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Petition to reject in its entirety Paul Murdoch’s Crescent/Bowl of Embrace design for the Flight 93 memorial. A petition submitted to Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, Flight 93 Memorial Project Chairman John Reynolds and Project Superintendent Joanne Hanley, and to all members of the United States Congress: The original “Crescent of Embrace” design for the Flight 93 memorial contained many unacceptable features. Most obviously, it’s half-mile wide crescent was oriented within two degrees of Mecca. A crescent that people face into to face Mecca is called a mihrab and is the central feature around which every mosque is built. The plan also included a copse of trees, placed almost exactly in the location of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag. The graphics released of the design were startling, showing a naked Islamic flag emplaced on the crash site. The other main feature of the design was a second typical mosque feature: a minaret-like Tower of Voices, formed in the shape of an extruded crescent. A minaret is a literal “tower of voices” from which Islamic prayer-times are called. This tower was surrounded by crescents of trees turned exactly 90° from the giant red maple crescent, so that a line across the tips of the Tower crescents replicated the orientation of the giant crescent exactly, again within two degrees of Mecca, proving that neither orientation was accidental. (Full report available at: ) All of these features remain completely unchanged in the new Bowl-of-Embrace redesign. The only change that was made anywhere in the design was the addition of a few trees along the upper portion of the circle that the crescent partly inscribes. The upper crescent tip in the original Crescent-of-Embrace design was defined by the termination of the towering masonry walls of the Entry Portal structure. Since the upper crescent tip was not defined by trees, adding a few trees does not alter this crescent tip in the least, leaving Murdoch’s original Mecca-oriented crescent fully intact. The new design is every bit as unacceptable as the original, and we the undersigned demand that this time Murdoch not simply be given another chance to sneak his Islamic symbolism back through airport security. He was caught by gate security the first time he tried to plant his gigantic Mecca-oriented Islamic flag on the crash site. The Memorial Project itself was oblivious to crescent, star and minaret, but the American people set off the alarm. In response, it was incumbent upon the Memorial Project to take the concern about Islamic symbolism seriously, but this did not happen. Instead of investigating the alarms that had been raised about Murdoch’s use of Islamic symbolism, all the Memorial Project did was tell him to go back outside and see if he could get past gate security on the second attempt. After the redesign was announced, the Memorial Project’s publicity manager, Chris Martin, was asked if anyone at the Memorial Project ever even investigated the Mecca orientation of the original crescent, which thousands of people had warned about back in September. His reported answer was: “Everything faces somewhere.” This would explain why no one involved in the project knew that the original crescent was still intact in the redesign: no one ever looked far enough into the Islamic symbolism of the original design to know how the original crescent was even defined. It is trivially easy to verify the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent that is the central feature of both the Crescent and Bowl designs, but it seems that no one at the Memorial Project ever performed even this most basic due diligence. There was no significant investigation into the information that forced the original design to be reconsidered! This must not continue. The investigation into the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster reported that: “At every juncture of STS-107, the Shuttle Program's structure and processes and therefore the managers in charge, resisted new information.” COLUMBIA Accident Investigation Board Volume 1 August 2003, p. 180-81. From the Crescent of Embrace to the Bowl of Embrace redesign, this describes the modus operandi of the Memorial Project exactly. There was an unwillingness look seriously at the most startling information that was passed along from outside. We now need another redesign, but the process cannot continue in its previous mode. Murdoch cannot just be allowed another attempt to disguise his Islamic structures. The full evidence is that has not only designed a mosque, but a terrorist-memorializing mosque. If the exact bisector of Murdoch’s giant crescent is plotted on his site-plans, the copse of trees is seen to be slightly off-center: slightly off from the exact position of the star on an Islamic flag. Yet if one looks within the copse of trees, one sees what does lie exactly on bisector of the gigantic crescent: a separate upper section of memorial wall. It contains three additional memorial glass blocks, like the forty inscribed with the names of our murdered heroes, and there is one more glass block further up the flight path: the large glass block that dedicates the entire site, bringing the total number of dedicatory glass blocks to 44, exceeding the number of the murdered by the number of their murderers. Intended or not, these features are unacceptable. There should not be a separate upper section of memorial wall, in the exact geometric location of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag. Neither should there be 44 dedicatory blocks on the flight path, intended or not. Most likely, the Islamic and jihadist features of Murdoch’s design are intended. A half-mile wide Mecca-oriented crescent does not happen by accident. The repetition of this Mecca orientation in the crescents of trees surrounding the Tower of Voices minaret cannot be coincidence. A geometrically perfect Islamic flag does not happen by mistake. But just in case anyone doesn’t get it, Murdoch has included numerous hidden proofs of Islamic and jihadist intent. The large glass block that dedicates the entire site is part of the Entry Portal structure that defines the upper crescent tip. If the crescent-tip-line is moved in from the end of the Entry Portal wall to the glass block, it defines a second orientation of the giant crescent, this time exactly on Mecca, confirming both the Islamic intent of the crescent and the terrorist memorializing intent of the 44 blocks. All of these features of Murdoch’s design are easily and completely verifiable, and there is much much more. Every feature of Murdoch’s design is readily interpretable as a typical mosque feature, on the same epic scale as his giant mihrab. At the same time, there is not a single typical mosque feature that Murdoch’s design does not contain on an epic scale. Investigate it all. In sum, the evidence is very strong that the Memorial Project has been hijacked by an architect who is striving to do as much damage to America as humanly possible. He is striving to crash a terrorist-memorializing mosque onto our Sacred Ground and claim it for jihad forever. In memory of “the flight that fought back,” do not let him succeed. Paul Murdoch and his associates must be removed from any role in the Flight 93 memorial and their designs must be discarded entirely.