2010 Breaking News.....Lefties reconstruct Lady Liberty in an attempt to save their sorry arses from Islamofascists. (To heck with the rest of us)
Posted on 09/12/2005 12:10:14 AM PDT by spycatcher
Today is September 11.
Michelle Malkin and other bloggers are buzzing about the proposed Flight 93 memorial, which bears a striking resemblance to an Islamic crescent. Zombie produces an animated image consisting of the memorial (rotated so the arms of the crescent point to the right) overlapped with the crescent of the Tunisian flag. The juxtaposition is nearly perfect.
Zombie also links to this image credited to "Etaoin Shrdlu". What you're seeing is an azimuthal equidistant projection of the globe centered on the Flight 93 crash site. On such a projection, the concentric circles represent a fixed distance from the center, and the angle of a straight line from the center to any point represents the azimuth between the two points. Etaoin's image shows that a line perpendicular to the endpoints of the crescent (that is, the direction the crescent faces) appears to pass very close to Mecca. Mecca sits near Saudi Arabia's western coast with the Red Sea, and as Etaoin's image shows, the crescent points right at it.
But I've always been one to go for cold calculations over pretty pictures, so I set to find out if indeed the crescent points towards Mecca. Here's what I came up with:
According to this site, the latitude/longitude coordinates of Mecca are 21.4234, 39.8262 and the coordinates of the Flight 93 crash site are 40.052, -78.8963. Using the calculator from this site, I determined that the azimuth between the two points is 124.80°.
Next I went to the Flight 93 National Memorial website and found the biggest overhead view of the memorial I could find with north oriented up. I measured the distance from tip-to-tip of the crescent and came up with 64px east-west and 90px north-south. The arctangent of 64/90 is the angle between north and a line drawn between the tips, which works out to 35.42°. Adding 90° to this angle gives the direction the crescent faces as 125.42°.
Conclusion: the crescent points towards Mecca with an error of 0.62°, or 0.17%. If you take a circle and divide its circumference into 580 equal arcs, the angle subtended by one of those arcs is the error. (Bear in mind that any error in my figures could change this value; the figure most open to interpretation is the distance in pixels between the tips of the crescent.)
I don't know if the architect deliberately made his design look like an Islamic crescent, or if it's coincidental. I don't know if the architect deliberately made his crescent point almost directly towards Mecca, or if it's coincidental. What I do know is that a memorial in the shape of a swastika would never be permitted, whether the resemblance was intentional or a coincidence. Nor would a memorial resembling a Confederate battle flag.
The strong resemblance of this memorial to an Islamic symbol, whether intentional or accidental, is grossly insensitive to those of us who find it offensive. The commission needs to go back to the drawing board.
I'd spend more time persuading the parents and victims families who approved of this memorial. Screw the leftist nutjobs, they're beyond help.
i give it one hourafterits dedication beforeitis burned totheground as well it should be
which FReeper would that be?
I believe the employment of a crescent of any fashion is an insult to those who died and to their families on 9/11 since the official islamite symbol is a crescent.
The Architect's license to practice ought to be revoked - especially if he lies and denies any connection. It's an obvious deliberate insult to those who perished there.
I'm now gonna even be opposed to crescent rolls.
Islam is the true embodiment of evil and epitome of human suffering and oppression.
"When it comes to a memorial, all mankind sympathizes," he said." The idea of the Crescent of Embrace, Murdoch said, is to be a gesture of healing and bonding.'"
Baloney!!
ping
This is infuriating beyond words.
But this is simply more proof of this guy being full of it. A plane flying from Shanksville, PA to DC is traveling southeast. Why then is the severed portion of the circle of tree oriented northeast and (golly gee, what a coincidence) why is the severed path oriented precisely in the direction of Mecca?
I think Murdoch shares the sensibilities of the composer Stockhausen who once described the WTC bombing as "the greatest work of art ever". His monument is really a sort of celebration of this great "work of art".
I suspect that a part of him also thrills in subtly making fools of the flight 93 families along with all the rest of us who have not reached his sublime level of artistic refinement. Basically we are all being punked.
I have a friend in public art, as left as left can be, quite famous in her field, and every piece of one of her "works" has to be explained, as layers upon layers of symbolism have been put into it deliberately by her. She had to do something for a Nestle owned firm and deliberately put in some oblique references in stone about how Nestle gave powdered milk to breastfeeding third world mothers to get them hooked on their product. These artists excel at BS-talk to get their bids accepted, but they are devious and have their own agendas (besides just sucking off the taxpayer's teat).
We need to immortalize the strengths, the unique strengths, of these people. They saved everyone in the Capitol. They saved people in towns underneath their flight. They gave their absolute ALL to save the innocent people on the plane.
They saved the people on Richard Reid's (shoebomber) plane with their example. They saved people on FUTURE flights with terrorists, who will fight back now, forever.
Their memorial should focus on that. Not on death.
They say that when you save a man, you save a world. What about an image depicting an airplane aloft with a thousand perfect tiny Capitol buildings on its wings? That's just an idea off the top of my head, and it's better than what that whole committee came up with.
Each of the human beings inside the Capitol, from janitor to Senator, may have a world of descendants since 2001, thanks to the brave people on this flight.
New post with big graphic
http://www.dailypundit.com/newarchives/004398.php
I do. The Park Service and Murdoch are subpoenaed to a Congressional Inquiry.
Thanks for the ping!
Thanks for the ping!
mark
bump and thanks!
Hey Dumb-Arse. . .
It does 'open towards Mecca'. . . in exactly the opposite direction. The Earth is not flat moron.
btw... are u a troll?
Deets
ebiskit,
who are you to pop in out of nowhere and address anyone as a "dumb-arse" and "moron" and "troll"?
D-fendr and I disagree on this design, and have done so amicably. I believe he is mistaken to wave off four odd similarities between the design and Islamic symbolism, but have felt no need to resort to foul ad hominem attacks. He believes I am seeing intent where there is none, and yet has not felt compelled to insult or deride my analysis.
So, again, where do you get off jumping in the way you have done?
how about a tower built out of 44 stainless-steel columnar elements, each column capped with a fist-shaped capital, with the tower itself capped with a "digitus impudicus" which, naturally, should face Mecca.
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