Centroids : Our new site is set to launch. In theory it should have gone public at 9 PM on the 23rd, but there was some kind of glitch. With luck it ought to be fully operational very soon, maybe today. There already is an excellent Press Release, accessible via Google. The official address is [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) but there also is a notice that simply says GroundZeroDeclaration.org The site has been professionally designed and constructed, thanks to Lennart's programing work and Ernie's writing and editing. There is a real chance that this may become very controversial. We have aligned ourselves with some of the "big names" who are critics of Islam and it is possible that some percentage of objections they get from Muslims will devolve upon those of us associated with the new site. My personal feeling is that we are ready for a variety of contingencies. The Declaration itself is a concise but thorough statement of principles to refer to, to explain our motivation, and which places us squarely in the middle of America's First Amendment tradition. The Questionnaire for Muslims found in the Resources section provides a 10 question format analysis of Islam and contrasts some key parts of the Qur'an to the US Constitution and American law. It should be mentioned that I circulated a limited number of copies independently of the group and several sites, most notably WikiIslam , have picked it up and are currently featuring it. No real idea what to expect, but there is a good chance there will be increasing interest with the approach of 9/11. One part of the design of the site features a Comments section, which may or may not be functional just yet. But the idea is for all incoming e-mails to be made available to anyone at this site, RadicalCentrism, for their replies. In other words, this is completely optional, but if anyone wants to reply to one or more individual e-mails that are sent to the Declaration site, this will be open to you. I will act as editor, in order to select the best Comments that come in. Some e-mails will be "published" as is if they are thoughtful, either in support of our efforts or to criticize what the site represents. But there is no useful purpose served in publishing all incoming e-mails, especially not those which are vulgar or hopelessly uninformed. The objective is to focus on the best e-mails we might receive. Barry Sommer, who is very well informed about Islam has agreed to help out and is in the process of starting his own new site which will operate in tandem with GroundZeroDeclaration.org. Things may become exciting around here, so be prepared. My personal opinion is that there will be a built-in time delay before we have a good sense of how much effect the site will have. We should know, as a best guess, within about 10 days. Look for the new site; if you cannot access it on your first search, try again after a few hours. Eventually it should be available to the entire Web. Any questions, feel free --as usual-- to contact myself or Ernie. This new site in no way changes anything at [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) It is independent of it even though some of the same people are directly involved. We are as much Radical Centrists as we always have been and remain gung ho about the Cause. Billy
-- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
