Congressman Ramstad comes out in opposition to the Flight 93 memorial

Congressman Jim Ramstad (R-MN) gave a House speech this month, supporting Mr. Burnett’s opposition to the crescent design. The speech is entered in the Congressional Record here, along with supporting statements from Tom Burnett Sr. (father of murdered Flight 93 hero Tom Burnett Jr.).

That makes two Congressmen now who have come out publicly against the crescent memorial. (Tom Tancredo took the lead last November, asking the Park Service to choose a completely new design.)

News coverage revs up confrontation at this Saturday’s public meeting

Ramstad’s speech, and our ongoing petition drive, netted a full width banner headline on the front page of the Somerset Daily American, with the story continuing full width on an inside page as well. This high profile local news coverage should make for an interesting Memorial Project meeting at the Somerset County Courthouse this Saturday. Several critics will be speaking during the public comment period, and the first batch of petitions will be delivered in bulk (over 5000 signatures to date, 4700 online and 500 on paper).

The Daily American article includes lots of powerful language from Mr. Burnett and other critics of the crescent design, along with some remarkably disingenuous evasions from the usual defenders. Most egregious is Patrick White, vice president of Families of Flight 93, who tries to pretend that the criticisms of the design are all about Mr. Burnett trying to get an undemocratic "do over" after failing to stop the Crescent of Embrace design when he served on the design competition jury.

While on the jury, Mr. Burnett only complained about the giant Islamic shaped crescent and the minaret-like Tower of Voices. No one on the jury, including Mr. Burnett, knew anything about the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent; or about the placementof the 9/11 date in the exact position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag; or about the 44 glass blocks on the flight path; or about the fact that the Tower of Voices turns out to be a year-round accurate Islamic prayer-time sundial.

Not that the jury is beyond reproach. It was bizarre for these family members and design professionals to plant a bare naked crescent and star flag on the graves of our murdered heroes, but given everything that the jurors did NOT know, this configuration at least COULD have been an accident. What came out after the design was selected is absolute proof of terrorist memorializing intent, with every Islamic and terrorist memorializing feature being repeated in the Tower of Voices portion of the memorial.

One example is the 38 Memorial Groves. (There were supposed to be 40.) By itself, it is merely suspicious that the arc of 38 groves can be seen as a set of 19 nested crescents: one for each 9/11 hijacker. But architect Paul Murdoch proves this terrorist memorializing intent by surrounding the Tower of Voices with a second set of 19 nested crescents. And on it goes. EVERYTHING gets repeated in the Tower of Voices, and the 93 foot tall Islamic sundial is itself a very precise structure that could NEVER occur by accident.

Patrick White wants to dodge all this by pretending that the controversy is about the initial jury decision, instead of the ensuing blindness to voluminous evidence of terrorist memorializing intent. No one exemplifies this willful blindness better than Patrick White himself.

Patrick White denies the Mecca orientation in public while admitting it in private

At the July 2007 Memorial Project meeting, a critic of the crescent design engaged Mr. White in private conversation, asking how he could be unconcerned about the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent. White’s reply was to suggest that this orientation cannot be seen as a tribute to Islam because the inexactness of it would be "disrespectful to Islam." (The crescent points 1.8° north of Mecca, ±.1°.)

But this isn’t what White was telling the public. That same week, Patrick White told the press that all of the claims about Islamic symbolism had been thoroughly investigated and been found to be untrue and "preposterous." In private, White was acknowledging the almost exact Mecca orientation of the crescent and making excuses for it, while issuing sweeping denials in public.

He is still doing the same thing. He KNOWS that the giant crescent points almost exactly to Mecca, yet claims that such "assumptions," have been "repeatedly shown-to-be-false." In fact, not a single factual claim about what is in the design has ever been rebutted. If the crescent did not point to Mecca, it would be trivially easy to demonstrate. This is a simple geometric claim. But all the Memorial Project has ever offered is unsupported denials, denials that they acknowledge in private to be FALSE.

Patrick White’s dishonest attack on Tom Burnett

The jury process is irrelevant. No one is criticizing it. The jurors bear no responsibility for hidden Islamic and terrorist-memorializing features that they knew nothing about when they chose the crescent design. If it were not for two ugly bits of misinformation, put forward by Patrick White in his effort to make the jury process the issue, there would be no reason to mention the jury process at all. Both of White’s falsehoods are aimed at discrediting Tom Burnett Sr.

1. In the Daily American article (half way down) White claims that Mr. Burnett: “gave his consent to support what the majority picked.”


Mr. Burnett was incensed in 2005 when the Memorial Project announced that the jurors had united behind the majority choice. Without ever consulting with Mr. Burnett, the Memorial Project wrote in their jury report that: "By consensus the Stage Two jury forwards this section of the Flight 93 memorial to the partner [Paul Murdoch] with the full and unqualified support of each juror." Tom has been trying to correct the record ever since, and Patrick White OUGHT to know it.

• 2. White also claims that: “No one agreed then with Mr. Burnett’s preferred choice for a final design.”
  

  "To the contrary" says Mr. Burnett, "the vote not unanimous; it was 9 to 6." Five people were with Mr. Burnett in rejecting the crescent design. This on a jury made up of 8 design professionals and 7 family members. It could even be that a majority of family members opposed the Crescent of Embrace. Tom requested the vote tally in a formal letter to the Memorial Project which was never answered. Now Patrick White throws the vote tally in Tom’s face, and completely misrepresents it.

• 3. Bonus badness. White claims that: “Jurors gave all of Mr. Burnett’s concerns a complete airing.”
  

  In fact, the design professionals on the jury tried to shut Mr. Burnett up. Tom Sokolowski, director of Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum called Mr. Burnett “asinine” just for noticing that the crescent is a traditional symbol of Islam. This overt hostility to Mr. Burnett’s concerns is not what most of us would call “a complete airing.”

So no, the jury process is not the issue here, but if it were, it couldn’t stand up to scrutiny either.

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Pennsylvanians build an organization to stop the Flight 93 memorial

The following press release was sent to Pennsylvania news outlets yesterday:

Angry over the Islamic symbolism contained in the Flight 93 Memorial Design, which appears to honor both the heroes and the terrorists, a group of concerned citizens asked Harry Beam (Lt. Col. U.S. Army Retired) to lead an organized effort to have the design changed.

Col. Beam said he examined several different factors before agreeing to lead the effort. First, he found that the people making the request are credible. Tom Burnett (father of a Flight 93 Hero) is demanding change to the memorial design. Additionally, Col. Beam states that he has talked to MD’s, PhD’s., Attorneys, School Teachers, Nurses, Pastors, Skilled and Unskilled Workers, Veterans and Retirees who are upset with the actions of the Flight 93 Planning Committee and the National Park Service. Second, Beam said he had to determine the validity of the assertions that there is Islamic symbology in the memorial design. He stated, “I will be the first to admit that several years ago, when I first heard about the Red Crescent, I assumed that it was a matter of co-incidence. After researching the design, I found there are many (8) additional co-incidents which cause one to question the design and the designer.” The fact that the Red Crescent points towards Mecca in the same manner a Mosque would if it were built on the site. The fact that there are 44 glass blocks included in the design (40 passengers and crew; 4 terrorists) are just two more of the eight examples of co-incidence.

The third factor was that the statements from Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) opining on the symbolism issue were not credible. Their opinions, presented to the U.S. National Park Service and the Memorial Project, were contradictory. One SME stated “because the earth is round, you can face any direction and be facing Mecca.” Most 5th graders know that is false. The statement also conflicted with another SME who said “the orientation to Mecca must be exact.” Many mosques do not have an exact Mecca orientation. One of the SME’s was a classmate of the designer, Paul Murdock.

When asked, how do you hope to accomplish your goal of changing an approved national Flight 93 memorial plan? Beam responded “I know that it will be an up-hill fight, but our Flight 93 Heroes deserve a better memorial than one that also pays tribute to the Islamic terrorists”. This will be a massive grassroots effort throughout the country to sway the opinions of the Department of Interior, the National Park Service, the Flight 93 Planning Committee and our lawmakers to change the current design. When people hear the facts concerning the current design, they are angered and ask “How was the fraudulent design approved?” Email and written petitions are being circulated not only locally but throughout the nation. Although we have just started, we have thousands who have signed petitions. We are certain that number will increase. Currently, letters and phone calls are beginning to be made to lawmakers. Congressman Tancredo has asked the National Park Service to change the design and remove the Islamic symbology; we hope to get other lawmakers to support his efforts. This fight transcends politics. It is not a Republican or Democrat issue – It is Americans demanding that our Flight 93 Heroes get a National Memorial that honors their memory – not the memory of Islamic terrorists. Anyone wishing to obtain a written petition or sign an electronic petition, can go to www.crescentofbetrayal.com. Persons interested in assisting in this effort can contact Col. Beam at hibeam@atlanticbb.net.

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Yale University…it invokes images of grand, towering halls of learning. Buildings made of stone and rock, with the walls covered in ivy. Of people wearing sweaters with a ‘Y’ sewn to the front of them. Of rowing teams, and laboratories, and science, and philosophy.

Now though. Now Yale has another image that can be indelibly ingrained into the average person’s imagination. That is one brought about by art student Aliza Shvarts. Shvarts, for her senior art project, decided it would be fun and spark debate if she, over a nine-month period, repeatedly became pregnant as often as she possibly could, then abort the fetuses using  abortifacient drugs to force-terminate her pregnancies.

Yeah, she aborted who the hell knows how many fetuses for the sake of her so-called art project. She video taped the whole thing, all of her abortions, done in her bathtub, were filmed, and all of the blood she lost during these abortions was saved. All of that is now on display at Yale’s Undergraduate Senior Art Show.

This, from one of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning in the nation.

Aliza’s parents must be really, really proud (not to mention how proud the Dean of students must be).

Shameful.

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40 infidels, strung like fish beneath symbolic Islamic heavens

Just for this post, a new blogburst logo:

Tom Burnett’s letter to the American people is bringing lots of signatures for our online petition. People can also join our blogbursts here

Damned to Hell

Time to emphasize the ugliest aspect of the terrorist memorial mosque that is now being built in Shanksville Pennsylvania. It does not just INCLUDE the terrorists in some kind of reductio ad absurdum of multiculturalist moral relativism. Actually, there is not a single speck of moral relativism in the entire design. Rather, the terrorists are explicitly championed, while the 40 infidels are again and again depicted as symbolically damned to Islamic Hell.

This is the evil genius of architect Paul Murdoch’s use of the crescent and star layout. Everywhere the four hijackers are memorialized, they are symbolically placed inside the Islamic heavens (the crescent and star parts of the memorial). Everywhere the 40 infidels are memorialized, they are represented outside of the symbolic Islamic heavens, which in Islam means they are damned to Hell.

In most instances, the immense scale of the design makes this theme difficult to grasp from ground level unless you know what to look for. The one exception is up at the Tower of Voices part of the memorial, where the symbolic damnation of the 40 heroes will be immediately visible to visitors.

The 93 foot tall Tower of Voices is formed in the shape of an extruded crescent, cut at an angle at the top so that its crescent arms reach up into the sky:

As seen from the base of the tower, the top of the tower will be a clear Islamic-shaped crescent, projected against the sky above. Hanging down below these symbolic heavens will be forty tubular steel chimes, one for each of the murdered passengers and crew. In Islam, if you don’t go to Heaven, you go to Hell, thus those forty symbolic souls, strung below the symbolic Islamic heavens like fish on a string, are symbolically damned.

The imagery could not be clearer. Here is what hundreds of thousands of visitors will see when they look up the crescent tower:

40 tortured souls, gonging restlessly though heat, cold, wind, snow and rain (pictured).

What are patriots going to do when they see that Islamic crescent in the sky, soaring triumphantly over those forty symbolic infidel souls? Is the Park Service trying to start a rebellion? We are talking literally hundreds of people every day being confronted by this outrage.

Never to rest in peace

The crash site is a graveyard, from which the remains of our forty heroes can never be extracted. A cemetery is supposed to be a place for resting in peace, but these symbolic forty souls are to gong mournfully though the ages in their symbolic Islamic hell.

Over and over the defenders of the crescent design accuse us critics of seeing what we want to see in the design, as if we could see forty symbolic souls hanging down from an Islamic shaped crescent in the sky if the architect did not PUT these things there for us to see. Look at the architect’s own drawings people. Do you not see the Islamic shaped crescent in the sky? Do you not see the forty wind chimes hanging down, specifically designated to represent the lives of the 40 passengers and crew? We are describing FACTS.

One of the most obvious facts is that it is the defenders of the crescent who are seeing what they want to see, or more precisely, who are choosing NOT to see what they DON’T want to see. It’s like gate security, trying desperately NOT to see the bearded man in the suicide vest.

The irony is that Flight 93 is supposed to be the symbol of our woken vigilance. Those charged with the memorialization of Flight 93 are not just un-vigilant. They are relentlessly anti-vigilant, absolutely determined not to even consider the possibility of untoward intent.

We hosted an open design competition in time of war and literally invited the entire world to enter, yet the idiots who sent out this invitation cannot concieve that the enemy might have actually taken them up on it. They are outright hostile to anyone who points out the overwhelming evidence that this is in fact what happened.

Other places where the 40 heroes are depicted as symbolically damned

In the sequence of 44 glass blocks that are to be emplaced along the flight path (equalling the number of passengers, crew AND terrorists, all four “extra” blocks are placed in the Islamic heavens.

The three that are to be inscribed with the 9/11 date will be placed on a separate upper section of Memorial Wall that is centered on the bisector of the half mile wide central crescent: exactly the position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag. Thus the date goes to the Islamic star. The date goes to the terrorists.

The 44th block is at the upper crescent tip, commemorating the spot where, in architect Paul Murdoch’s description, the terrorists broke our circle and turned it into a giant (Mecca oriented) crescent, to be inscribed: “A field of honor forever.”

In contrast, the forty blocks inscribed with the names of the forty heroes are placed just above the crash site, down below the star on the Islamic flag. They are outside of the symbolic Islamic heavens, which makes them symbolically damned.

Murdoch continues this theme with the 38 Memorial Groves. There CAN’T be 40 because the Memorial Groves are part of the giant crescent, which makes them part of the symbolic Islamic heavens, and infidels can’t be depicted in the Islamic heavens. The full analysis of the 38 groves shows Murdoch’s evil genius at its fullest flower. Sickening, but well worth comprehending, if you can stomach it.

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1389 Blog – Antijihadist Tech
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I received an email from the John McCain campaign today. In the subject line was the simple question "A Bitter America?"

The email centered around Barack Hussein Obama’s speech in that bastion of liberalness, San Francisco, in which Barack Hussein Obama "described Americans who live in small towns or other areas that have experienced a loss of jobs as "bitter" people, adding that it didn’t surprise him that they, ‘..cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.’"

This type of talk, if it what he truly believes, and not something he was simply pandering to the progressive secular elitists in San Francisco, is so far off the mark. Boiled down to its essence, what I see Barack Hussein Obama saying is, "you people who like your right to bear arms, and your right to freedom of religion, if you don’t like the current influx of illegal aliens (it seems the left always leaves out the illegal part when dealing with illegal immigration), you’re just bitter people who don’t know any better."

McCain’s response to this is:

"During the Great Depression, with many millions of Americans out of work and the country suffering the worst economic crisis in our history, there rose from small towns, rural communities, inner cities, a generation of Americans who fought to save the world from despotism and mass murder, and came home to build the wealthiest, strongest and most generous nation on earth.

They suffered the worst during the Depression, but it did not shake their faith in, and fidelity to, America. They did not turn to their religious faith and cultural traditions out of resentment and a feeling of powerlessness to affect the course of government or pursue prosperity. On the contrary, their faith had given generations of their families’ purpose and meaning, as it does today."

Now, I would have to agree that people don’t cherish their freedom to bear arms, freedom to worship as they see fit, and freedom to voice their opposition to those who break the law by illegally entering our country, but I think McCain is missing the mark. He seems to believe that those of us in fly-over country, those of us in the small towns and rural landscapes, are content. That we are not bitter. In fact, it is my experience that the opposite is true.

The people Barack Hussein Obama is speaking of are bitter. They are bitter because they see the bought-and-paid for representatives in Congress chipping away at their rights. They see the likes of the ACLU trying to silence them when they speak up, or otherwise display their love for God and Christ. They are bitter because the far left are proponents of illegal immigration, and don’t mind that people are hemorrhaging into this country at an unsustainable rate.

McCain, on the other hand, doesn’t acknowledge that bitterness. Either he doesn’t realize it is there, or he simply chooses to ignore it. Either way, it presents him as out-of-touch with America as the Democrats are painting him. I fail to see how the bitterness and distaste for our so-called representatives in Congress can in anyway shape or form be linked to the Great Depression. What is McCain getting out with this statement? I don’t see it. Maybe I’m to jaded and…bitter.

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The company that markets Absolut Vodka has opened their mouth wide, and inserted both feet. In an ad campaign running in magazines and on billboard in Mexico, the maker of the fine adult beverage ran a graphic showing the country of Mexico extending to Oklahoma, and all the way up to the state of Washington, eliminating the states of Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and parts of Colorado, Utah and Idaho – overlaid with the words "IN AN ABSOLUT WORLD".

Naturally, this campaign was not isolated in Mexico, but was found out by good, hardworking folks right here in the good Ol US of A, and they were none to pleased. Absolut says they weren’t trying to advocate the changing of borders, or making any kind of statement on the illegal immigration stuff currently plaguing this great nation. But how dense do you have to be to not know that this kind of thing was not going to be contained within Mexico’s borders?

Here is what Absolut has to say (from their web site):

The In An Absolut World advertising campaign invites consumers to visualize a world that appeals to them — one they feel may be more idealized or one that may be a bit "fantastic." As such, the campaign will elicit varying opinions and points of view. We have a variety of executions running in countries worldwide, and each is germane to that country and that population.

 
This particular ad, which ran in Mexico, was based upon historical perspectives and was created with a Mexican sensibility. In no way was this meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues. Instead, it hearkens to a time which the population of Mexico may feel was more ideal.

As a global company, we recognize that people in different parts of the world may lend different perspectives or interpret our ads in a different way than was intended in that market. Obviously, this ad was run in Mexico, and not the US — that ad might have been very different.

The ad "might have been very different" if run in the US? How so? What kind of differences? What, would it show in an Absolut World, just a bunch of WASPs running around with beaners picking lettuce and cleaning toilets? Would it show a giant-ass electrified fence running the border? What difference might it have been?

And then, they issued a ’sincere apology’:

During the weekend we have received several comments on the ad published in Mexico. We acknowledge the reactions and debate and want to apologize for the concerns this ad caused. We are truly sorry and understand that the ad has offended several persons. This was not our intention. The ad has been withdrawn as of Friday April 4th and will not be used in the future.
In no way was the ad meant to offend or disparage, or advocate an altering of borders, lend support to any anti-American sentiment, or to reflect immigration issues.

To ensure that we avoid future similar mistakes, we are adjusting our internal advertising approval process for ads that are developed in local markets.

This is a genuine and sincere apology,

Oh, wait, make that a ‘genuine and sincere’ apology. Umm…ok. Some folks are calling for a boycott of Absolut, but those things don’t ever work very well. Besides, Stoli’s is better vodka anyway, hell, there is a brand of vodka made in northeast Kansas, but by the prison, that is way better than Absolut. Not that it matters, once the stuff gets mixed with the cranberry, or orange juice, it all pretty much tastes the same anyway. If you drink your vodka as fast as I do, there isn’t much time to taste.

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I find this such and incredible story. It boggles the mind. Like that bill that was proposed in Mississippi that would have made it illegal for a restaurant to serve fat people, there is currently a bill before the state legislature in Arizona that would hold businesses liable for civil damage if they distribute obscene or dangerous stuff.

Bookstores, news organizations, cable companies and other businesses are strongly opposed to legislation that would make an individual or a company liable for civil damages if they produce, publish or distribute any dangerous or obscene materials that causes someone to commit an act of terrorism or a felony.

Are these guys for real? So a bookseller sells a book, and someone buys it, and they go and kill some poor schmuck, and then claim that reading the book made them do it. So the bookseller is now on the hook, civilly, for the crime? Well, I suppose it worked for the tobacco industry. People smoke, don’t like that they made poor choices, and therefore sue the tobacco company for their poor decisions.

It works for bars. If a bartender serves an already drunk person more, then he goes out and runs over some little old lady, killing her and mangling her walker, the bartender can be held liable for that. It sucks I know. But it’s just one more way to remove responsibility from the offender, to make the offender the victim. It’s not Johnny’s fault he took a rifle and shot up the mall, he just listened to Helter Skelter 500 times in the last two days. That’s why we killed all those people, it wasn’t Johnny’s fault, it was that evil, evil music.

Although…thinking about this just a little more…that would mean that booksellers could no longer sell the Koran. That can even go so far as to make so that Koran’s can’t even be given away. I wonder if that is possibly the true reason for this stupid bill? It would be interesting to see if any religious groups will express outrage or opposition to this bill.

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I thought Hillary scared me. But this guy. This guy scares the ever-living begeezus outta me. Like the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz when I was a youngun, I used to run and hide behind the chair when those little bastiches came on the TV screen. This guy gives me that same feeling.

h/t Sohos

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Petition picking up steam

World Net Daily has a very informative article today about our petition to investigate the Flight 93 memorial. It includes excerpts from Tom Burnett’s letter to the American people; it includes information about the fraudulent Park Service investigation (where an Islamic scholar said not to worry about the half mile wide Mecca oriented crescent because nobody has ever seen a mihrab anywhere near this BIG before); and it reviews the four specific complaints highlighted in the petition (the giant crescent, the Mecca orientation, the Islamic sundial and the 44 blocks).

Those last four links are to graphics that Tom Burnett is going to have on poster-boards when he addresses a Republican convention in Wisconsin at the end of the month. World Net Daily is looking to add video content these days so Tom is going to try to get video of his speech that we can edit down to five minutes of highlights for WND.

The first place we will be delivering the petitions is to the Memorial Project’s public meeting on May 3rd in Somerset PA. It looks like we are going to have quite a few signatures, both from the electronic petition (zooming towards 2000 already), and from the paper petitions (now circulating on the ground in PA).

At least one state legislator from Pennsylvania has signed the petition, and a Congressman has expressed interest in entering the whole thing into the congressional record. That would be a second Congressman coming out publicly against the memorial. (Tom Tancredo asked the Park Service last fall to scrap the crescent design entirely.)

Will any of the big radio radio voices wake up to the evidence that al Qaeda accepted our open invitation to the ENTIRE WORLD to enter our design competition? All they have to do is look at the FACTS.

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