http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=17441_Flight_93_Outrage&only
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...I especially like the one who wanted to fix it with some "midnight landscaping..."
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 have read up on it. If it was "facing Mecca" it would be with it's crescent opening toward Mecca, or the taliban or Pearl Harbor or the Twin Towers or the next target L.A. or Osama's cave or the London targets or Spanish trains or, or...
I will agree that choosing a crescent shape was a mistake. Because once they did that it allowed all kinds of wild theories to follow on. That's the way things seem to go these days.
That's my honest opinion. Given a crescent, some will find a lot of other stuff no matter what.
Your mileage may vary, but I appreciate your reply.
excuse me... that was to have been 124.80 + 55 = @ 180
I entered the above coordinates into a amateur radio antenna beam heading page, and it says that Mecca itself is 74 degrees azimuth from the crash site, not 124.8.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=17441_Flight_93_Outrage&only
The comments ( notice- some X-rated ) are illuminating:
Show 690 comments for this entry
...I especially like the one who wanted to fix it with some "midnight landscaping..."
When people enter the crescent, they will be facing Mecca. Perhaps that was the point.
conspiracy or no conspiracy, you have to admit that it is one UGLY design.
probably an admixture of "kum-baaa-yaaaaaa" and "hey, let's poke the Red Staters in the eye"
I see the Washington Monument: 
It's an ink blot test.
74 degrees azimuth from what? due (magnetic) north, I expect.
I might have to CAD this out on a sphere to see what is what.
If that were true, can you even imagine what kind of soulless lib would do that to the passengers' families just get his little stab in at us? Kind of makes you understand what makes someone like Stalin tick -- almost.
Due north, which is what Islamics use to determine the direction of Mecca from their location anywhere in the globe.
I have known many an "artist" of the modern stripe.
Most have souls one could measure only with the spiritual equivalent of an electron microscope.
ok. I'll make use of that data.
Able to fix it in a defiant stare and raise a one fingered salute.
Perhaps that was the point.
Mine's better.
I'm not very fond of it.
My proposed design was: "Let's Roll!" carved in granite as tall as the towers.
Very perceptive: That's exactly what it is, more or less. ETAOIN SHRDLU is what typesetters back in the days of big, clunky Linotype machines would enter as gibberish. Linotype keyboards were six columns wide, laid out in order of frequency; ETAOIN SHRDLU was the first two rows. The modern equivalent would be something like QWERTYUIOP.
Is there a red crescent pointed to Mecca near the Washington monument? And does it have anything to do with Islamic terrorists?
Yeah it's the "great circle" route to Mecca.
Showing all the trees red pushed me over the edge. That color coupled with the arc seem deliberate. Does anyone remember the huge flap that Hart inspired by using a crescent shape on an outhouse in the B.C. comic strip. That was a comic strip and not a memorial, but the lefties sounded long and loud about that.
It is sacred ground, but these people died more than merely die. They were the first fighters against terrorism on September 11th 2001.
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