Everything in Moderation

Let's play connect the dots. Imam Rauf, who won't back down on building a victory peace-building mosque two blocks from the undeveloped hole in the ground reverently called Zero, is a paid emissary of the US State Department, who maintains a high opinion of him:

Crowley told reporters that the the department has "a long-term relationship" with Rauf, noting that he had visited Bahrain, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in 2007 and went to Egypt last January as part of an exchange program run by the State Department's Office of International Information Programs.

Note to wingnuts, it goes back to the Bush administration State Dept. as well. But nobody should be surprised. Anyway, the same bunch of diplomats backing the Imam also consider HAMAS a terrorist organization. And Rauf? Not so much:

Asked if he agreed with the State Department's assessment, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf told WABC radio, "Look, I'm not a politician. "The issue of terrorism is a very complex question," he told interviewer Aaron Klein.

Soooo.. who exactly are we trying to impress? BTW, shouldn't the State Department change the name of their lists to remove the word "terrorists" and "terrorism"? That's so 2008.

Meanwhile, moderate Muslims in Mecca want to grab the position of world timekeeper away from Greenwich, England with their soon-to-be completed 2000 foot tall clock tower:

According to Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian cleric known around the Muslim world for his popular television show "Sharia and Life", Mecca has a greater claim to being the prime meridian because it is "in perfect alignment with the magnetic north."

This claim that the holy city is a "zero magnetism zone" has won support from some Arab scientists like Abdel-Baset al-Sayyed of the Egyptian National Research Centre who says that there is no magnetic force in Mecca.

"That's why if someone travels to Mecca or lives there, he lives longer, is healthier and is less affected by the earth's gravity," he said. "You get charged with energy."

And wow, there's no magnetism in Mecca! Of course, Christians, Jews, and infidels aren't allow to travel there to disprove it (much less build their own houses of worship there to promote peace) but hey we'll soon have a mosque two blocks from ground zero where moderates from all over the world, probably to include Mecca, can attend conferences and lecture Americans on our arrogance, depravity and intolerance.