While many of us were celebrating the change of designs for the Flight 93 memorial, Alec, over at Error Theory, was busy analyzing the new design, and reveals the following…

The redesigned flight 93 memorial, announced today, still contains all of the features that made it a terrorist memorial. Architect Paul Murdoch’s infamous red crescent is still there, still planted with red maple trees, still inscribed in the exact same circle as before, and with the same two crescent tips still intact. Thus the crescent bisector defined by these crescent tips is also the same as before. It still points almost exactly to Mecca, making the crescent a Mihrab (an Islamic prayer station, where the believer faces into a crescent, towards Mecca, to perform his ritual prostrations). The design still incorporates a separate upper terrorist-memorial wall, centered precisely on the red-maple crescent. There are still 44 translucent blocks on the flight path to the crash site, matching the total number of dead, instead of just the forty translucent blocks that are dedicated to the forty murdered Americans. Lastly, the Tower of Voices part of the memorial is still an Islamic prayer-time sundial.

Head on over to Error Theory and check out the images. He’s obviously done his homework on this one.

Great job, Alec!

Actress Wendie Jo Sperber, who starred opposite Tom Hanks on TV’s “Bosom Buddies” and who in his words became “a walking inspiration” after she contracted cancer, has died. She was 46.

Sperber died at home Tuesday after an eight-year battle with breast cancer, publicist Jo-Ann Geffen said Wednesday.

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After being diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997, the actress became an advocate for cancer care. In 2001, she founded the weSPARK Cancer Support Center, which provides free emotional support, information and social activities for individuals and families affected by cancer.

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“The memory of Wendie Jo is that of a walking inspiration,” Hanks said in a statement. “She met the challenges of her illness with love, cheer, joy and altruism. We are going to miss her as surely as we are all better for knowing her.”

Sperber is survived by a son and daughter, her parents, two sisters and a brother.

Rest In Peace, Wendie Jo.

We need better and more tools?

Declaring television coarser than ever, a top federal regulator served notice on cable and [tag]satellite[/tag] programmers Tuesday to shield children from racy shows or risk coming under sharper government scrutiny.

“Parents need better and more tools to help them navigate the entertainment waters, particularly on [tag]cable[/tag] and satellite TV,” Federal Communications Commission Chairman [tag]Kevin Martin[/tag] told Congress.

In addition to expanding federal decency standards to include cable and satellite programs, Martin suggested several options, including creating a “family-friendly” tier of channels that would offer shows suitable for kids, such as the programs shown on the Nickelodeon channel.

He also said that cable and satellite providers might want to consider letting consumers pay for a bundle of channels that they could choose themselves, a variation of the so-called “a la carte” pricing system that some in Congress have backed.

“You can always turn the television off and, of course, block the channels you don’t want,” Martin said, “but why should you have to?”

[Source: FoxNews]

First of all, my dish box has two built in features. One blocks all shows that are “above” a rating of my choosing (ie: anything not rated G is blocked). The other allows me to block any channel I think is inappropriate for my kids.

Second of all, my dish box allows me to override either of those features with my parental code.

What other “better and more” tools do I need? I am quite capable of deciding what my kids should watch, and I am also quite adept at using the tools I already possess.

Why should I have to block the channels I don’t want or have to turn off the television?

To keep the government from interfering with MY choices for viewing television, as well as YOURS. That’s why.

Take a moment and visit the USO Website and donate to this very worthy cause.

They have sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, and friends who are with them in spirit and silently supporting them from the other side of the world. But it would mean so much to our service members to be able to hear their voices. Far from home and lonely, they are defending our flag and our freedom. Joe Scarborough and the USO are working hard to bring home as close to them as possible.

Please join MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough in supporting USO Operation Phone Home, a campaign created to make it possible for Americans to extend this touch of home to the men and women of our armed forces. And we will continue this effort until every one comes home.

Let’s help our troops spend a little time with their families this holiday season.

[Source: Blue State Conservatives]

The SloboPoll question this week is:

Which of the following people are doing (or have done) the worst job representing their constituents since being elected?

The choices are:

Nancy Pelosi
Tom Delay
Harry Reid
William Frist

This post is open for comments on the SloboPoll, if you so desire.

The question was:

Compared to last year, will you be spending more or less this holiday season?

There were a total of 708 votes which breakdown like this:

Spending More (324 votes) [45.8%]
Spending The Same (236 votes) [33.3%]
Spending Less (148 votes) [20.9%]

Check out the new questions each week here on Slobokan’s Site O’ Schtuff.

Are you a Luddite?

Just because a person doesn’t what the latest in technology, that doesn’t make him a Luddite, a Purdue University associate professor says.

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“Ask yourself, is this newest video game system or MP3 player worth the several hundred dollars to upgrade from what you or your children already have? Or, are you just buying it so that you can have the newest, flashiest products? ” Davis asks.

It’s definitely about having the newest and flashiest products. Embrace the future. Seize the technology!

The crescent is out.

Designers of a Flight 93 memorial have made a circular, bowl-shaped piece of land its centerpiece, replacing the original crescent-shape design that some critics had said was a symbol honoring terrorists.

The new design, announced today by the memorial planning committee, features most of the same details of the original, which was unveiled in September after a worldwide design competition.

A tower with 40 wind chimes welcomes visitors to the crash site near Shanksville. There, they can walk to a large circular field ringed by 40 groves of red and sugar maple trees, symbolizing the 40 passengers and crew who died when hijacked Flight 93 went down on Sept. 11, 2001.

The circle enhances the earlier design by putting more emphasis on the crash site, according to details of the new plan, contained in the Flight 93 National Memorial’s November newsletter. A break in the trees will symbolize the path the plane took.

[Source: Pittsburgh Live with a HatTip to In The BullPen]

Actress Jocelyn Brando, who appeared in more than a dozen films including two with her younger brother, Marlon, has died. She was 86.

Brando, whose married surname was Pennebaker, died Sunday of natural causes at her Santa Monica home, said her son, Martin Asinof of Tillamook, Ore.

Brando, who often defended and praised her better-known and controversial brother, made her Broadway splash in the late 1940s as the leading nurse in “Mister Roberts.”

She appeared in more than a dozen major motion pictures, beginning with Fritz Lang’s “The Big Heat” with Glenn Ford in 1953 and ending with “Mommie Dearest,” which starred Faye Dunaway as mercurial actress Joan Crawford in 1981.

Rest In Peace, Jocelyn.

Stan Berenstain, who with his wife, Jan, created the classic children’s books about the Berenstain Bears, has died at the age of 82.

Berenstain, who lived with his wife in Bucks County, Pa., died Saturday, according to a spokesperson for HarperCollins Children’s Books.

Stan and Jan Berenstain, creators of the prolific Berenstain Bears series, at home in 2002. Stan Berenstain, 82, died Saturday. (AP Photo/Dan Loh)

Born in Philadelphia in 1923, Stanley Berenstain met his wife while they were students at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art.

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The couple eventually moved into book illustration and, in the early 1960s, began to develop their Berenstain Bears series under editor Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, who was head of children’s publishing at Random House at the time.

Rest In Peace, Stan.