The Daily Show has had a bit of fun with this; if you’re in the UK, you can watch the show on More4 here. Apparently, the discovery was made by Crescent-Finder General Alec Rawls, author of conspiracy-tome Crescent of Betrayal: Dishonoring the Heroes of Flight 93. Rawls dismisses the “official” explanation, that the logo was inspired by a hydrogen atom:
Most obviously, why the gap in the electron’s orbit? The only purpose of this gap would seem to be to turn the crescent into the familiar Islamic-shaped crescent.
Less obviously, notice that the fattening of the crescent at the lower left indicates visually that the electron is coming closer at that point. That would only be the case if the orbit were being observed somewhat edge-on, but that would make the orbit appear to the observer as an ellipse, not the circle seen in the NSS logo.
By the same token, since the orbit is seen as circular rather than elliptical, that means it is being observed from above (from one of the poles of the axis of rotation), which means the electron is not moving closer to and further from the observer, hence no crescent-like fattening of the arc would be observed.
The only purpose for the unnatural fattening of the circle on one side representation would again seem to be to create the familiar Islamic shaped crescent.
Meanwhile, other wingers are complaining that the logo was superimposed over a map of the world at the summit:
…I read about it at The Lonely Conservative who… asks “what’s at the center of the earth?” The answer is not the United States. The answer is Africa, Saudia Arabia, Yemen, Oman, U.A.E, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Europe…
In February (H/T Ed Brayton), Frank Gaffney was part of a bandwagon warning that the DOD’s Missile Defense Agency’s new logo represented the “morphing of the Islamic crescent and star with the Obama campaign logo…” and was an act “of submission to Shariah by President Obama”. However, Gaffney backtracked (grudgingly, and to the dismay of Rawls) when it was pointed out that the DOD logo had been commissioned in 2007. Fox pushed that as a story, too.
In 2008, I noted someone who perceived an Islamic crescent in a map of an earthquake.
Filed under: Uncategorized | 38 Comments »
