Posted on 08/18/2010 6:30:21 AM PDT by detritus
It is hard to imagine that anything has gone unsaid about the so-called Ground Zero mosque, but an important point seems to be missing.
The mosque should be built precisely because we don't like the idea very much. We don't need constitutional protections to be agreeable, after all.
This point surpasses even all the obvious reasons for allowing the mosque, principally that there's no law against it. Precluding any such law, we let people worship when and where they please. That it hurts some people's feelings is, well, irrelevant in a nation of laws. And, really, don't we want to keep it that way?...
...[T]he more compelling point is that mosque opponents may lose by winning. Radical Muslims have set cities afire because their feelings were hurt. When a Muslim murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam, it was because his feelings were hurt. Ditto the Muslims who rioted about cartoons depicting the image of Muhammad and sent frightened doodlers into hiding...
This is why plans for the mosque near Ground Zero should be allowed to proceed, if that's what these Muslims want. We teach tolerance by being tolerant. We can't insist that our freedom of speech allows us to draw cartoons or produce plays that Muslims find offensive and then demand that they be more sensitive to our feelings....
Nobody ever said freedom would be easy. We are challenged every day to reconcile what is allowable and what is acceptable. Compromise, though sometimes maddening, is part of the bargain. We let the Ku Klux Klan march, not because we agree with them but because they have a right to display their hideous ignorance.
Ultimately, when sensitivity becomes a cudgel against lawful expressions of speech or religious belief--or disbelief--we all lose.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
That’s just weird. Ash doesn’t care if the television is on, or what’s on, but she wants to sit in whatever room most of the people are in.
Shannon was really funny about “Walker, Texas Ranger.” It was the only show that got her attention, other than one with a cat on the screen.
Bellingham is cold and foggy. I’m going to Seattle this afternoon and will drive my truck up. There’s a parking lot somewhere around here.
Sounds good. Best of luck in finding a room. Go to church, ask the pastor or chaplain. People are struggling economically, and he might know a widow who can use a boarder.
Partly cloudy here with 99 degrees. Not much of a breeze, though.
Next week at this time, the lows will be in the 50’s, so says the weather prognosticator.
I misread that as weather agnosticator, which brought to mind all kinds of horrible philosophical points about denying the weather.
Funny. That’s the way I saw it, too. I had to really work at spelling it right... Typso lurker...
Sorry about that.
Also thought up “Can’t spell ‘danger’ without ‘Dang!’” as well.
*sigh*
Well, just DANG!
Funny how that owrks.
Yeah.
I think I found a song for the batttleship tale, possibly EVA post biological transition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ_URcTXpCU
That’s a freaky photo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z9QJAQyzzw
Original version of the song.
Kewl!
If you build it, I will come.
(Ostensibly, the story related below is supposed to be happening here on the Flying Castle, in one of the large storage areas below the Castle level. The time is approximately twenty years from now.)
Brian and Jade felt very much at home. They pushed through into areas which would ordinarily have been off-limits, wearing the invincible cloak of innocence.
They stared through the observation window at an immense assembly area. In the middle of the field, a miniature version of the saucer like habitat of the castle was either being put together, or taken apart. It rested on custom made cradles, and an air of discovery seemed to encompass it, even though its hull was scattered in total disarray.
They made their way to what appeared to be a control station hovering overhead on a suspended catwalk. Unchallenged, they entered the room and wandered nonchalantly about the information workstations. It was still impossible to determine if the strange craft was being assembled or disassembled. They stepped again to an observation window of the control station, and watched the leisurely activity around the “flying saucer.”
“Like it?” A voice came from behind them. A man with white hair and a gray beard was casually lighting a pipe.
“Sure! I’ll bet you’re really pleased to be working on it, too.” Brian responded. “If you don’t mind my asking, though, just what is it?”
Through a thin haze of pipe-smoke, they could see an obvious twinkle in his eye. “It’s a flying saucer! Can’t you tell?”
Brian said gently, “It doesn’t look as though it ever flew anywhere, or ever will.”
If anything, the man’s smile grew. “Quite perceptive. We’re building an Nth generation starship.”
“Enth generation? What does that mean? What’s Enth?”
“Oh, sorry. Mathematical jargon. We’re building a space-ship designed for an unknown type of drive engine. Something that will be able to move without using reaction mass. Something to the Nth power, and so forth.”
“Oh, I get it.” Brian looked again at the craft. “It looks as though you’re going to be flying through space like a custard pie directed at someone’s head. The main deck seems to be oriented only for standard gravity.”
The man raised an eyebrow. Jade gently nudged Brian. “You have a sharp eye. No, we’re expecting to be oriented with minimal aspect as we move through space, but the main deck will have a form of artificial gravity.”
“Something other than rotation, you mean?”
“Exactly.” He seemed to appraise them for a moment. “I’m Dave. I’m heading up the build team.” He offered his hand to Brian. Brian shook it. Jade reached out and shook hands with him also. He smiled.
“I’m Brian Hawthorne. This is Jade Regalo. We’ve been on EH-1.”
“Ah.” It was explanation enough. “Would you like some lunch? We don’t get too many visitors.”
Dave directed them to a dining area. Using his personal communicator, he ordered meals for himself and his guests.
“How can you build a machine for an unknown engine?”
“We’re operating under the expectation that the technology will come along. We’re using the form factor of a fighter airplane, that is, we’re building something that is essentially all engine, and we only need to design the rest of the crew comforts.”
“So what we saw out there will have more than sixty percent of its space taken up by engines? How can you guess that even that formulation is correct?”
“Simple enough. If the craft required one hundred and fifty percent of its space to be engines, we couldn’t build it at all. We have to assume that it’s possible, and we’re just using optimism as our guide.”
Not sure where to use that one.
By now you must think me mad Algernon, and you’d be right to think that!
Normal rational minds do not speak of such horrors under light of day.
But none the less, I speak of them for I saw them!
There are things in this world, Algernon.
Things as far putside our comprehension as we are outside the comprehension of an earthworm.
Such madness is too much for anyone to see, further still to see it and be unable to relate it to any living soul for fear of being ostracized.
But Algernon, I need you to understand and hear.
I made an error, a terrible mistake.
There are things that were once locked outside our world, for good reason.
And I am afraid, afraid that I have let them in!
-Taken from the last page of the private journal of Marcus Lane.
Heh. You're in the snow belt up there. Just wait...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3973tfsllqw
Ouch, now that’s showing my age.
You young whipper-snapper!
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