians who have become mouth-pieces for your speech writers. I’m tired of it. If they can’t talk the issues, they have no business being put in charge of them.
/confused stream of consciousness….and I’m waiting for the clown car to pull up at the Capitol any day now. I’m sure we’d get better results.
Said xformed @ 8:13 pm Comments (0) | Permalink
Said Cao @ 7:53 pm Comments (0) | Permalink
Crescent video, Part 2: “The terrorist memorializing features all point to each other”
Set to everybody’s favorite gunslinger music:
If you have a fast connection, there is a high quality viewing option at the lower right of the viewing screen here.
Part 1 focused on the blatant Islamic symbolism in the Flight 93 memorial, and on Tom Burnett’s efforts to stop this desecration of his son’s grave. Part 2 is about the terrorist memorializing features.
On first examination, the Islamic symbol shapes in the Flight 93 memorial are found to be slightly imprecise:
The giant crescent does not point quite exactly at Mecca.The Sacred Ground Plaza that sits roughly in the position of the star on a crescent and star flag does not sit exactly in the position of an Islamic star.
But additional features turn these imprecise Islamic shapes into precise Islamic symbol shapes:
Inside the Sacred Ground Plaza sits a separate section of Memorial Wall, inscribed with the 9/11 date, that IS placed in the exact position of an Islamic star.Remove the symbolically “broken off” parts of the crescent of Embrace (now called a broken circle) and the remaining crescent structure–what symbolically remains standing in the wake of 9/11–points EXACTLY at Mecca.
To find these additional features, just follow the terrorist brick road: the 44 inscribed translucent memorial blocks on the flight path (matching the number of passengers, crew, AND TERRORISTS).
No need to have seen Part 1 before seeing Part 2. All of the parts of this video series will stand on their own, with only a small amount of overlap. There is a brief review of the Mecca orientation, because that is what leads to the discovery of the 44 blocks, but the blocks then lead to this whole further array of terrorist memorializing features.
If there is a group that you want to show this to–conservative campus group, church group, poker group, or just a little half-time patriotism–ask Alec Rawls about getting the video in full resolution, or in television viewing format.
Said Cao @ 11:15 am Comments (0) | Permalink
Sorry, I haven’t been able to keep up with everything; so if you don’t see your comment…you’ll just have to wait.
And you might be waiting a long time, LOL
Said Cao @ 11:13 am Comments (0) | Permalink
Victoria Toensing puts it a little gentler, but come on. Fitzgerald made a total fool of himself in the Valerie Plame case.
Fitzgerald should keep his opinions to himself (WSJ Victoia Toensing) excerpt at Free Republic:
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s “conduct would make Lincoln roll over in his grave,” according to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. But Mr. Fitzgerald’s statement would, at the very least, make well-regarded former Attorney General Robert Jackson flinch in his. Almost seven decades ago, Jackson admonished a meeting of U.S. attorneys that they should be dedicated “to the spirit of fair play and decency . . . . A sensitiveness to fair play and sportsmanship is perhaps the best protection against the abuse of power . . . .”
In the Dec. 9 press conference regarding the federal corruption charges against Gov. Blagojevich and his chief of staff, Mr. Fitzgerald violated the ethical requirement of the Justice Department guidelines that prior to trial a “prosecutor shall refrain from making extrajudicial comments that pose a serious and imminent threat of heightening public condemnation of the accused.” The prosecutor is permitted to “inform the public of the nature and extent” of the charges. In the vernacular of all of us who practice criminal law, that means the prosecutor may not go “beyond the four corners” — the specific facts — in the complaint or indictment. He may also provide any other public-record information, the status of the case, the names of investigators, and request assistance. But he is not permitted to make the kind of inflammatory statements Mr. Fitzgerald made during his media appearance.
That isn’t stopping him from making a stone cold fool of himself:
I fear for the integrity of the criminal justice system when a prosecutor breaks the rules.
But all he’s doing is working from a page out of Ayers’ playbook: if you don’t like the rules, break them.
What’s more, Mr. Fitzgerald is a repeat offender.
Isn’t that the way it is with most of these corrupt idiots? Obama is a repeat offender. Axelrod is a repeat offender. Most of the corrupt politicians, terrorists and educators associated with Obama are repeat offenders; and they’re all completely unrepentant.
In his news conference in October 2005 announcing the indictment of Scooter Libby for obstruction of justice, he compared himself to an umpire who “gets sand thrown in his eyes.” The umpire is “trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked” his view. With this statement, Mr. Fitzgerald made us all believe he could not find the person who leaked Valerie Plame’s name as a CIA operative because of Mr. Libby. What we all now know is that Mr. Fitzgerald knew well before he ever started the investigation in January 2004 that Richard Armitage was the leaker and nothing Mr. Libby did or did not do threw sand in his eyes. In fact — since there was no crime — there was not even a game for the umpire to call.
So the masters of spin continue to pour Goebbels-style propaganda into the trough for the unsuspecting masses to eat up; and outfits like Media Matters, Daily Kos, Democratic Underground spread it around to fertilize it: a lie told often enough becomes truth!
Said Cao @ 11:10 am Comments (0) | Permalink
From the We The People Foundation
Full-Page Citizenship Challenge To Run Twice, December 1st and 3rd
D.C. National Press Club Event: Dec 8th
Our full-page Open Letter to Mr. Obama will be published in the Chicago Tribune on both Monday, December 1, 2008 and Wednesday, December 3, 2008. It will appear in the main news section. Click here to view a copy of the final ad.
Chicago is Mr. Obama’s hometown. His transition team is operating out of the Kluczynski Federal Building in downtown Chicago. He is known to be a regular reader of the Tribune, Chicago’s principal newspaper, with a daily circulation of over a half-million readers.
The Open Letter to Mr. Obama is a formal Petition for a Redress (Remedy) for the alleged violation of the “natural born citizen” clause of the Constitution of the United States of America.
Mr. Obama is respectfully requested to direct the Hawaiian officials to provide access to his original birth certificate on December 5-7 by our team of forensic scientists, and to provide additional documentary evidence establishing his citizenship status prior to our Washington, D.C. press conference on December 8.A First Amendment Petition to any official of the Government for Redress of a violation of the Constitution is substantially different from the garden-variety political petitions frequently received by government officials. This Petition demands it be given the highest priority for an expedited review and official Response by Mr. Obama.
As a formal “Notice of a Constitutional Violation,” the Petition naturally includes the People’s inherent Right to an official Response. As a time-sensitive, election related Petition involving the Office of the President, failure to Respond as requested would constitute an egregious breach of the public trust and confirm the certainty of a Constitutional crisis.
For the D.C. press conference the WTP Foundation has reserved the Edward R. Murrow Room at the National Press Club from 1-4 pm on Monday, December 8, 2008. We are hopeful that C-SPAN may cover what could be a pivotal, historic event.
The Petition for Redress/Open Letter to Mr. Obama is also expected to have a significant impact on the deliberations of the Electoral College as it proceeds toward selection of the U.S. President as provided for by the Constitution.
Many, many thanks to the many individuals who donated the money needed to cover the costs of publishing the Open Letter and conducting the Washington press conference.
We are now in the process of selecting the forensic scientists who would travel to Hawaii to examine Mr. Obama’s original birth certificate (assuming he responds to the Petition for Redress by directing the Hawaiian officials to provide access to the birth certificate). The budget for this task is currently estimated at $20,000. We need to raise the money quickly. Unfortunately, we are starting from zero and we have but one week before the scientists would need to be in Hawaii
An Open Letter to Barack Obama: Are you a Natural Born
Citizen of the U.S.? Are you legally eligible to hold the Office of President?
We the People Foundation for Constitutional Education, Inc.
2458 Ridge Road Queensbury, NY 12804
info@GiveMeLiberty.org
Here is the ad:
December 1, 2008
Mr. Barack Obama
Barack Obama Transition Office
Kluczynski Federal Building
230 So. Dearborn St.
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Dear Mr. Obama:
Representing thousands of responsible American citizens who have also taken an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America, I am duty bound to call on you to remedy an apparent violation of the Constitution. Compelling evidence supports the claim that you are barred from holding the Office of President by the “natural born citizen” clause of the U.S. Constitution. For instance:
• You have posted on the Internet an unsigned, forged and thoroughly discredited, computer-generated birth form created in 2007, a form that lacks vital information found on any original, hand signed Certificate of Live Birth, such as hospital address, signature of attending physician and age of mother.
• Hawaii Dept of Health will not confirm your assertion that you were born in Hawaii.
• Legal affidavits state you were born in Kenya.
• Your grandmother is recorded on tape saying she attended your birth in Kenya.
• U.S. Law in effect in 1961 denied U.S. citizenship to any child born in Kenya if the father was Kenyan and the mother was not yet 19 years of age.
• In 1965, your mother legally relinquished whatever Kenyan or U.S. citizenship she and you had by marrying an Indonesian and becoming a naturalized Indonesian citizen.
You have repeatedly refused to provide evidence of your eligibility when challenged to do so in a number of recent lawsuits. Instead, you have been successful in having judges declare that they are powerless to order you to prove your eligibility to assume the Office of President.
Incredibly, the judge in Hawaii actually said it would be an invasion of your privacy for him to order access to your original birth certificate in order to prove your eligibility to hold the Office of President. Before you can legitimately exercise any of the powers of the President you must meet all the criteria for eligibility established by the Constitution.
You are under a moral, legal, and fiduciary duty to proffer such evidence. Should you assume the office as anyone but a bona fide natural born citizen of the United States who has not relinquished that citizenship, you would be inviting a national crisis that would undermine the domestic peace and stability of the Nation. For example:
• You would always be viewed by many Americans as a poseur - a usurper.
• As a usurper, you would be unable to take the required “Oath or Affirmation” on January 20 without committing the crime of perjury or false swearing, for being ineligible you cannot faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States.
• You would be entitled to no allegiance, obedience or support from the People.
• The Armed Forces would be under no legal obligation to remain obedient to you.
• No civilian in the Executive Branch would be required to obey any of your proclamations, Executive Orders or directives; as such orders would be legally void.
• Your appointments of Judges to the Supreme Court would be void.
• Congress would not be able to pass any needed legislation because it would not be able to acquire the signature of a bona fide President.
• Congress would be unable to remove you, a usurper, from the Office of the President on Impeachment, inviting certain political chaos including a potential for armed conflicts within the General Government or among the States and the People to effect the removal of such a usurper.
In consideration of the escalating constitutional crisis brought on by the total lack of evidence needed to conclusively establish your eligibility, I am compelled to serve you with this First Amendment Petition for a Redress of this violation of the Constitution. With all due respect, I ask that you immediately direct the appropriate Hawaiian officials to allow access to the vault copy of your birth certificate by our forensic scientists on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, December 5, 6 and 7, 2008.
In addition, I ask that you deliver the following documentary evidence to the National Press Club in Washington DC by 10 am on December 8, 2008, marked for my attention:
• A certified copy of your original, signed “vault” birth certificate.
• Certified copies of your reissued and sealed birth certificates in the names Barack Hussein Obama, Barry Soetoro, Barry Obama, Barack
Dunham and Barry Dunham.
• A certified copy of your Certification of Citizenship.
• A certified copy of your Oath of Allegiance taken upon age of maturity.
• Certified copies of your admission forms for Occidental College, Columbia University and Harvard Law School.
• Certified copies of any legal documents changing your name. Each member of the Electoral College, who is committed to casting a vote on December 15, 2008, has a constitutional duty to make certain you are a natural-born citizen. As of today, there is no evidence in the public record (nor have you provided any) that defeats the claim that you are barred by law from assuming the Office of President because you fail the Constitution’s eligibility requirements.
All state Electors are now on Notice that unless you provide documentary evidence before December 15, that conclusively establishes your eligibility; they cannot cast a vote for you without committing treason to the Constitution. “In a government of laws, the existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy .” Olmstead v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438
Thank you for your understanding and cooperation in this urgent matter.
Sincerely,
Robert L. Schulz
Chairman
Said Cao @ 8:15 pm Comments (0) | Permalink
This is serious stuff, but it all goes back to her coverage of the birth certificate FRAUD that Obama is weaseling out of showing the American people; and her coverage of Obama’s relationship with his cousin, Raila Odinga.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s relationship with the president-elect. According to recent reports, Schmidt will soon be holding a position in the Obama administration.
Google ‘censoring’ anti-Obama bloggers?
In the past we’ve noticed all sorts of interesting internet manipulation in order to tip the scale in favor of Obama; this is just another example of it. The only search results that now come up in relation to Atlas Shrugs’ coverage of Obama’s birth certificate and Odinga - are sites that mock the coverage; not the actual links to her articles.
This is an outrage; considering he’s not even sitting in the oval office yet; but all of the censorship and attacks are omens of what bodes for the future of free speech under the usurper Obama administration.
Said Cao @ 3:06 pm Comments (0) | Permalink
Here again we have more evidence of clueless moonbattery:
Still banging on about the birth certificate??
Why yes, along with lawsuits that have been filed against Obama in at least eight states– Hawaii, Washington, California, Florida, Georgia. Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut, - too bad for you that there are those of us who’ve actually looked at Why the Barack Obama Birth Certificate Issue Is Legitimate; and that’s why there is a petition out there demanding Obama prove he’s natural-born and a legitimate candidate by allowing people to see his birth certificate. If he doesn’t answer the scores of lawsuits that are in the system, then he is, as Alan Keyes said, a “usurper”, and everything done during his presidency can be considered null and void. Doesn’t sound like you’ve considered any of the possibilities regarding that; could it be because you don’t value the rules set down in the founding documents?
Why would the Hawaiian governor seal Obama’s birth certificate if he has nothing to hide? Come on, man. Use your brain; it’s not only me, although it’s funny that you would position it as though I’m some sort of kook for continuing to ask questions about it. Why don’t you go to the websites of all of these articles and complain about it? You must crush all dissent toward the Messiah; despite all the nasty things you folks have directed against Bush, Palin, etc.! One-sided bigotry is all you’ve got, and you completely disregard the facts because you’re completely demoralized.
Seven reasons why Barack Obama should make the birth certificate controversy go away
The Great Birth Certificate Scandal/Coverup
Sign the petition to see Obama’s birth certificate
Have you ever wondered if this was such an issue, why didn’t the RNC and the McCain campaign raise it? They could have won the election if they were able to make an issue of it.
Have you ever stopped to think that all of the candidates have a connection to George Soros? I doubt that it would have made a difference at all if we’d had McCain or Obama - the results would have been the same, as they’re now declaring, McCain will vote with the democrats on the illegal immigration issue; and the main complaint that we had about McCain is that he IS NOT A CONSERVATIVE. At least when he chose Palin, we could see that he knows a conservative when he sees one…which is why the Obot thought police were so serious about attacking her. In my opinion this was a completely rigged election from the get-go and it didn’t matter who we voted for; it’s the people in power now who are calling the shots, due to McCain/Feingold and a number of other reasons…such as Media Matters.
Did you ever stop to think when watching the Clinton people march into the Obama whitehouse that we’re just getting more of the same…? Where’s the change except that Obama is a socialist that promoted infanticide?
But they didn’t, because maybe they know something that you don’t.
Or maybe they’re all on the same side, you idiot.
If your idea of rebuilding the conservative movement is hawking Sinclair’s and Korir’s lies and focussing on the non-existent birth certificate issue, then go right ahead…see how far that gets the conservative movement back on it’s feet.
blah blah blah. You haven’t proven that Sinclair is lying, and Obama not answering all the charges against him including the homosexual incident in 1999 sounds eerily familiar; Hitler buried his homosexuality, too. Doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Truth is what needs rebuilding; the conservative movement has suffered nothing except for increased attacks by radicals who subscribe to the Alinsky methodology of political discourse.
To use the argument that speaking my mind and voicing my opinion doesn’t serve the Conservative Movement - is hogwash. Your job is to make a mockery of all dissent.
It’s too bad you don’t know how to think for yourself, LOL
Have you heard Korir’s tape yet? Any day now Cao, just 24 more hours…
Korir’s sit is back up, bongoman, have you noticed? You must be having a hard time with the Korir effect; just like you’re having trouble with the Sinclair effect.
So sorry, you leftist bully…neither of them have run from their past like Barack Obama. And neither have them are flip flopping liars like Barack Obama, either, which is why I’m more inclined to believe them than the thought police who want to shape everyone’s opinions in adoration of the Obamessiah.
It’s funny to me that this is the same BS I’ve been tolerating for the last 4 years: complete intolerance from moonbat elitists who think they know better than everyone else; based on lies and hyperbole but call everyone ELSE liars.
Instead of calling people names, why don’t you come up with some proof that someone lies instead of just flinging the term “liar” around?
I think your goal is to desensitize people regarding the term “lie”, as in the days of Hitler when they celebrated the “death of the lie.” Good luck with that!
Said Cao @ 10:35 am Comments (0) | Permalink
Said Cao @ 10:33 am Comments (0) | Permalink
When I think of how twisted the world has become within just the short amount of time that I’ve been blogging - which is about 4 years; I can’t get over it.
Isn’t it interesting…? I was over at youtube looking for a video I saw yesterday where Rush Limbaugh explains Thanksgiving-the REAL story - not the revisionist version - and I can’t find it even with a search.
From Say Anything.
Said Cao @ 9:37 am Comments (0) | Permalink
No, the Mecca-orientation of the Crescent of Embrace is NOT a product of the landform
Defenders of the Flight 93 memorial repeatedly insist that the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent HAS to be a coincidence. It is completely determined, they insist, by the landform, the path of Flight 93, and the impact point, leaving no room for intent to enter.
Of course it is crazy to think that, so long as it is just an unfortunate coincidence, there is nothing wrong with planting a giant Mecca-oriented crescent (the central feature of a mosque) on the graves of our murdered heroes. About as crazy, actually, as thinking that the Mecca-orientation of the giant crescent could really be a coincidence. First architect Paul Murdoch just innocently comes up with a half mile wide Islamic-shaped crescent to honor the victims of Islamic terrorism, then he innocently places the Sacred Ground Plaza between the tips of the giant crescent, in the position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag, then he innocently just happens to point this entire crescent-and-star-flag configuration at Mecca (and on and on and on).
When the nation saw the second airliner hit the Trade Towers, everyone immediately knew that the first impact was no accident. The more airplanes that Paul Murdoch flies into the Flight 93 memorial, the more the Memorial Project thinks it HAS to be an accident. Its just TOO OUTLANDISH to think that an Islamic enemy could attack us out of the blue and unawares in such a henious way. What precedent is there for thinking that such a thing could even be possible? (Knock, knock, knock.) And so the more evidence they are confronted with, the more impossible it seems, and the more they insist that Murdoch HAS to be innocent.
Okay, so they are WILLFULLY blind. Even so, they still need an excuse to hang their willful blindness on, and part of Murdoch’s evil genius is to supply these excuses. That is where this trope about the crescent design being dictated by the landscape comes from. It comes from Murdoch, and is actually one of his most brilliant deceptions.
Murdoch’ PRELIMINARY DESIGN actually can be seen as dictated by the landform, the flight-path, and the point of impact
Before any designs were submitted, the Memorial Project gave all the design contestants a site organization map that labeled the “the ridgeline,” “the bowl,” “the crash site,” and “the flight path.” Architect Paul Murdoch claims that all he did was combine these elements by having the flight path symbolically “break” the circular bowl shape, creating the giant Crescent of Embrace design. If you start a crescent at the point where the flight path crosses the ridgeline, and follow the rim of “the bowl” around the ridgeline to create a crescent that “embraces” the Sacred Ground where Flight 93 crashed, then you get the Crescent of Embrace design. Since this procedure uniquely determines the orientation of the crescent, there is no room for the orientation to be determined by anyone’s intent. If it faces Mecca, it HAS to be a coincidence.
This argument actually works, but only when applied to Paul Murdoch’s ORIGINAL Crescent of Embrace design, which did NOT point to Mecca. Take a look:
Click for larger image.
The site organization map (left), shows “the bowl,” bordered by “the ridge,” along with the flight path and the crash site. Murdoch’s preliminary Crescent of Embrace design (right), uses the point where the flight path crosses the ridge/bowl as the end point for a crescent that has the Sacred Ground centered between its crescent tips. Resulting orientation: 11.1°. clockwise from north, which is 44.1° north of Mecca.
The explanatory notes in the preliminary design are perfectly accurate when they describe the crescent as focused on the Sacred Ground:
A curving arc of maple trees along a walkway unites the ridge and forms an edge to the bowl, with a focus on the Sacred Ground.
It is also correct to say that this crescent and its orientation are uniquely determined (to within 5° or so) by the landform, the flight path and the crash site. If the crescent arc were extended much further then it would no longer point to the Sacred Ground. (The amount of curve between the end points of the crescent does not matter. Murdoch established the curve of his original crescent by smoothing the curved shape of the ridge line.)
If THIS crescent is uniquely determined by the combination of landform, flight path and crash site, then the final Crescent of Embrace design, rotated 42.3° further to the east, obviously CANNOT be determined by these factors. By extending the crescent in his final design to match the full Islamic crescent shape (covering about 2/3rds of a circle of arc), Murdoch created a crescent that no longer points to the Sacred Ground:
The bisector of the crescent in Murdoch’s final Crescent of Embrace design points approximately 1.8 ° north of Mecca (marked “qibla”). Notice that the bisector of this Mecca-oriented crescent does not even touch the Sacred Ground, but crosses through the upper portion of the Sacred Ground Plaza that sits up the flight path from the Sacred Ground.
While the crescent no longer points to the Sacred Ground, Murdoch still PRETENDS that it does. Asked last summer about the orientation of the crescent, Project Superintendent Joanne Hanley and architect Paul Murdoch both claimed that it points to the Sacred Ground:
Further, [Hanley] added, it is still unclear exactly where on the landscape the memorial will even be situated. It could move as much as 200 yards, she said, discounting the idea that it faces Mecca.“The only thing that orients the memorial is the crash site,” she said.
Mr. Murdoch reinforced that idea.
“It’s oriented toward the Sacred Ground,” he said. “It just couldn’t be clearer.”
Hanley may be honestly duped, but Murdoch knows full well that the crescent does not point to the Sacred Ground. Such an orientation would ruin his mosque design, not just because a Sacred Ground oriented crescent would no longer point to Mecca, but also because it would place the graves of the infidels in the location of the star on an Islamic flag, leaving them inside the symbolic Islamic heavens. Blasphemy!
Murdoch has a very different symbolism in mind for the star on his giant crescent and star flag. In the top third of the Sacred Ground Plaza, centered on the bisector of the giant crescent, in the exact position of the star on an Islamic flag, sits a separate upper section of Memorial Wall, inscribed with the 9/11 date. The date goes to the star on the Islamic flag. The date goes to the terrorists.
The duping of David Beamer
At this August’s public meeting of the Memorial Project, David Beamer (father of Flight 93 hero Todd Beamer) came out to counter Tom Burnett Sr.’s protests against the crescent design.
Mr. Beamer declared that he had performed several months of due diligence investigating the warnings about the crescent design, by which he presumably meant that he had checked at least a few of our factual claims, like the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent (now called a broken circle). But instead of reporting the results of his fact-checking, Beamer changed the subject. He did not say a single word about the accuracy of any of our claims, but only reported how he had met with architect Paul Murdoch and was satisfied that Murdoch’s design properly honors his son and the other murdered heroes of Flight 93.
If he actually did any fact checking, then he is fully aware that the giant crescent DOES point within 2° of Mecca, in which case there is only one plausible explanation for Beamer declaring the design innocent. Murdoch must have convinced him that the crescent orientation is determined by the landform, the flight path and the crash site, so that its orientation on Mecca HAS to be coincidence.
If Mr. Beamer had bothered to talk to the person who has been warning of an enemy plot then Alec Rawls would have explained to him that no, these physical facts about the crash site do NOT yield a Mecca-oriented crescent. They yield a crescent that points 44° north of Mecca. It is a very strange concept of due diligence to trust the assurances of the person one is being warned is an enemy operative while refusing to talk to the person who is issuing warnings
Very strange too, to think that just because one is convinced that the Mecca orientation of the crescent is a coincidence, that somehow makes it okay to deny the Mecca orientation when speaking to the press and the public, as several Project spokesmen have now done. The fact that Beamer and Hanley and other Project Partners have been duped be Murdoch”s explanations would be of little consequence if they just let the public know what they know, so the American people can decide for themselves whether the fact that it might be a coincidence makes it okay to plant the world’s largest Mecca-direction indicator on the Flight 93 crash site.
Obviously the answer would be “NO!” and this nightmare would be over. It is the lying that is the problem. Hanley et. al. can be a bunch of dupes if they want, but they have no right to deceive the public about what they know.
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Said Cao @ 9:18 am Comments (0) | Permalink
President-elect Barack Obama’s plan to combat unemployment by creating 2.5 million public works jobs could only be loved by someone ignoring the economic and political realities of public works, alternative energy and the Greens.
“Rebuilding roads and bridges, wind farms and solar panels, fuel efficient cars and alternative energy technologies that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil and keep our economy competitive in the years ahead” is what Obama said he intends to accomplish.
It’s true that road building can contribute to economic growth, but not like Obama seems to think. The road building boom of the 1950s and 1960s did boost U.S. economic growth, according to Federal Reserve economist John Fernald. But this was because mass expansion of the interstate road system facilitated growth-producing economic activity. While necessary for keeping traffic moving safely and smoothly, simply re-building roads and bridges doesn’t spur commerce and, so, isn’t a strategy for economic growth.
While appropriate expenditures on new roads can produce high economic returns, according to a 2002 study published by George Mason University transportation experts in Public Works Management Policy, this isn’t what Obama is proposing. His reticence on new construction is likely due to his indebtedness to the Greens, who oppose new roads. The Natural Resources Defense Council testified before Congress last June, for example, that “footprints,” or new and existing road construction, should be “minimized.”
Read the rest, here.
When Peggy Brothman was talking about a similar plan for Illinois, I thought to myself - here she’s worked many years in the public education system which is paid for by our tax dollars; and she doesn’t see anything wrong with creating more government jobs - and she calls herself a republican? I see little difference between a McCain style republican that holds to the same grow government style bureaucracy and growing that bureacracy and someone like a Nancy Pelosi or a Harry Reid except that big government republicans tend to want to grow socialism more SLOWLY.
Said Cao @ 5:05 pm Comments (0) | Permalink
