WTC Mosque Debate

In 2000, the Republicans passed a law that gave special protection to religious land uses. This is the law that now makes it illegal to block the 'ground zero' mosque. (propublica.org)

Golly. You didn't think that one through, did you, dumbasses?

Relevant [funny] section:

DISCRIMINATION AND EXCLUSION-

(1) EQUAL TERMS- No government shall impose or implement a land use regulation in a manner that treats a religious assembly or institution on less than equal terms with a nonreligious assembly or institution.

(2) NONDISCRIMINATION- No government shall impose or implement a land use regulation that discriminates against any assembly or institution on the basis of religion or religious denomination.

(3) EXCLUSIONS AND LIMITS- No government shall impose or implement a land use regulation that--

(A) totally excludes religious assemblies from a jurisdiction; or

(B) unreasonably limits religious assemblies, institutions, or structures within a jurisdiction. (citation)

Of course, there's another document that settles this - and that's the First Amendment to the Constitution.

However, there is still a question of good taste - and it's obvious that the folks building this 'prayer center' are obvious trolls, obviously trolling... and men crying about their right to be trolls isn't exactly winning hearts and minds in the Muslim world.

Meanwhile, maybe if anyone gave this much energy to the 1,500 people dying in Pakistan and another 2 million people displaced with no food, water and in danger of getting waterborne diseases - Right now - we'd all be able to stop and listen to one another and care about helping and leaving each other alone, respectfully? Ah, but there's religion involved. All logic and common decency are now thrown out, which is one of the big reasons there's a crater in lower Manhattan and the Cordoba people building the center is estimated to cost about $100 million... (my citation)

Here's a thought, maybe even a solution: How about the Americans try to care more about building something in that crater instead of what's going in a couple blocks away, and the folks picking a fight with a $100 million to toss around instead spend their money on helping their fellow Muslims - 'scuse me - HUMANS - on food, medicine and clean water in Pakistan?

Nah, that'd be just nuts!

Quote of the Day

"He was trying to cover his tracks, but he left more clues than a guy walking into a bank to rob it without a mask. This guy left everything here but his wallet."

KEVIN B. BARRY, who retired in 2002 as a detective in the bomb squad of the New York Police Department, on the car bomb found in Times Square on Saturday night.

Good News, Attempted NYC Times Square Bomber Arrested!

Authorities arrested a Connecticut man, Faisal Shahzad, at Kennedy Airport early Tuesday in connection with Saturday’s failed Times Square car bombing. He's a naturalized United States citizen from Pakistan.

And that's the bad news, well, bad news if you're in the news media or the Administration. Here's why...

One could feel - almost taste - how badly the NY Times and the Huffington people wanted this to have been a tea bagger. Oh, the salvation, the dripping drool of desire for a big juicy steak of a Tea Bagger car bomb... and one that didn't work, so they could laugh at the failure?! Sorry guys, no such luck.

Nope. Instead, it looks like this one is blowback from our involvement in Pakistan and all the terminator drone missiles and overt action to kill people without making it look like we're killing people, with impunity on their country. For some reason, they're kind of pissed about that? Who knew?

In typical NYTimes fashion, they're spilling the beans and practically explaining to potential follow up would-be terrorists or insane people. (Most are in both camps). Today's Times has detailed everything that Faisal did wrong... How his explosives wouldn't have done anything substantial to the area, except scare some folks - and how to fix that. They also mentioned that there was a lot of evidence left behind in the car, and just how easy it was to find him.

Okay, that's great. Let's hear about that in ten or twenty years. In a boring book about it. Now your next terrorist is going to set his SUV Car bomb in a clean room and leave NO evidence of who did it - and it's going to be full of something a lot scarier than fireworks.

The other 'bad news' item was, of the 1000 suspected folks who have grievances with either NY, or Obama, or the Theater District, not one of them was domestic. So, this whole War on Terror might, just might, be legit and something that the Democrat party is going to have to take a little more seriously? Nah. If they were going to do that they would have dusted off some helmets and fake general costumes out of the Vietnam exhibit in the Smithsonian and pretended they were going to take the war from Bush, but now they were going to win it! Perhaps even they knew that they were throwing too much empty rhetoric at Bush to make that come off as even slightly genuine? Eh, they did enough -- They voted to go to war, and to keep funding the wars, and to expand the war in Pakistan. They just said that they're anti-war and that our troops are baby killers. And played hard-to-get by blackmailing the funding until they got their district a new roads project.

I don't know, to me, actions always speak louder than words.

What's next? Probably a pretty strict parking ban around Times Square first off. Second, fewer civil liberties for the rest of us. All while the NYTimes telegraphs how to pull a successful car bomb off for the next guy. Oh, and Blue SUV's will become the Ryder Trucks of terror clichés, if it isn't now already.