Friday, June 3, 2011

Undying Gratitude That Never EVER Ends

We're ever so grateful, Muslim people, for your manifold scientific achievements, even though your powers of creativity seemed to taper off somewhere in late Medieval times:
WASHINGTON — In a fresh outreach bid by the Obama administration to the Muslim world and America’s eight million Muslims, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has launched an exhibition on achievements of Muslim civilization through the ages. 
The 1001 Inventions “honors the remarkable accomplishments of Muslims throughout history,” Clinton said in a pre-recorded message on the State Department’s website.
The exhibition, which has attracted more than one million over the past year, opened on May 27 for a seven-month run at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.

Clinton said the exhibition aims at “celebrating a millennium of science and innovation in the Muslim world,” which “has a proud history of innovators.” She cited the achievements of prominent Muslim figures like Fatima Al-Fihri who founded the world’s first modern university in the ninth century. She also praised 13th-century mechanical engineer Al-Jazari whose theories on crank mechanisms contributed to the operation of every plane, train and automobile in the world nowadays.

She also praised Iraqi physician Ali Ibn Nafi who is credited with having diagrammed the human circulatory system in 1242 CE and with being the first to accurately describe the cardiovascular system involving the heart and lungs.

Originally funded by the British government and launched in the United Kingdom in 2006, the “1001 Inventions” is on a five-year global tour. It features exhibits spanning Muslin achievements in different fields of medicine, optics, mathematics, astronomy, higher education, library science, personal hygiene and even the basics of aviation. It also shows the works of some of history’s finest scientists and scholars whose work once extended from Spain to China and enlightened the world from the seventh century on.

For example, at the 13th-century observatory in Maragha, Iran, astronomers developed new models for understanding the universe which helped pave the way for Copernicus’ ideas of a sun-centered solar system in 1543.

“We’re honored that Secretary Clinton agreed to launch our exhibition here at one of the most prestigious science museums in the world,” said Salim Al-Hassani, Chairman of 1001 Inventions. “The goal of 1001 Inventions is to highlight the astounding contribution that Muslim civilization has made in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics and how those advances still affect our lives today.”...
Please get off your knees, Hillary dear. It's a most unseemly posture for a kafir of your stature. (I wonder if the exhibit includes recent Islamic "advancements" in the field of ballistics--the Semtex vest and the underpants bomb.)

Update: There's no puffery like Foggy Bottom puffery.

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