http://www.freemasonrywatch.org/washington.html

And there you have it.

This is Lunar Conspiracy how?

So, the designer of D.C. was a Mason, big deal.

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Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

like who wasn't a Mason? heck, my grandfather was a Mason, and you didn't see him plotting to take over the world. he was a Kiwanis, too, as I recall, and probably even a Lion.

and you're absolutely right; this isn't lunar conspiracy, unless you're somehow suggesting that the designer of Washington, D.C., was in on the lunar hoax--which would have been a neat trick.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Because the people who believe this are all lunatics. And not in the "I love the moon!" sort of way.

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"We can't test an elixer of immortality! It'd take forever!"

Oh, you fell for it! It's the Elks. (My father was one and he told me, but I can't tell anyone else, so ssshhhh.)

Which proves it wasn't started by Nixon! That story was just a coverup (started by the Elks, of course).

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

Earth Orbit stole this from Mike Bara, one of Richard Hoagland's writers. Bara believes NASA (and perhaps other elements of the U.S. government) are controlled by Masons.

Hoagland et al. have discovered that the most effective way to beg the question is to express one's conclusion visually, so that the natural pattern-matching capability of the human visual system can suggest that the offered correlation is significant in terms of all those possible.

In fact, a closer inspection of the alleged appearance of Masonic symbology in Washington D.C. streets reveals a number of objectively indefensible problems.

First, the inverted pentagram is distorted. Visually this does not raise a problem. Geometrically it ruins the correlation. The correlation is not exact, therefore it is left to the viewer to decide how much visual "slop" is allowed. Visually the human brain allows a great deal of it.

Second, streets are sometimes considered part of the correlation and sometimes they are not. This makes the correlation partly arbitrary.

Third -- regardless of street layout, there are prominent features of the city that do not fit the pattern and are left out of the correlation. A good candidate explanation explains all the visible data. Bara et al. simply left out the prominent landmarks, streets, etc. that do not fit their preselected symbols.

Fourth, even if the selected landmarks are objectively justified, there are innumerable possible geometrical associations and relationships that exist between them. The authors give no reason why theirs are more credible than any others.

This is wishful thinking, pure and simple.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

With the rain and flooding causing terrible traffic today in Houston, I need someone to blame. So why not the Masons. They seem to be able to do about as much about the weather and traffic as anyone else. :wink:


Now if I just had a PDA with an Internet connection I could keep up with Bad Astronomy while driving home, then everything would be alright. 8)

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Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the Sun.

i'm curious what difference it makes if these are masonic symbols? i mean, c'mon, the masonry boasts and average age of over 70 now, and they are fading fast. their influence in political matters is all but done. who really cares?

heck, we could also draw a conclusion about all of our early architecture being based on european design. gasp! we were founded by europe! gasp again! oh my, it's a conspiracy! :roll:

taks

Secret societies are the wild card in conspiracism. A society that admits it keeps secrets is left open to speculation about what those secrets are. And since the society cannot generally debunk rumors about its secrets without revealing the secrets themselves, there is no plausible limit to the scope and absurdity of the speculation. Since most conspiracy theories presuppose a widespread, largely omnipotent coverup of the actual facts, the notion of "shadow government" is attractive. If such a large-scale shadow government -- embodied at least partially in admittedly secret organizations -- can be demonstrated, then an important premise to any conspiracy theory can be satisfied.

In order to effect a large-scale coverup, a secret organization must be powerful and pervasive. Identifying "signatures" of known or suspected secret organizations in large-scale settings supports the hypothesis of pervasion and power. The conclusion drawn in this case is that a society powerful enough to encode its symbology in the layout of the U.S. capital city is powerful enough to be responsible for whatever coverup the conspiracy theorist says is responsible for his lack of evidence. This addresses the common objection to a conspiracy theory: that perpetual suppression of a big secret is fundamentally impossible.

I've already covered the question of whether any such symbological correlation exists in this case. Thus the real refutation is by subversion of support.

But to address the question of why conspiracists feel this is a valid line of reasoning to support some particular conspiracy theory, it is really just a vague appeal to abstract secrecy in hopes that it will make some specific allegation more plausible.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

my fraternity keeps a lot of secrets, too... and most of these fraternal type organizations are based on similar concepts carried over from european secret societies from before our country existed. quite frankly, most of said secrets are really ridiculous, too. but their symbolism shows up in the things members do. if a mason laid out the plans for DC, why wouldn't he inject the things he holds dear into the design?

a good example is gillette (the shaving company). he is a theta xi (er, was, is he still alive?). look at the symbol for gillette. a circle with three bars in it. theta xi. go figure.

taks

PS: oh, theta xi was my fraternity.

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"Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures - in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together." St. Exupery

hey, did anyone else notice that, if you rotate that picture 90 degrees to the left, there's a thing in it that looks like a bunny?

(I'd like to welcome our new bunny overlords . . . .)

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Is that a bunny? or a DUCK? Hah.

It is all part of a L'enfant conspiracy.

Oh, for the love of Pete!

How much time and effort has gone into constructing this nonsense? Have these people seriously got nothing more in their lives, that they have to skulk around poring over roadmaps and crappy jpegs looking for 'sinister' signs?

Nothing but poor, sad, lonely, deluded people. They desperately need to get out of their darkened rooms, away from the flickering monitor and go outside, smell the fresh air and feel the sun on their faces.

Get a life, son.

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"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." - Douglas Adams

Selective is right. He leaves out the Washington Monument, the site of which was selected by L'Enfant when he made the city plan. Washington was a major player in Masonic circles. What sort of evil symbolism leaves out the monument to him? It should be the center. At the same time he includes the Jefferson Memorial. Not only was this not part of L'Enfant's plan, at the time the city was founded the site was a tidal swamp! Booshwah! as a friend of mine used to put it.

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"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind." - William Thompson, 1st Baron Lord Kelvin

"If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" - Tweedledee

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. - Wolfgang Pauli

Every time someone speaks of dangerous secretive occult Masons I am reminded that the Shriners are a Masonic Order as well. Somehow, it is hard to see guys in red fezzes driving really little cars as being a force of world domination.

(But of course, that's just what they _wanted_ us to think!)

You know there are Jewish Masons? According to the local Jewish history center -- which had a big exhibit recently on California Masonry -- the order was much more accepting than most towards people of other faiths. Minor odd tid-bit.

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"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

And don't look, but part of the line from the lower left point to the upper right point isn't actually a street - it's just drawn in.

So now we have proof that they are actually faking evidence.

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"We can't test an elixer of immortality! It'd take forever!"

Why does all of this tend to remind one of a certain "analysis" of the Cydonia region of Mars? :-k

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A person's name, or a mark representing it, as signed personally or by deputy, as in subscribing a letter or other document.

Same person -> same conclusion?

Nahhhh can`t be that simple :roll:

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"Who does not know anything, must believe everything."
Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach 1830-1916

NASA is controlled by Masons... :-k
Well, that explains why the bottom of the Space Shuttle is covered in bricks!

#-o

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009