For the few, the crazy, the chess players, this just strikes a chord:
Ground Zero: Russian Offers $10M for Muslim Center Site to Build Chess Center
Chess Federation President Offers 'Check' for 9/11 Mosque Site
By ALEXANDER MARQUARDT
MOSCOW, Sept. 17, 2010
The Russian president of the World Chess Federation is offering $10 million to buy the site of the controversial Muslim community center near Ground Zero in order to build an international chess center instead of the controversial mosque.
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, also the president of the Russian Republic of Kalmykia, announced at a press conference in Moscow Thursday that he has sent letters to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Hisham Elzanaty, an investor in the Park51 site, on behalf of the World Chess Federation with their offer.
Source: ABC News
Okay, now the person who wants to buy the site is a little crazy:
The incumbent president is Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, a skilled chess player and the outgoing president of the tiny Buddhist republic of Kalmykia. Ilyumzhinov is a colorful character, if held at arm's length. He won his first election in the tiny desert state on a platform of "a cellphone for every shepherd," and immediately abolished Parliament after taking office. He takes advice from a Bulgarian astrologer named Vanga, and speaks far too often about his conversations with visitors from other planets.
Source: The Boston Globe
Now, I bet this is a publicity stunt by Ilyumzhinov just to keep his name in the public leading up to this month's World Chess Federation (FIDE) election.
But still, can you imagine people lining up five times a day, facing east, and then starting white's clock? How would the folks at FoxSpews like that?