The New World Trade Center

I've lamented the fact that the area around Ground Zero in New York City is still basicly a big ugly hole several times in the past but this animation of what the new towers and memorial will eventually look like makes me feel a lot better about what we're doing there. Let's get this built already:


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Something Someone Else Said II

"It is hard in this age of endless memorialization to even express this view without sounding callous: but Londoners did not turn their entire city into a "hallowed ground" or a shrine for the dead or a monument to British victimhood. They rebuilt, they went on, they rightly saw that the truest memorial to the dead was to show the Nazis that their city would rise again as if the Nazis had never existed on the face of the earth. I have always felt a deep discomfort similarly with the entire holocaust-memorial and holocaust-study industry. As a Jew, I hate the idea that the defining fact of my people's entire history should be what the fucking Nazis did to us.

There is a great Spanish proverb: olvidar la injuria es la mejor venganza: to forget an insult is the greatest revenge," -Stephen Budiansky, Stephen Budiansky's Liberal Curmudgeon Blog.

Meanwhile, nine years after the attacks on 9/11 we argue and bicker over whether it's respectful to the victims of those attacks to build a religious community center near the big ugly hole in the ground where they were killed. Our priorities are fucked up.

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Friedersdorf Flips The Perspective

Lamenting his apparent failure to convince fellow conservatives that Imam Rauf of the so-called "Ground Zero" mosque is "with us" in the War on Terror (as in, "you're either with us or you're against us..."), Conor Friedersdorf decides to come at this question from another direction:

Perhaps it'll help my case to offer a flip in perspective. Take a look at an imagined conversation between two radical Islamists in Saudi Arabia who are having their own argument about whether Imam Rauf is with them or against them.

Jihadi 1: Maybe he is on our side. He does seem to sympathize with the Palestinians.

Jihadi 2: No more than lots of American liberals. Being pro-Palestine hardly makes him a soldier of Allah.

J1: He is also building a monument to Islam at Ground Zero.

J2: It's two blocks away. And he has publicly promised that he is going to let Jews in.

J1: Really?

J2: Yes, he even reached out to two rabbis before announcing the project.

J1: Even so, he seems critical of America.

J2: Yes, he is mildly critical once every few years, when he's not busy doing the bidding of their State Department, or helping to train their FBI agents.

J1: He cooperates with their FBI?

J2: He is very friendly with them. And he lets his wife go on television too. Without a burka or even a headscarf.

J1: I heard he attended a Hizb ut-Tahrir conference.

J2: It turns out that story is false. In fact, when radicals from the group confronted him, he defended the United States Constitution!

J1: Andy McCarthy thinks that he is a radical.

J2: You fool. Andy McCarthy also thinks that President Obama is allied with radical Islamists in a grand jihad against America.

J1: Seriously? That bastard Obama just killed an Al Qaeda cousin of mine with one of his drone strikes. At first I thought maybe he's just trying to shore up his domestic political support, but then I realized that his administration is taking pains to keep most of them secret. Still, I hear than the mosque being built will signify the beginning of the United States of Arabia, and that it marks their surrender to us.

J2: That makes no sense. Their voters can't even manage to pass gay marriage bans without them getting struck down and you believe people who say that they're about to submit to sharia law? And how would the construction of a mosque even be a factor in transforming their legal system. I think you're listening to too much of their talk radio.

Insofar as this conversation is unrealistic, it's because every actual radical Islamist would know perfectly well that an imam who works with the FBI, tours on behalf of the State Department, denounces terrorism, defends the US constitution in an Arabic exchange with radicals from Hizb ut-Tahrir, has a good relationship with New York City rabbis, and preaches on behalf of women's rights isn't on their side. In fact, he is exactly the kind of imam that Islamist radicals target and kill when they dare to do these sorts of things in other countries.

Now I'm not saying that Rauf is a saint or that he's never uttered anything controversial but when one takes the time to find out the things he's actually said and done it becomes clear that those who are automatically jumping to the conclusion that his motives are nefarious simply because he's a Muslim are doing so out of either ignorance, bigotry or both. And Friedersdorf's last point is an important one: moderate Muslims like Rauf are exactly who al Qaeda and other radical extremist organizations would like to see us turn against to help facilitate their war on the West. Now I'm also of course not saying that the Republican party is in league with al Qaeda but when your political party's current talking points mirror that organization's stated aims and goals of turning Christianity and Islam against each other, perhaps it's time to reexamine your stance on this particular issue. Sometimes constitutional freedoms and civil rights are more important than people's hurt feelings. Hell, they pretty much always are.

[Update: Jon Stewart connected a few more dots with his highlighter last Thursday:

I too denounced Heston and the NRA for their actions in Colorado several years back and I too was wrong to do so. Just as the NRA was not responsible for the Columbine tragedy, Rauf and his organization were not responsible for the attacks against America on 9/11 and conflating either event with an unrelated group of people is both dishonest and unAmerican. We need to be better than that.]

What Else Is Near Ground Zero?

New Yorker Daryl Lang takes some photos of other structures and businesses in his neighborhood, including strip clubs, bars, McDonalds and curbside souvenir hockers, located the same distance from the Ground Zero site as the proposed Muslim community center:

What’s my point? A month ago, I wrote about my support for a group of Muslim New Yorkers—whom I consider my neighbors—and their right to put a religious building on a piece of private property in Lower Manhattan. Since then, the debate over the Park51 community center, inaccurately nicknamed the “Ground Zero Mosque,” has jumped from talk radio to mainstream conversation, and turned nasty in the process. Sarah Palin wrote that, “it would be an intolerable and tragic mistake to allow such a project sponsored by such an individual to go forward on such hallowed ground.”

Look at the photos. This neighborhood is not hallowed. The people who live and work here are not obsessed with 9/11. The blocks around Ground Zero are like every other hard-working neighborhood in New York, where Muslims are just another thread of the city fabric.

At this point the only argument against this project is fear, specifically fear of Muslims, and that’s a bigoted, cowardly and completely indefensible position.

I'm glad that Sarah Palin was able to put aside her disdain for big city liberal elitists long enough to tell them how to run their own town (for their own good, of course). As far as the outrage over the proposed community center located two and a half blocks away from the World Trade Center site being too close I still have three questions that no right-winger can or will answer: 1) How many blocks would then be far enough away to show proper respect for the victims on 9/11? 2) What system or formula did you use to arrive at that number? 3) Why would being even one block closer than the number you chose be so much worse? The reason these questions can't be answered is because this isn't about proximity to Ground Zero or respect for those victims, it's about not liking Muslims and conflating religious tolerance with national weakness to score cheap political points in an election year.

Assembling The International Space Station

I remember when the idea of this thing was just that, and look at it now. The assembly happens over the first 1:30 and then the rest details the individual sections (if that turns you on):


(hat tip: Reza)

Dropping In From The Eiffel Tower

I tried to walk down a flight of stairs in a pair of Rollerblades once and almost killed myself doing it. This is pretty much what it looked like:


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Damien Walters Jumps Over Stuff

Pretty self explanatory. I love this shit:


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Chart Of The Day

Every terrorist John McClane and his black sidekicks took out in and around Nakatomi Tower in Die Hard. Welcome to the party pal, now I have a machine gun ho ho ho, yippee-ki-yay motherfucker, etc. Classic.

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Picture Of The Day

The first four floors of the Freedom Tower finally start to emerge from the former location of the World Trade Center destroyed on September 11th, 2001. Four floors, in eight years. At this rate the entire 94 story structure should be completed by 2189. It amazes me how easily showing the terrorists who attacked us and the world at large how strong and resilient we Americans are as a people inevitably takes a back seat to political posturing and bureaucratic wrangling. The terrorists chose their target well.

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Picture Of The Day

I suppose this shouldn't be that surprising but it's still beautiful just the same:

A tipster sent along this spectacular photo of the Burj Dubai, the world's tallest, most absurdly ostentatious building, getting struck by lightning. While checking for newness, I noticed something amazing: This happens all the time. Well, not all the time, since storms aren't exactly a daily occurrence in Dubai. In a way, though, that makes the sheer number of occasions this has been caught on film all the more impressive.

One would assume that this is something architects have had to contend with for some time now but as we build our super skyscrapers higher and higher I'm sure that the rest of us will get used to seeing it.

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Something Someone Else Said

"If I lived in the Star Wars universe, I’d live on Coruscant with a summer home on Naboo." -Palahniuk & Chocolate

Autistic Artist Draws Entire Cities From Memory

This guy is amazing:


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Sell The Vatican, Feed The Poor

I've been to the Vatican and I absolutely loved the various works of classical art but I have to agree with this sentiment:

Walled In: Learning About The Berlin Wall

I knew that it had been a daunting obstacle at the time but I actually had no idea that it was quite so intricate a structure:


I visited pieces of this former cold war landmark several years ago but I couldn't really get a feel for just how menacing it really was at the time. In fact, I nonchalantly purchased a replica KGB pocket watch on the East German side of Checkpoint Charlie but viewing this digital recreation has given me a much more sobering look at this monument to communist oppression.

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Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater

I've always wanted to visit this place:

Fallingwater, also known as the Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr. Residence, is a house designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1934 in rural southwestern Pennsylvania, 50 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, and is part of the Pittsburgh Metro Area. The house was built partly over a waterfall in Bear Run at Rural Route 1 in the Mill Run section of Stewart Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, in the Laurel Highlands of the Allegheny Mountains.

Hailed by Time magazine shortly after its completion as Wright's "most beautiful job,"^[3] it is also listed among Smithsonian magazine's Life List of 28 places "to visit before ...it's too late."^[4] Fallingwater was featured in Bob Vila's A&E Network production, Guide to Historic Homes of America.^[5] It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966.^[1] In 1991, members of the American Institute of Architects named the house the "best all-time work of American architecture" and in 2007, it was ranked twenty-ninth on the list of America's Favorite Architecture according to the AIA.

Below is a computer-generated fly around of the structure:


And here's a computer-generated walk through created on Half Life:


Until I next find myself in the Pittsburgh area these CG videos will just have to do.

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Cowboys Win On Monday Night

It wasn't a scorefest and a lot of the tackling was butt ugly but the Boys did control most of the game, pulling off their first win in their new billion plus dollar house. They're heading to Mile High to face undefeated Denver next week, who's quarterback Kyle Orten is in my fantasy league (in addition to Dallas wide receiver Roy Williams, pictured above) so I'm hoping for a high scoring game that eventually leaves the Cowboys victorious. Gotta get them fantasy points, people!

Yes, Cowboys Punt Fail

Dammit, Dallas. I know that last season was supposed to be our year but can't we at least design the stadium correctly? The nation is watching:


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[Update: New video (via)]

Projections On Buildings

Once again the Dutch impress me:

NuFormer is a company in the Netherlands that creates amazing, 3D projection displays on buildings. Basically they manage to sync up the projected image with the building just so, and then they can make it look the building is collapsing, like water is flooding down the roof, like ghostly lights are dancing in the windows or twirling around the columns.

This is really cool. At times I forgot that this was all just projections:

Picture Of The Day

"Atop The Empire State Building" -by Vincent Laforet. Deke Johnson, left, and Tom Silliman worked 1,385 feet above street level to repair the electrical connections of an FM antenna atop the Empire State Building. Below them, ant-sized people on the observation deck imagined that they were the ones at the top of the world.

Look at these guys and stop complaining about how shitty your job is right now. My God...

The Coolest House In The Neighborhood

I've heard that it's the ability to know what concessions to make that determines a successful marriage. Admittedly, (full disclosure: I'm not married, have never been so in the past and do not plan to be so at any time in the near future; *Whew*) I would happily make the concessions that are detailed here as long as I got this kick-ass house and some occasional sweet nookie from the wife: