Article

2008-04-21 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Retards at it again: Replace GMT with Mecca Time!

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Posted by 3dc 2008-04-21 13:02|| || Front Page|| [3 views ] Top

#1 From the article: One geologist argued that unlike other longitudes, Mecca's was in perfect alignment to magnetic north.
Unfortunately, for him, a) all longitude lines point to the true north pole, and b) the magnetic north pole moves over time, so even if Mecca's longitude pointed to the magnetic north pole today, it wouldn't have pointed there during Mohammed's time, and won't point there in the future.

Posted by Rambler in California">Rambler in California 2008-04-21 13:11|| 2008-04-21 13:11|| Front Page Top

#2 It's ALWAYS Mecca Time!

http://www.meccabingo.com/

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2008-04-21 13:20|| 2008-04-21 13:20|| Front Page Top

#3 FILTHY INFIDEL LONGITUDE!!!

Posted by tu3031 2008-04-21 13:33|| 2008-04-21 13:33|| Front Page Top

#4 The meeting also reviewed what has been described as a Mecca watch, the brainchild of a French Muslim. The watch is said to rotate anti-clockwise and is supposed to help Muslims determine the direction of Mecca from any point on Earth.

But what happens if you put it on upside down? Do you pray to Antarctica? Does your head explode?

Posted by tu3031 2008-04-21 13:40|| 2008-04-21 13:40|| Front Page Top

#5 Actually i think that GMT was an invention of the American Railroad tycoons: having noted the difficulties in establishing any sort of schedule for their trains, they decided upon using the established longitudinal lines and since 360 divides real nice by 24, you get the various time zones (+/- local geographical or socialogical interests). Of course if we DID want to adopt Mecca time, we would have to start by taking today's date and subtracting about 1300 years (+/- local interests)

Posted by USN,Ret. 2008-04-21 14:02|| 2008-04-21 14:02|| Front Page Top

#6 Bomb mecca into dust, and the problem is solved. A couple of 10MT nukes would do nicely. Or let God do it with a small asteroid - say a half-mile in diameter.

Actually, God doesn't care. Latitude and Longitude are man-made measures, just as are hours and minutes, feet and miles, pounds and tons, meters and liters and bears, oh my! ISlam needs to put a sock in it.

Posted by Old Patriot">Old Patriot 2008-04-21 14:06|| http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]">[http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/] 2008-04-21 14:06|| Front Page Top

#7 He said the English had imposed GMT on the rest of the world by force when Britain was a big colonial power, and it was about time that changed.

Now that Arabia is the big colonial power...

Posted by Seafarious 2008-04-21 14:13|| 2008-04-21 14:13|| Front Page Top

#8 all your longitudes belong to us

Posted by macofromoc 2008-04-21 15:06|| 2008-04-21 15:06|| Front Page Top

#9 "muslim scientists"? bwahahahahahahahahahaha!

Posted by Rex Mundi 2008-04-21 15:28|| 2008-04-21 15:28|| Front Page Top

#10 Damn djinns stole my Miller Time. What is Qaradawy gonna do about that?

Posted by ed 2008-04-21 15:34|| 2008-04-21 15:34|| Front Page Top

#11 Here's a cool movie (scroll down a bit) showing how the magnetic dip poles have varied with time. The location of the pole can change up to 50 km per day. So unless Mecca migrates like the poles, it ain't on a great-circle with magnetic north. In fact, any Mecca-locating devise that uses a compass will be off by some amount, though I imagine the current ones use GPS (we wouldn't introduce an error, would we?;)

Posted by Jitch, Scourge of the Veal Cutlets 2008-04-21 15:58|| 2008-04-21 15:58|| Front Page Top

#12 Muslims will find 1000 reasons, backed up by so called "scholars", that try to make Islam mathematically perfect, without any good evidence.

Posted by Crolusing tse Tung2778 2008-04-21 16:33|| 2008-04-21 16:33|| Front Page Top

#13 start by taking today's date and subtracting about 1300 years

I'll take that as Snark O' The Day!

Posted by SteveS 2008-04-21 16:44|| 2008-04-21 16:44|| Front Page Top

#14 It's a lot more complicated than you realize. Saudi Time says dawn is always 6:00 AM and sunset is always 6:00 PM, so as the time in each hour/minute etc. changes with the seasons.

This is why people needed an objective measure of time independent of the sun.

I had to write a module for Citibank that kept track of differing time zones and daylight saving time around the world (it differs by country).

We wound up leaving Saudi Arabia out because it was just too complicated.

Al

Posted by Frozen Al 2008-04-21 16:59|| 2008-04-21 16:59|| Front Page Top

#15 Stop:

Mecca Time!

Posted by Raj 2008-04-21 20:19|| 2008-04-21 20:19|| Front Page Top

#16 I think they've not thought it out well, let's give them Mecca Time.

Absolutely nothing would ever coincide with them again, picture the head explosions trying to hijack an aircraft that left an hour ago (The rest of the worlds time) while they're trying to get to the terminal on their "Holy" time, likewise all other schedules would never "Mesh" with their time.

We could include a Fatawa that anyone using "Infidel Time' be beheaded to boot.

Solve a whole lot of problems.

Posted by Redneck Jim">Redneck Jim 2008-04-21 23:34|| 2008-04-21 23:34|| Front Page Top

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