The Political Octagon

New York’s only conservative daily newspaper folds today after six short years. The reason for the latest newspaper failure was a lack of operating capital and advertising support. The papers survival has been tenuous since its inception in 2002 when the decline in print media had already taken root within the industry.

Some of us old cotes remember the former New York Sun, which was gobbled up in a merger and disappeared in the 1950’s. The original Sun was a Pulitzer Prize winning publication which began publishing in 1833.

The Associated Press was born in 1846 in a gambit by the editor of the Sun by sharing news stories with several competitors surrounding the Mexican war. That arrangement gave the AP its start.

The original Sun was the birthplace of the column called, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” inspired by the letter of an eight year old asking, ‘is there really a Santa Claus.’

Our condolences to the 14,000 subscribers of the New York Sun who will be left (no pun intended) with the liberal rag known as the New York Times. We feel your pain.

Memorial Project Superintendent lies about receiving threats

Joanne Hanley, superintendent of the Flight 93 Memorial Project, cannot answer the damning facts about the crescent design (now called a broken circle), so she has decided to slander the people who are pointing them out. In a speech at the Memorial Project’s August 2nd meeting, she cited a list of “threats” she had received from critics, saying for instance that her “career would be destroyed.”

In defense of Superintendent Hanley, Flight 93 family member Calvin Wilson expressed his disgust at the violent threats and charged that critics were acting like the terrorists themselves. Three Pennsylvania newspapers covered Hanley’s claims to have been threatened, one editorialized against the uncivilized critics, and a Memorial Project press release highlighted Wilson’s outraged response to the supposed threats.

It is all a lie. Here is the Letter to the Editor that Alec Rawls just sent to the duped Pennsylvania newspapers, exposing Superintendent Hanley’s deception:

A warning is not a threat. A warning is to protect against a threat.

As the lead organizer of the movement to stop the crescent design, I can tell you who made the statements that Superintendent Hanley was complaining about. I recognized every one of the phrases she cited as coming from myself. It is ME who Joanne Hanley is accusing of making threats, an accusation that is not just false, but grotesquely dishonest.

What Joanne Hanley is casting as threats were WARNINGS, trying to alert her to the threat posed by architect Paul Murdoch and his scheme to plant a giant Mecca-oriented crescent on the Flight 93 crash site. This is one of Superintendent Hanley’s excuses for refusing to heed warnings about the crescent design. She pretends that warnings are threats and hence SHOULD NOT be listened to.

When I couldn’t get Hanley to look to the facts for the country’s sake, I tried to appeal to her instinct for self-preservation, warning her of the personal consequences of Murdoch’s attempt to stab a terrorist memorial mosque into the heartland of America. (That is the meaning of a crescent that Muslims face into to face Mecca: it is the central feature of a mosque.)

As I put it in a March 2006 email to both Superintendent Hanley and Project Manager Jeff Reinbold:

I have been trying to save your lives and your careers for six months. It is not too late for you. You can still do your jobs and investigate the basic facts I have warned you about, like the Mecca-orientation of Murdoch’s original Crescent of embrace, and the continued presence of Murdoch’s original crescent in the redesign.

Shortly after this email, Joanne Hanley told me why she was not concerned about the almost-exact Mecca orientation of the giant crescent. In a conference call with Jeff Reinbold, she told me that: “It isn’t exact. That’s one we talked about. It has to be exact.” (The giant crescent points 1.8° north of Mecca, ± .1°.)

If she had admitted to the public what she was admitting in private—that the giant crescent does indeed point almost exactly to Mecca—it would have been okay. The people of Pennsylvania would be able to decide for themselves whether a giant Mecca-oriented crescent makes an acceptable memorial to the victims of Islamic terrorism, so long as it does not point EXACTLY at Mecca. Instead, the Memorial Project decided instead to deceive the public, sending an academic fraud from the University of Texas to assure the press that there is no such thing as the direction to Mecca:

Daniel Griffith, a geospatial information sciences professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, said anything can point toward Mecca, because the earth is round. [Post Gazette, “Flight 93 memorial draws a new round of criticism,” August 18, 2007.]

Just as I warned Superintendent Hanley that her career was in jeopardy, I also warned Dr. Griffith that his career would be destroyed if he did not correct this blatant disinformation. Like Hanley, Griffith too interpreted my warning as a threat, as if it would be ME who was responsible for the harm to his reputation, when he was covering up evidence of an enemy plot by lying about basic geometry, pretending that there is no direction between two points on planet earth.

In spite of the Memorial Project’s active cover-up of Murdoch’s plot, I continued to treat Superintendent Hanley as what she is: a fellow countryman aboard a hijacked airplane who is in need of rescue. As I put it in another email to Superintendent Hanley last November:

I don’t want you to be hurt here. There is only one bad guy in this story: Paul Murdoch. I want to help everyone else get off of this hijacked airplane. … I am not your enemy. I am your friend. I am the one who has been trying to save you, for two damned years, and I still am, despite your persistent public slanders against me.

Is it even POSSIBLE to be clearer? A warning is not a threat. A warning is to protect someone from a threat, as my communications spelled out over and over. For Joanne Hanley to pretend that these warnings about the threat she is facing were threats in themselves is deliberate dishonesty. For her to tell Calvin Wilson that these attempts to protect her from Murdoch’s plot were violent threats against her, prompting Wilson to use his status as a family member to attack critics on this dishonest basis, is even worse.

Joanne Hanley is not the only person I am warning. Every Pennsylvanian is aboard this hijacked airplane. How can the newspapers of Pennsylvania let stand a fraudulent claim that there is no such thing as the direction to Mecca? How can the educated people of Pennsylvania, the math teachers, the college students, the politicians, let such a fraud stand, when every one of you knows that Muslims face Mecca for prayer?

If Pennsylvanians continue to be willfully blind to easily verifiable evidence of an enemy plot in your own back yard, history will not be kind to you.

Alec Rawls

Palo Alto CA

August 12, 2008

Morality requires trust in truth

Imagine if one of the passengers on Flight 93 was told that if they did not retake the airplane, they would be killed when the terrorists flew the airplane into a building. If the passenger was Joanne Hanley, she would say: “Stop threatening me!”

Any excuse to avoid the truth, no matter how nonsensical or even suicidal. A photo-negative of the fighting spirit of Flight 93.

Asked by Pilate to account for himself, Jesus answered: “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.” (Jn. 18:37.) Jesus wasn’t a witness for the truth only sometimes, or only about matters of salvation. He proceeded from the factual truth of every situation that crossed his path, and called upon the rest of us to similarly trust in truth.

Secular moral reason demands the same thing. Anyone who thinks that it can somehow be right or in their interest to avoid or suppress the truth will through that avoidance of the truth become divorced from reality, with the inevitable effect that their ideas about what is right or in their interest can only be wrong. This is the irrationality of the Memorial Project. They proceed on the assumption that the crescent design is innocent, while self-consciously covering up evidence that it is not.

This malfeasance puts the rest of our society to the test. All of the people who we pay to check and report the facts: government, academia and the media, are all desperately trying to suppress the truth. That leaves it up to the rest of us to witness and communicate the truth about Murdoch’s plot. (Some basic facts, and how to verify them for yourself, posted here.)

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This is the face of American politics today.

This is the voice that comes from the face the world is looking upon.

Hear the voice that speaks for all of us. Hear the voice that grates at your soul.

Remember this voice, it is third in line to the presidency.

Do folks in California elect their representatives or are they picked by lottery?

(via) The Baltimore Reporter

There is a segment of the populace that fervently believe in the liberal mantra and all it stands for. Within that group there are some who put pen to paper to help assimilate the faithful into becoming vacuous dolts.

It is the duty of the rest of society to save the lost souls and bring them back to earth. Although the Democratic party has become a cult, deprogramming is not going to be easy, alas we must all try.

Tom Harbold, writing for the Carroll County Times this week, offers this gem.  

Former presidential candidate John Edwards has admitted to having an affair with campaign videographer Rielle Hunter, although he denied fathering a child with her.

This, from the closest thing to a moral voice to be found in the Democratic camp. What makes it worse is that this affair was ongoing while Edwards’ wife was already struggling with cancer. Whatever happened to “in sickness and in health?”

At least he admits to being ashamed, and raises a legitimate point about the adulation received on the campaign trail leading him to “believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic.” He is not the first, and undoubtedly will not be the last, to succumb to the lure of celebrity, and conclude that he was above even the standards he himself professed. And he did discuss it with his wife before it came out in the media, rather than afterward. Nonetheless, it’s disappointing.

Personally, I could care less if any of them choose to shave their gerbils prior to insertion, it is indeed a personal choice and private matter. Not hearing about it would be better, but in today’s politically correct environment, we are subjected to missives about someones depravity, excused with political doublespeak.

Indiscretion is probably older than prostitution, nothing surprises anymore. It still does not make it acceptable to lie and manipulate to soften a  public image for political gain. Deluding oneself to think public acclaim forced you into depravity is pure nonsense. The proclivity to step out on ones life partner is as personally reprehensible as you can get. It clearly shows a propensity to be dishonest.

And then there is the belittled spouse, who must debase herself in a public venue, as she stands by her man for the sake of his public image. Do women in the Democratic party really believe they are equally respected? Concealment makes Edwards a hypocrite of the highest order and this country is better off to be rid of the bum.

As for democrat pundits brushing off Edwards indiscretion as a personal matter is laughable. To think that democrats are working to preserve his ‘impeccable persona’ points to desperation; the braying jackasses have nothing better to offer in retrospect. 

The fact that liberals don’t mind covering for a bald face liar is beyond palatable. If Edwards is the poster child for morality in the demotaxit party, what does that make his followers? It is truly a shame, as democrats through blind adulation are drinking the Kool-Aid.

Bill Clinton turned the lie into acceptable political banter. Liberals were in awe of his verbal tap dances. The media repeated it and shazam, it becomes the gospel according to Clinton. Al Gore practices it with reckless abandon and the vacuous followers gobble it up like a fine wine. Nancy Pelosi injects it like Botox, and unashamedly thinks it makes her look polished.

Politicians almost have people believing that lying is an acceptable form of political speech. Quite frankly, enough is enough. 

The lie is the issue, there is no moral ambiguity here. There are no shades of gray, or the devil made me do it. If you want to play lying games, that is a choice, but if you get caught, be a man fess up and fade away.

A liar is as a liar does, spreading it makes the propagandist a liar too. And, the media is at a loss as to why they are near death.

Democrats have developed a history of duplicity–bring it to an art form–for political gain, it is becoming tiresome. Rank and file democrats for the most part are good people. A little to trusting perhaps, but being blinded by celebrity makes for dimwitted voters. At what point do democrats realize they are methodically hoodwinked by mendacious spin meisters with Madison Avenue props and logo’s.

Democrats are not vetting a candidate, they are participating in a slick marketing campaign, carefully honing and fast-tracking a prepackaged empty suit with a silver tongue, given celeberty status.

The elitists in the Democratic party are slapping a sign on unsuspecting followers that says, ‘Kick me, but wait until after the election.’

Step up folks and counter this drivel, for what it is and how it smells.

It is all Donkeyshit.

In an earlier post we wrote about government largess, we clipped this from NewsBusters, it clearly emphasises the point. Either you believe in free enterprise or you don’t, those are the sides, nothing matters if capitalism dies.  

Source URL:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2008/07/31/media-near-secret-exxons-taxes-almost-3x-much-profits

A windfall profit tax on oil companies seems to be the new mantra for the Demotaxits and the Pelosi administration in this election cycle.

Given the amazing profit numbers that Exxon had in the last quarter of this year, it stands to reason, the Demotaxits who abhor free enterprise, want a piece of the proverbial pie.

Exxon’s profit picture however is a worldwide number, where as, in the US it may be an entirely different picture. Profits on fuel sales in the US compared to the profits our government garnishes in the form of taxes make oil companies look like they have already been nationalized.

It may be one of the reasons why there is very little pumping within the Continental US. It is not out of the realm of possibilities there would be a hefty pumping tax attached on the front end of the process. This is the process that most countries employ, allowing Exxon to lease, explore, build the platforms and pump product for a small percentage while the country that allows the pumping picks up the market share of the sale of the crude oil.

In foreign countries those percentages are hard to nail down. Each country has their own idea of how much they will allow Exxon or others to profit on each barrel pumped. Refined oil products on the other hand have higher costs as refineries are expensive to build and maintain. Refined oil is not taxed in the same way as we do in this country, by taxing consumers, artificially increasing the per gallon price at the pump. This is why countries that produce crude oil consistently have fuel prices well below western countries that do not drill.

In 2004 a 42 gallon barrel of crude sold for around $35. In the refining process about 20 gallons are boiled off for consumer fuel (all grades) with about seven gallons for diesel, two gallons for jet fuel, and the rest for various other petroleum products, kerosene, heavy oils and various other products.

A gallon of refined gas averaged $1.75 in 2004. The federal tax per gallon ran 18.3 cents, with a national average of 45.9 cents, federal, state and local taxes combined. New York pulled in the greatest levy at 62.9 cents with California coming in at 60 cents. Wyoming came in the lowest at 32.4 cents, New Jersey at 32.9 (with no self serve stations whatsoever) with Maryland coming in at below the national average at 41.9 cents.

Out of the $1.75 price per gallon, backing out the cost of doing business, including but not limited to actual refining, brokers and transportation costs and taxes, the oil company profits eight cents per gallon.

When you calculate the amount of taxes versus profit to oil companies per barrel of oil, your federal and state governments are in oil heaven. Breaking out just the refined consumer fuel of 20 gallons per barrel add up the taxes per gallon, total the profit per gallon for oil companies and it becomes clear that states like New York and California are making a fortune for pork projects. And Pelosi’s band of Demotaxits still want more.

When fuel taxes were first levied on fuel, 100 percent of the collected tax was set to provide for road infrastructure. Today that allocation is used for failed mass transit projects and non infrastructure related pork projects. In California taxes levied on consumer fuel is not only a state function, each county has the authority to levy a county tax on fuel sales.

In simple terms, not only is government levying user fees on consumers for petroleum, but the oil companies, still on top of all taxes consumed by government, oil producers/refiners will pay taxes on that eight cents profit. The question all consumers should be asking is who is screwing whom. It appears that the real windfall profit is already going into government coffers.

If the Pelosi crowd wants to point out that the evil oil companies are raping consumers at eight cents profit, what the heck are states like California doing with all that tax profit? Based on Exxon’s profits, California’s tax share should provide streets paved in gold with diamond studded overpasses.

The quandary that government has is that this dependence on oil revenues will not push alternatives until a new revenue source is in the pipeline. Will wind or alternative fuels be forthcoming? No, in the end government will still need the largess they now enjoy. The cost to the consumer will still be too high. But hey, we can still feel good about the environment even though we will be paying more into government coffers for the privilege.

Given the predilections of liberals to nationalize oil companies as their compatriot Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela, the big oil companies are better off pumping oil in countries that have definable expectations and guidelines. It may behoove Exxon and others to sell crude oil to American refineries–that are for all intent and purpose government owned already–and get out of the refining business in this country altogether.

In order to allow oil companies to drill here, Demotaxits have not figured out yet how to provide leases that allow the government to collect the lion share of the per barrel costs. The free market is an inconvenient truth that will be legislated into oblivion if liberal socialists control all levels of government come January.

Tom Burnett Sr. entered the lion’s den on Saturday to oppose the crescent memorial to Flight 93 (now called a broken circle). An excerpt from the beginning of the Somerset Daily American’s banner headline story about division amongst the families:

“Tom Burnett Jr. led the effort to take the plane back,” his father said. “When I was on the design jury, I saw the red crescent of embrace and realized it was an obvious and blatant symbol of Islam. It does not properly honor our people — those Flight 93 heroes. I think it’s a travesty that it’s moved along so fast.” He called for an investigation into the design. When he has brought up his concerns, some of the task force and advisory commission members have dismissed him, he said. “This is a cataclysmic mistake,” he said. “I’m going to save you from yourselves. I’d like to ask for an unbiased, transparent, honest investigation. This is just a terrible, terrible mistake. I’m asking every American — we must stop this mistake. This panel doesn’t own the design, I don’t own it, Pennsylvania doesn’t own it, all of America and all of the world own it.” He said he is also tired of the controversy, but that they must honor the heroes properly. It will reverberate in history. “I’m not going to stop fighting this thing, it is very, very bad,” Burnett said. “Wake up. Get your heads out of the sand.”

Other Flight 93 family members roared back. What is usually a three hour quarterly meeting of the Memorial Project stretched to five hours as over twenty people signed up to speak on both sides. One side wants scrutiny. The other is desperate to avoid it. The pattern at the meeting was simple and consistent. Critics of the crescent design pointed out damning facts and called for independent investigation. Defenders of the broken circle insisted that there is nothing to investigate, and cried out for critics of the design to stop putting them through this agony. If the claims of the critics are not accurate, independent investigation would end the agony. If the crescent/broken-circle does not actually point within two degrees of Mecca, then put this explosive claim to rest by showing where the crescent does point. If there are not actually to be 44 inscribed translucent blocks emplaced along the flight path (matching the number of passengers, crew, and terrorists), it is a simple matter of opening up the design drawings and counting. If the defenders of the crescent had truth on their side, they would be eager to have it exposed. Unfortunately for them, the giant crescent does point to Mecca, and somehow they don’t want the public to know it. Todd Beamer’s father is on the side of the crescent? The highest profile defender of the crescent design was Mr. David Beamer, whose son Todd issued the “Let’s roll” signal to re-take Flight 93. Mr. Beamer, beloved by conservatives for his opposition to Congressman Murtha, had not previously taken a public position on the crescent design. He has apparently gotten involved in fundraising for the memorial, and announced at the meeting that he has undertaken two months of due diligence, looking into criticisms of the design. Listeners expected Mr. Beamer to continue with a report on his fact-checking efforts, but he did not have a single word to say about any of the claims that Mr. Rawls and Mr. Burnett have put forward, launching instead into an extended condemnation of Alec Rawls for his “obsessive” persistence. If he found that the giant crescent does not point to Mecca, surely he would have said so. Similarly for the terrorist memorializing block count, or the placement of the 9/11 date in the exact position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag. What better way to be rid of this dastardly Rawls fellow than to expose his claims as a fraud? Mr. Beamer’s silence about what he found speaks volumes, and not just about the crescent design. Who could fact check these claims and then be silent about his findings? Don’t look at the design drawings! Every defender of the crescent had his own scheme of evasion and obfuscation. Patrick White, Vice President of Families of Flight 93, took Alec Rawls to task for holding up a 2005 graphic of the top of the Tower of Voices, where an Islamic shaped crescent soars in the sky above the symbolic lives of the 40 heroes. This old graphic should not be taken as indicative of the current design Mr. White suggested, as the design has evolving for three years now. Yet the exact same graphic was brought to the meeting by the Memorial Project itself, and was on display right outside the courtroom where the meeting was held. That’s going to make some great video, as will one particularly scurrilous attack on Mr. Burnett, and the victim card played by Project Superintendent Joanne Hanley. Several videographers will be sending raw footage, which Alec will start putting together when he returns to California next week. Big enough to check the facts yet? How big does the conflict have to get before some major media outlet is willing to do their jobs and actually check the facts for themselves? David Dunbar and Brad Reagan of Popular Mechanics were willing to fact-check the “9/11 truth” morons, finding that most of their evidence is deliberately taken out of context, and that none of their claims stand up to the least bit of scrutiny. Come on PM. If we are a bunch of frauds then we are just as much in need of debunking. We’ve even got Flight 93 family members at loggerheads and crying out for relief. What are you waiting for? (A handy dandy list of damning facts to check here.) To join our blogbursts, just send your blog’s url.

The following is in response to a local issue in Carroll County, MD.

George Otto of Westminster rebukes the weak argument of a liberal columnist, in one of the Baltimore Sun’s liberal outreach tabloids, devoid of constitutional understanding.  

By George Otto III

I would like to respond to John Culleton’s comments regarding a county police force controversy in the 7-27-08 Eagle.

His column concerns the commissioner’s authority to create a county police force, which, as shown hereafter, is unconstitutional. The reason I say unconstitutional is that the U.S. Constitution at Art.4 Sec.4 guarantees a republican form of government, all offices holders with power over citizens must be elected.  This gives the citizens a check on this authority.  The logic being that office holders cannot only be removed at the next election, but because of this are more responsive to the citizens during his/her term in office.  The office of sheriff is the only police agency in the United States that is elected in accordance with this constitutional guarantee, and has served this country well for over two hundred years.

The sheriff has full police powers as stated in the Maryland Constitution Article IV, Part 7, to wit:

The office of Sheriff has total police powers as guaranteed within the Maryland Constitution Article IV, Part 7:  He shall hold office for four years, until his successor is duly elected and qualified, give such bond, exercise such powers and perform such duties as now are or may hereafter be fixed by law.
In addition, in the Maryland Constitution Declaration of Rights Article 5 (a) (1):That the Inhabitants of Maryland are entitled to the Common Law of England, and the trial by Jury, according to the course of that Law, and to the benefit of such of the English statutes as existed on the Fourth day of July, seventeen hundred and seventy-six;

From that time to this, the sheriff has been the only law enforcement officer that meets these required qualifications.

Mr. Culleton states, “Tregoning’s campaign to expand his empire should be, and will be, defeated and the right of local government to govern will be upheld.”  It is impossible in a republican form of government for any elected official to establish an “empire.”  Making the use of the word “empire” is nothing more than demagoguery.  Such a statement would more accurately be used in the move to create an unelected politically appointed police chief, who would not be under the control of we the people, who Culleton states should have no voice.

He speaks of Plato, the Electoral College, a successful sports team, and then uses them to validate his unconstitutional premise that once we elect someone to office we have no right to voice our concerns about their actions, or any right to a remedy or interfere with their actions.  I invite Mr. Culleton to look up the power of “impeachment’ and “referendum” in the Maryland Constitution.

He contends:”Under the U.S. Constitution, the people have no direct voice in the actual management of that government.”  I grant him that there are no referendum provisions in the U.S. Constitution, but we are not dealing with the actions of the federal government, and such a comparison is without merit.

The word Representative should be a tip as to who the sovereign is. In this country, the people are still the sovereigns, and through the Constitutions still the voice of authority. Is it not the position of a sovereign to direct their servants, and make sure they do not violate that office of trust?

Mr. Culleton is getting ahead of himself; he seems to think that his nightmare of a dream of charter government is in effect. The delegation and the referendum are part of our lawful process, and something we do not want to change. They are a tool for the sovereign to correct the mistakes or corruption of office holders.

It is very misleading to keep parroting that the sheriff “…has the usual duties of a sheriff, manning the lockup, serving warrants and providing bailiffs for the courts.”  As illustrated above, the main function of the sheriff, as the duly elected chief law enforcement executive of the county, is to make sure that all the laws made in pursuance of the Constitutions are faithfully executed, and that all violators are dealt with according to laws appropriated for that purpose.

The Bible states that, “My people will be destroyed for their lack of knowledge.”

Aside from the points made by George, what is of greater concern, Culleton has this delusional thought process that representative government is not the American way. As with the changing mindset of liberals in this country and now a new talking point for Demotaxits, voters send politicians into office to make all decisions concerning the public good. Voters, citizens no longer should interfere with the process, and should not offer an opinion or show descent.

Liberals for the most part find the election process inconvenient and the idea of representative government appalling. In the mindset of Culleton and the cult followers of the liberal mantra, the running of government affairs is best left to the so called experts.

Citizens should blindly follow their lead and lower your head when they walk in the room. Conform, assimilate and become one under Barrack Hussein Obama, the anointed one, the epitome of the new democratic dogma.

Tom Burnett Sr. and Alec Rawls will be in Somerset PA this weekend to condemn the crescent/broken-circle memorial to Flight 93. Here is Alec’s notice about the press conference that he and Mr. Burnett will host after they speak at the public meeting of the Memorial Project Saturday morning:

…Also on the press conference panel will be Diane Gramley, President of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania, and the Reverend Ron McRae of Johnstown.

In addition to our own statements, Mr. Burnett will read a statement from Congressman John Kline (R-MN), and Alec Rawls will present statements from Rich Davis, founder of the Chester County Victory Movement, and from K. M., President of Muslims Against Sharia Law.

After answering questions for the press, Mr. Burnett and his co-panelists will host a rally to stop the re-hijacking of Flight 93. Members of our informal Western Pennsylvania Compatriots group (who spoke out at the last public meeting) will be in attendance, and some out of town folks will be coming as well.

And check this out: a big color ad in the local paper:

To inform and invite the local populace, a half-page full-color ad will be running in tomorrow’s edition of the Somerset Daily American. It explains how the original Crescent of Embrace design remains completely intact in the Circle of Embrace redesign, which is explicitly described by the Park Service itself as a “broken” circle. That is exactly how architect Paul Murdoch described his original Crescent design.

All the redesign does is include an extra arc of trees that explicitly represents a broken off part of the circle. The unbroken part of the circle (the crescent), remains exactly as it was. It is still a giant Islamic shaped crescent, still pointing to Mecca , as your colleague Kirk Swauger verified a year ago:

Rawls maintains that the midpoint between the tips of the crescent points almost precisely toward “qibla,” the direction to Mecca, which Muslims are supposed to face for prayer.

His claims seem to be backed up by coordinates for the direction of qibla from Somerset that can be found on Islam.com. When superimposed over the crescent in the memorial design, the midpoint points over the Arctic Circle, through Europe toward Mecca.

Except for Kirk’s verification of the Mecca orientation of the crescent (which was not picked up by any other news organization), reporters have not been bothering to check the facts. When our claim that there are to be 44 inscribed translucent blocks emplaced along the flight path was reported a few months ago, Gordon Felt, President of Families of Flight 93 was quoted denying it, but despite this clear conflict of factual claims, no reporter bothered to simply open up the design drawings and count.

Can reporters actually be shamed into doing their jobs? Doubtful. They seem to regard actually checking the facts as giving some kind of unfair advantage to the side that is right (which they would be happy do do if the right side was THEIR side).

When the press is in this anti-fact-checking mode, their methodology is just to quote each side. We are trying to take advantage of this behavior by having some of our independent supporters use source documents to fact-check our basic claims, then attest in press releases and at the public meeting that they have personally counted the translucent memorial blocks etcetera.

Co-panelist Diane Gramley will be making such declarations for the cameras. Cao (the organizer of these blogbursts) did some checking from source documents this week and has already posted a powerful press release about her findings that Alec will present at the press conference.

Tom Burnett’s attendance should bring national news coverage. If Tom and Alec can direct some of that coverage to our independent fact checking, it might break the media embargo on fact checking, and once we get the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent out as verified national news, the crescent goose will be cooked.

If you want to participate in our fact-checking drive, Alec has a set of fact checking guides, with links to source documents, at CrescentOfBetrayal.com. Just send him a link to the post or comment in which you attest to your fact-checking results, and he will compile them.

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