"If only the fantasy were true: If only there actually were a dominant, pro-American, echt moderate Islam, an ideology so dedicated to human rights, so sternly set against savagery, that acts of terrorism were, by definition, “un-Islamic activity.” Imagine an Islam that, far from a liability, proved an asset (indeed, an indispensable asset) in combating the threat against us. Imagine that we could accurately call the threat mere “extremism” — no “Islamic” (or even “Islamist”) modifier being necessary because the “extremists” truly were a tiny, aberrant band, fraudulently “hijacking” a great religion."
UNDISCLOSED—On a remote patch of Kansas prairie believed to fall outside the range of U.N. spy satellites, construction is finally complete on the long- awaited 9/11 Truther Memorial, sources confirmed Wednesday.
Solemn visitors reflect on what the memorial's designers call "the greatest lie in American history."
Funded by donations from dozens of websites and fringe publishers, and dedicated to "the fearless amateur research and bold guesswork" of those seeking to "expose the secret machinations of the world's true puppet masters," the 7,000-square-foot monument has already attracted hundreds of visitors.
"It was a long time coming, but at last it's here," said Don Gustaf, a blogger who drove from Cincinnati to see the site. "This will stand forever in tribute to those who lost their lives the day clandestine CIA operatives used advanced wireless technology to electronically hijack a pair of 767s and remotely fly them into the World Trade Center."
Created by a design team who chose to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals from the Bilderberg Group, the memorial has as its centerpiece the "Truth Towers," a 60-foot-tall replica of the World Trade Center that houses a museum devoted to unanswered questions surrounding the attacks. Below it lies a pentagonal reflecting pool from which emerge 18 steps leading to the base of the monument, with each stair intended to symbolize one of the 18 Great Lies of the 9/11 conspiracy.
"This is a place where Americans can come to reflect on the most elaborate hoax in our nation's history," said Carol Bowerman, 53, wiping away tears as she walked passed a 15-foot granite cylinder representing the cruise missile used to fake a plane crash at the Pentagon. "On this hallowed ground, those of us who refuse to accept the official version of events can mourn the day the United States was taken over by a crypto-fascist cabal more powerful than anyone can imagine."
. . . "Look, there's Joel," visitor Lance Mattson told reporters, pointing to a wall listing the names of the several thousand Jews who received advanced warning not to go into work on 9/11. "It's just so moving to think—hey, why are you asking so many questions, anyway? Who sent you here?"
"Oh my God, this is all part of it, isn't it?" Mattson added. "I should have known! This whole place is just another conspiracy to placate those brave enough to speak the truth." . . .
Listening to the post-Imus show on WABC-NYC and one of the guests is endlessly pointing out that the people of Afghanistan are largely illiterate. From what I understand, this is accurate. He continues to inform anybody who calls in, and everybody in the studio, that the mob in front of the NATO base, where one person was shot dead while protesting, is the fault of a Gainsville, FL Preacher who had the notion that he was going to burn a few Qurans.
What I really do not understand in his argument is how, if they are illiterate, they found out about this stunt in Florida that hasn't even happened yet? Sounds to me like someone in Afghanistan is trying to cause trouble.
Decided to bring morning links back while my Blogger Reading List has so much juicy stuff in it and I just happened to get up so early without much else to do.
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon said Thursday it was close to launching fighter jets — and briefly discussed a possible shoot-down — after an errant Navy drone wandered into restricted air space near the nation’s capital last month.
I think John uses the tried-and true SciFi writer technique of ignoring this possibility in his books ;)
One of Reason's high-quality competitors from the 1970s-80s has a semi-complete archives now available online. It's a fabulous compendium of Carter-ish era libertarian historical fun. David Boazexplains the mag and what it accomplished, focusing on its amazing editor the late Roy Childs.
Something Libertarian from before I was thought of.
Be prepared for more Gawker here, I like their slant sometimes.
About 300 people wearing matching shirts and sushi chef caps got together to roll the world's longest California roll at UMass Amherst on Monday, and beat UC Berkeley's previous record by 92 feet, for a total of 422 feet.
The roll used 650 sheets of nori, 200 pounds of rice, 200 pounds of imitation crab, and 100 pounds each of cucumber and avocado. Video full of lots of whooping and hollering UMass pride below.
"Product placement to promote your brand just isn't enough any more. These days, apparently, some companies are resorting to anti-product placement in order to get competitors' products in the hands of 'anti-stars.' The key example being Snooki from Jersey Shore, who supposedly is being sent handbags by companies... but the bags being sent are of competitors' handbags as a way to avoid Snooki carrying their own handbag, and thus potentially damaging their brand."
A Muslim who builds mosques around the country calls Imam Rauf on the crap he's been peddling to a gullible American public and its gullible pundits, most of them wildly uninformed about Islam.
In the WSJ, M. Zuhdi Jasser has some questions for Rauf in a piece subheaded "He may not appear to the untrained eye to be an Islamist, but by making Ground Zero an Islamic rather than an American issue he shows his true allegiance."
Viking Landers May Have Missed Martian Organics "A new study suggests that the Viking Landers might have found organic compounds on Mars, but failed to recognize them because of the methodology used to detect organics. The findings may suggest specific strategies that would improve on the way organic compounds are detected on the red planet."
I recall this one coming up before, years ago.
Listening to Roe & Roper on 890 WLS-AM, Chicago, the Gainesville, Florida Minister who was going to burn donated Qurans on 9/11/10, has cut a deal with the Ground Zero Mosque Imam to have the Mosque relocated in exchange for calling off his Koran-B-Que. Also, Donald Trump offered to purchase the Ground Zero Mosque property in Manhattan.
The leader of a small Florida church that espouses anti-Islam philosophy says he is canceling plans to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11.
Pastor Terry Jones said Thursday that he decided to cancel his protest because the leader of a planned Islamic Center near ground zero has agreed to move its controversial location. The agreement couldn't be immediately confirmed.
Already there is some confusion on this story. The Imam that Reverend Terry Jones spoke to was the Imam of Central Florida, not the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf of the Ground Zero Mosque and the Ground Zero Islamic Center is denying any deal.
"WBC burned the Koran once – and if you sissy brats of Doomed america bully Terry Jones and the Dove World Outreach Center until they change their plans to burn that blasphemous tripe called the Koran, then WBC will burn it (again), to clearly show you some things," the church announced in anewsrelease this week.
Westboro Baptist Church, the small Topeka, Kan., church that pickets funerals of American soldiers to spread its message that God is punishing the country for being tolerant of homosexuals, has vowed to hold a Quran burning if Gainesville's Dove World Outreach Center calls its off.
(Updates at the end) First, they came for the people who opposed a bunch of questionable characters building a Mosque at Ground Zero, Manhattan and all who objected were labeled 'racists.'
Really? That was first? Well, pretty close to first. Next they came for the Florida minister planning a bonfire of Korans. That one has to be second, nothing else of note was between.
This is the face of Islam under siege in a post 9/11 world. This is a siege? According to some, yes. Let us not forget that Americans may be slaughtered if the oxidization process of this paper pile is accelerated, according to a high-ranking uniformed liberal. Why? Because Middle-East and Central Asian Muslims are the biggest babies on earth, that's why.
Of course, this is the way any religious person would act when their holy books are intentionally destroyed, right? Hows about we takes a look at a few other items:
Burning bible video from 2008 must have ruffles some feathers of the religion and gun clutching set.
No?
Another video of Bible burning, this one with a catchy title that should have swept the internet like wildfire:
Lots of casualties from that one?
Maybe Bible burning is in a Holy loophole somewhere, like burning soiled American flags. Surely heads would roll and body parts would fly if someone shot a bible with a gun, right?
So, just what is all this fuss about, especially from religion hating liberals? Quite simply, Western White liberals are a bunch of fradiae-cat pansies that like to lump people together in odd categories. To them, all Asians are yellow, all Republicans are White, all Muslims are "people of color" and everybody who is not White and/or Christian is oppressed by White Christians. We can skip the Jews for a moment until the liberals need some mysterious bully to explain why there is no actual evidence for their position.
A big one with liberals is Africa being a nation, rather than a continent. At least that is the way they use "African" much of the time, the same way everybody else uses "Irish". This is a key concept to grasp, since they seem to think all Muslims are from the Middle-East. Maybe those are the only Muslims liberals care about, making the rest invisible. Actually, they are not invisible. They just aren't causing trouble like the Middle-East Muslims.
Something both Rush Limbaugh and David Horowitz have observed over the years, the left really does not care who their allies are, as long as those allies hate either America or Western Civilization. Thus, the bomb making, Jew exterminating, USA attacking, French car burning Muslims are pals of the liberal. And by liberal, I do not mean people like me and my friends who enjoy erotica, wish for the day when drugs are legal (even if we don't plan on doing any) and would rather not get married before enjoying sex with others. I am talking about the liberal left, Socialistic, Nazis with speech codes and an unquenchable self-hate for their own countries.
What about these "moderate Muslims" we all keep hearing about? Those would be the ones that Arab Muslims call "monkeys" and go around killing in greater numbers than they kill non-Muslims.
Back to the White liberal, another pet thought of theirs is that everybody in the South USA owns a gun (or arsenal), a Confederate flag, goes to Church, lives in a trailer, Southern cities are trailer parks, makes moonshine, is always barefoot unless at a wedding, married a close relative and prefers to have sex with a willing sibling. If someone meeting that description is not located in the South, then they are just a redneck. There must be a lot of rednecks at Reason magazine, the biggest online and print advocate of close-relative intercourse.
Remember all those riots when Confederate flags were burned? That's okay, I don't either. The liberal will tell us that never happens, even though it does. Don't miss the next event! Here is an article about it from the Leftist mind. See Red State for a sane take on that one. I hope someone from the press is keeping the body count stats beginning Sunday.
Some think that burning an American flag and flying a Confederate flag are "similar in many ways" (my count of similarities is zero, not quite the same as many, IANAL).
So, enlightened, delicate readers, when will burning the Koran be as popular as burning the Bible? When will burning the Koran be as 'patriotic' as burning flags?
"Julian Assange has requested a new lawyer to represent him during a rape investigation in Sweden because his previous brief, Leif Silbersky, was not engaged enough with the case.
Assange wants Bjorn Hurtig to represent him as authorities continue to investigate the allegations, according to AP."
The article goes on to say that Assange denies that he said the CIA was behind these accusations. Which is something I never read a quote of either. What he did do was repeat that WikiLeaks was warned that the Pentagon would try dirty tricks. He would repeat that every time the rape and molestation charges were mentioned.
Carnegie Mellon has taught its robotic snake to climb trees, though one hopes it won’t start offering your spouse apples. “Uncle Sam” (presumably named for its red, white, and blue markings) is a snake robot built from modular pieces. The latest in a line of ‘modsnakes’ fromCarnegie Mellon’s Biorobotics Lab, Uncle Sam can move in a variety of different ways including rolling, wiggling, and side-winding. It can also wrap itself around a pole and climb vertically, which comes in handy when scaling a tree. You have to watch this thing in action. There is something incredibly life-like, and eerie, about the way it scales the tree outdoors and then looks around with its camera ‘eye’. Projects like Uncle Sam show how life-mimicking machines could revolutionize robotics in the near future.
I hope there are other efforts underway to make snakes like the one Zhora dances with in Blade Runner.
In the first Suki series, Suki works in robot theory as a consultant to industry.
"LONDON—London's black cabs might be as iconic as Big Ben, but in a city that has seen other much-loved symbols such as red telephone boxes and Routemaster double-decker buses almost disappear, being iconic is no guarantee of a future.
London's famous licensed taxis, whose origins go back 350 years, are, along with their drivers, now facing stronger competition from new rivals."
I always thought London cabs were so cute! Had no idea of the nannyism behind that until I read this article. The turning radius is regulated under a ridiculous set of Conditions of Fitness. The look is regulated so stupid people won't confuse them with any other vehicle. Licensing requirements are just stupid, preventing others from entering the business. A court dented the Conditions and Fitness rules, but the "stronger competition from new rivals" comment is laughable. It is not like they are getting competition from Joe six-pint in his 2001 Ford Fiesta. It goes on and on in the article.
For your listening and viewing pleasure, The Car Song:
"The idea is that the parts will make external power sources redundant — because they can convert energy from body heat, light and vibrations straight into electricity. Self powered electronics have already sporadically been used in technology like wall-mount remote control units for air conditioners, says Nikkei, but existing parts are bulky and cost a couple thousand yen a piece. 3,000 yen is about $35 — which means they're not the best bet, financially, yet."
In all of the Suki series romance novels, the 'gogs' and earbuds are powered by body heat, or a combination of body heat and saline (contact lens gogs). Gogs contain computer screens and sometimes cameras, earbuds have more advanced processors, speakers and possibly microphones. Most anything worn on the body is powered by the person's body heat, movement, chemical interaction or a combination.
Cross-posting to Suki's Street. In Suki II: Sunshine Returns, pilotless commercial aircrafr, cargo only, are mentioned. In Suki III: Never Let Us End, John reveals that he worked on an Army project that advanced the concept to reality (TEC: The Effortless Cockpit). In Suki IV: Finally A Vacation (War With Iran), the couple watches pilotless aircraft and driverless trucks moving supplies for a looming war. In Suki With A Twist: Part One, the couple rides in a pilotless, retrofitted Cessna Citation from Reagan National Airport to San Francisco during one of their earlier dates.
