This sounds like a reasonable explanation. Do you have a newsletter?
Don’t fuck with the ketchup cabal.
Hilarious!
Yeah, mayonnaise makes a much better lube.
I noticed on the Google map that St. Peter’s Catholic Church is roughly between the Mosque and Ground Zero. Won’t that emanate a kind of Christian force field to protect the sanctity of Ground Zero from the blasphemy waves emanating from Park51?
B-bu-but sqweels, what kind of American are you? What kind, what kind, what kind of Christian? Were you born in the blood? Oh, I’m betting you were not!
Everybody (everybody, that is, who is not a heathen like you evidently are) knows Catholics aren’t Christians! D’uh! Those Moslems are in cahoots with the Papacy, via the Spanish Inquisition and Obama’s birthplace!
(It isn’t against the rules to have fun in GD, is it?)
OMG! Were we having the same debate? One of the people in my conversation used the exact same phrase. It start when she posted a link to a guy ranting about the Muslimification of Europe or some such thing.
Ps…Did you go to Pondorosa High school?
I think I may steal this to use as my signature.
When did they do that? This AP story, posted at 10:19pm on 4 August 2010 refers to the place as Cordoba and doesn’t mention Park51 at all.
Got a cite for the rest of us?
Your article just refers to the group as the “Cordoba Inititive”, but it doesn’t reference the name of the proposed religious center one way or another. The wikipedia article on the “Cordoba House” also says that the name was changed to Park51.
Yes, me too. The first thing I associate with “Cordoba” is “idealised era when Muslims, Jews and Christians got reasonably along – lots of high political positions for people of different religions, lots of art, music and poetry, lots of science and idea exchange, Aisha al-Fajr skipping hand in hand down the street with Rachel bat Asher and Maria Sanchez”.
Ah, yes! Back in the old days when “suicide vests” weren’t even a glint in Aisha’s papa’s eyes.
I may be showing my age here, but the Park51name is reminding me of Studio 54.
Will the crescent moon have a spoon?
No, but it might be made out of cocaine.
You could interpret it as the muslims saying “hey, look how great things were when WE were in charge”.
Of course the fact that the west generally went forward (in fits and starts), while many islamic/muslim countries stagnated or went backwards since then seems to have gone unnoticed by them.
I really don’t care if “you” invented zero thousands of years ago.
Actually, the concept of zero was invented in North India by proto-Hindus.
However, unless you’re really dense, I don’t see why you would interpret it that way. I’m inclined to take them at their word; militant Islamists usually aren’t all that subtle.
We hath deemed it acceptable. 
Only if you were looking to pick a fight with them. If they were calling it the International House of Chicken and Wahabbism your interpretation might work better.
The Cordoba Initiative people probably wouldn’t put it that way but that’s why they’re making a historical reference. If there was a more current example they would probably use that.
Ricardo Montalban is turning in his grave!
I thought it was an Argentinian Asados (BBQ) place.
Seriously, what Mr. Moto said. It’s their place and they should be able to call it any way they want, but having some sensitivity to the issue always helps.