9/11 Open Thread

It looks like a beautiful day today.

Comments

[Jane (get off the couch - come save the country)]

Hi guys, from DC - absent Clarice. We missed Janet and Rich last night, but hopefully will see them at Freedom Works today where Caro will be making signs and I'll hang around talk to all the Tea partiers.

Last night at the Thunder Grill we ran into the same group of guys we met there a year ago. We had high hopes that the ICE guy would have lost a little of his hope and change glee, but he hasn't. He thinks everything is going just swell.

I listened to the presser yesterday and don't recall Obama complimenting Bush, but the news says he did. I guess when you are less popular than the guy you've spent 3 years demonizing, you have to do something.

9-11 makes me happy there are 8 year old kids who didn't live thru it, and it reminds me (as if I needed reminding) just how much I love my country.

[Donald]

It was a beautiful day in 2001 too.

About a month before it happened, I got a call from a contracting agent at the Atlanta Airport. I was a door salesman, and I'd done a bunch of stuff there. In June, all of a sudden, they wouldn't let us in to the work areas because we needed some kind of badge. We filled them out, and the waiting began. It was a pain in the ass.

One day I got a call. It was from the guy I dealt with. He told me to get over right away. I told him about the badges. He said he didn't care. Get here now!

When I got to the site, he told me that he didn't know what the fuck was going on, but that I needed to get down to the staging area and start measuring and replacing (Well put guys, I can't do anything)and upgrading doors and fencing for anything that was security oriented. We got started, did what we could do, all the while being screamed at for not going faster.

Then all hell broke loose and it's like everything stopped.

By Friday, nothing had resumed in the whole country. I sat at home that night for the first time in I don't know how long.

However, the youth football group I officiated for decided to play their games. I was kinda nauseated. Youth football, especially in Georgia is way too serious, and the people involved are kinda kooky to me.

We got to the field for the first game. It was packed! Maybe a thousand people to watch a bunch of 10 year olds play football. The typical crowd is like 50.

We got on the field, got the captains out, did the coin toss. Then, the pa announcer, said a couple of words and asked for a moment of silence. It was electric! Then they played that damned Whitney Houston version of the Star Spangled Banner. I hate that. It was frickin awesome that day. Those people were dignified, they were proud to be americans, and they were picking themselves up, dusting themselves on, and then we got on with life Football!).

By Monday, well, things weren't normal, but as a country we got up and did what Americans do (Real Americans anyway).

[Donald]

Whoops, sat at home that Friday cause we didn't have high school football.

[peter]

Evil triumphed briefly that day nine years ago. Let us hope it was only briefly.

I am reposting the link to personal videos of that day that Jane posted on another thread. very tough to watch and not be angry.

[Donald]

Nothing brief about it Peter. Evil is still kicking good's ass, because good is to chicken shit to call evil for what it is.

[Janet]

Here is Crystal Morning by Evan Malony.

[Janet]

and here is the video - 9/11 Jumpers - World Trade Center
This one is very hard to watch.

[Melinda Romanoff]

My memories, of friends I lost that day, still burn.

[Janet]

Here is a video remembrance that is set to Jo Dee Messina's "Bring On The Rain". It is heartbreaking & lovely.

[Janet]

It is heartbreaking & lovely

That sounded odd...I just meant at the end it has a person recounting how someone helped her get home. The ones that stepped up that day to help are lovely....

[centralcal]

Well, I just watched CNN for the first time in years - only because FNC didn't air the entire Laura Bush speech or the Michelle Antoinette speech.

Laura spoke first. Michelle second. One from the heart. One with lots of sniffles and "best actress" silent tears.

Then, after her performance, Michelle walks back to her seat, brief hug with Laura, hand on Laura's shoulder and gives her what appeared to be a shove forward - Laura bent her shoulders downward and escaped the push.

It will be interesting to see if there are any video replays.

[Janet]

Here is the 911 call from Kevin Cosgrove from the World Trade Center.

[DebinNC]

AP: "President Barack Obama on Saturday recalled "that awful morning" nine years ago when "a sorry band of men" who perverted religion attacked the U.S. in hopes of demoralizing and dividing the country."

A sorry band of men? Words fail me.

[Dave (in MA)]

Google actually has a red, white & blue ribbon up on their page.

[narciso]

His speechwriters, the ones who load the teleprompter have no clue, do they, 'sorry'
but someone who set his children down in REv. Wright's Church for even a few years, would
grasp at such straws

[Dave (in MA)]

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/07.09.10.TuesdayMorning-X.gif>Cox + Forkum at Instapundit

[Ann Mongrel]

DebinNC:

Have you read Andy McCarthy? It will really make you mad.

Imagining Islam (A Sorry Band of Men?)

[Janet]

"a sorry band of men" also describes this administration

[Janet]

in hopes of demoralizing and dividing the country."

That fits this administration too....

[Ann Mongrel]

WH twitter:

President returned to the White House at 10:38 from the Pentagon. Changed his clothes, left at 10:52 for a community service event.

A Sorry Little Boy

[Jane (get off the couch - come save the country)]

I heard the helicopter - just saying

[centralcal]

Exactly, Janet. Sorry band of men is much more descriptive of Obama and his administration.

[DebinNC]

Excellent piece, Ann. Thank you.

[Danube of Thought]

They weren't sorry at all--they were ecstatically happy.

Minus 19 at Raz today.

Changing planes in Denver; headed home.

[Donald]

Men? Obama administration?

Har de har.

[narciso]

And yet the band on the Titanic plays on, in the LUN

[DebinNC]

Obama is bringing along a big press pool to his service project. Nothing else sceduled today or tomorrow. Busy week ahead, includes the Hispanic and CBC Galas, welcoming sports teams, Dem fundraiser/s, and all with no rest.

[Ignatz]

Thanks for that McCarthy link Ann.
I'm fed up with Barry and even W constantly telling us radical Islam is the aberration.
For 1400 years the main body of Islam itself has expanded by direct violence or coercion backed by the threat of violence.

Are most muslims involved in sawing off heads? No. But neither were most Germans involved in gassing Jews or most Soviets in manning the gulag. In every awful totalitarian system there is the minority of violent foot soldiers and the vast complicit silent majority which convicts itself by its tacit approval through inaction.

[Danube of Thought]

The Musselmen are the cancer of human history, as Susan Sontag might have put it.

[rse]

Has anyone ever been to the "13 Tears" interactive memorial pool in the lobby of AmEx's HQ?

Most moving thing I have ever seen with water coming down each of the 13 cables at such a rate that there are always multiple circles from the droplets in the reflecting pool below so they are "never alone".

It was in honor of the AmEx travel office employees positioned in the Cantor Fitz offices.

Janet- I had never seen that video before although I had heard about it. It didn't make me feel that Muslims are inherently evil but it did confirm that Rauf and Daisy must be.

Finally, Andy McCarthy will be speaking in ATL on October 6 at Emory to the Ga chapter of NAS. Anyone else attending let me know.

[Ann Mongrel]

WH Twiters:

President returned to the White House at 10:38 from the Pentagon. Changed his clothes, left at 10:52 for a community service event.

President's 9/11 community service event: he is helping to paint a school. He joked: "They don't let me do much work at the White House."

President returned to the WH at 11:45. There is a lid.

I think that pretty much says it all.

[centralcal]

The past 2 weeks, I have been mildly shocked, to hear two men call into local talk radio (very conservative talk radio) over the subject of the GZM.

Both are Muslim. Both are clients with unusual names and distinctive voices, whom I instantly recognized. Both are local businessmen - having restaurants.

Yesterday, barely back from vacation and needing to restock my fridge, I heard one of them call in. He was angry, angry. Called Imam Rauf a liar at the top of his lungs. He said that the Mosque in NYC was a deliberate, intentional provocation. He spent a long time praising America and American life. He said there were many like himself who are working for a reformed, modern Islam.

I think he is being sincere. Sadly, I don't know how many Muslims in my community share his feelings.

[Rocco]

Well Said ignatz, I totally agree. And when that silent majority finally acts, a Murder Mosque on the "Rubble" at Ground Zero is their answer!

[narciso]

I imagine there are quite a few, we've seen and heard the good Imam's 'lips move' in NY
while the Ground Zero still burned, in Adelaide, Australia, in Cairo, and many other places, we know who and what he is, if not the particulars,

[Ignatz]

--I think he is being sincere. Sadly, I don't know how many Muslims in my community share his feelings.--

cc,
That's why the Yemeni Koran (only discovered in 1972) that we discussed previously is so important.
Most people don't realize the vast majority of the Koran is supposed to be God speaking directly in the first person. That is one reason why the Koran and Muslims have been so impervious to reason and criticism. They go beyond even the Christian belief that all scripture is God inspired and written down over centuries by men.
If the existance of different versions of the Koran and a textual history could ever dent the rigid belief in it's perfect revelation then perhaps Islam could have its own reformation. I aint holding my breath.

[DebinNC]

CNN has a story about 2 young Muslim American men who travelled 13,000 mi. across U.S., meeting bitter clingers and finding an embracing nation, not one "afraid of people not like them."

[Rick Ballard]

Where does 'toy poodle' rank on the headchoppers' 'strong horse/weak horse scale?

I keep wondering if President BOwser's support of the Murder Mosque isn't a rather clever method of moving attention away from the parlous economic situation as described in the excellent roundup linked by JiB in the previous thread. After all, he's not on the ballot.

[Rick Ballard]

Where does 'toy poodle' rank on the headchoppers' 'strong horse/weak horse scale?

I keep wondering if President BOwser's support of the Murder Mosque isn't a rather clever method of moving attention away from the parlous economic situation as described in the excellent roundup linked by JiB in the previous thread. After all, he's not on the ballot.

[squaredance]

The Obamabots a "Sorry band of men"?
"Sorry little band of little girls" is more like it. or perhaps "Sorry band of cowards and traitors"?

I was down there that morning;I missed the first plane crash by a matter of minutes.

I will never forget that week.

May God rest their souls.

People forget that the folks that flocked down there to help that week were regular people from all over the nation. One did not see too many of the limo-liberals in the trenches.

A shameful display from a shameful man.

Nobody is this obtuse. This is willful.

We cannot, however, say that he has defiled their memory: He is not large enough of a man to do this. He is in fact not much of a man at all.

[Rocco]

Rauf earned his Bachelors at Columbia in the late 60's. (not sure of the exact dates) I'm wondering if he was involved in the Columbia uprising, we know Weather Underground members were. IIRC, Bernardine Dohrn was a member of the National Lawyers Guild who represented many of the students arrested. Is it coincidence Ayers, Dohrn AND Rauf are all involved with the Gaza Flotilla?

[narciso]

In the end, Rick, he owns the whole kit and caboodle, and now flashes of 'look squirrel' is going to distract for long

[narciso]

According to this, in the LUNessentially the original Lappen piece with addendums, he got his degree in 1971, so he may have at least witnessed if not participated along with Rudd and company

[rse]

Rocco-Don't forget Rashid Khalidi on the flotilla. Khalidi was also on the board that started the "Social Justice' series at Columbia ed school along with Ayers and Linda Darling-Hammond.

LDH just got $160 million in fed funds to eliminate objective testing in K-12, implement perf assessments that have failed elsewhere and been expensive, and basically develop national measures that will show how wonderful and capable children are whatever their limitations (her words).

I wanted to post this eloquent response to BO's Penatgon speech of this AM.

LUN is "Why Not a Victory Mosque at GZ?"

[rse]

I talk about education because it really is an important part of this totalitarian urge to take away liberty to ensure an unnatural equality of outcomes.

Both of the new testing consortia that just got a total of $330 million in fed funds have obligated most of the public colleges and universities in the country to enroll any graduate deemed "college ready" by these subjective evaluations without remediation.

Subjective perf assessments in K-12 with no real ability to compare outcomes and no more remediation in college- 2 more ways the Progs are taking down America and dismantling alarms in advance.

[OldTimer]

Rocco--that's incredible. All these anarchists are mysteriously intertwined from the 60's. Their weedy network of deception has sustained itself through the decades--and is now blossoming in our czarist White House today. Are we as a nation really this blind, and how much longer can this string of "coincidences" and useful alliances go unnoticed and ignored?

A sorry band of men, indeed.

[narciso]

Khalidi was at Yale '70, the spring of the famous Black Panther trials for the death
of Rackley, where the president of said institution, Brewster, said they couldnt get
a fair trial.

[Rocco]

Yep...throw in Edward Said and Rashid Khalidi too! And to think that in 2006, Ayers republished his communist manifesto "Prairie Fire" which is dedicated to Sirhan Sirhan.

[Ignatz]

I don't want to sound too much like squaredance but this by far the closest that group of commie nuts has ever had their fingers to the levers of power.
Let's hope we pry them off, dead or alive, and keep them off until that generation of New Left fanatics lies dead and moldering in the grave.

[Frau Erinnerung]

How can we forget? It's truly a day that lives in infamy.

[Rocco]

narciso...great link, thanks.

[anduril]

Interesting lefty piece here from Lobelog. I'll do a bit of editing. First comes the conclusion, since it provides a handy summary of the article's thesis:

During the months following the events of September 11 and the proclamation of the “war on terror,” Israel played an active and discernible role in trying to prevent any possible warming of relations between the U.S. and Iran. The pinnacle of its success was Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address on January 29, which, in a passage authored by neoconservative David Frum, declared Iran (and Iraq) to be part of an “axis of evil” comprised of regimes that sought to acquire nuclear weapons so they could provide them to terrorists.

This branding not only pushed Iran further beyond the U.S. foreign policy pale, it also undermined the domestic political position of Iranian leaders who had advocated the possibility of rapprochement with the U.S. While the denunciation of Iran by Bush may have delighted the exponents of the “Iranian threat” in Israel and the U.S., it also blurred, in American eyes, the boundaries between Iranian hardliners and moderates, conservatives and reformists. The failure of the Iranian reformists to achieve and sustain any substantial economic or political gains between 1997-2005 led directly to the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the current hardliners’ hold on power.

Now some of the preceding detail:

...

A spate of Israeli pronouncements proclaimed Israel’s own foreign policy priorities. They drew upon a decade of Israeli assertions of Iranian complicity in all things terrorist, and warnings of imminent Iranian nuclear weaponization. A war of civilizations had begun. 9/11 was just the first strike of Islamic fundamentalists. The next might be a nuclear attack by Iran.

The pronouncements constituted the opening salvo in a months-long back-and-forth about how the U.S. would frame its new “global war on terror.” Would the U.S. choose to court the cooperation of regimes in Muslim majority countries — even enlisting governments like Iran who might sympathize with the dangers of transnational terrorism – in preference to its steadfast strategic partner and loyal ally, Israel?

...

Benjamin Netanyahu [currently Israel's prime minister] , warned that the attacks on New York and Washington could be a harbinger of the deaths of millions of people once Iran or Iraq acquired nuclear weapons. He emphasized that he personally had warned of such attacks soon after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and in his 1995 book Fighting Terrorism (reissued in 2001). The Jerusalem Post reported Netanyahu’s call for a coalition against “terrorist states like Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and the Palestinian entity” that want to “devour the West.” (3)

Opinion pieces derided Russia and its export of “nuclear know-how and equipment to Iran.” (4) An Iran with a bomb, an editorial in the business daily Globes declared, meant that terror organizations could gain access to it. (5) Dan Meridor, an Israeli government minister without portfolio in charge of Israel’s secret services, dismissed the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and spoke to Globes instead about a wider war between the free world and countries that support terror that would span “from Ramallah to Gaza, through the Al-Biqa Valley in Lebanon, the mountains of Iran and Afghanistan, all the way to Manhattan.” (6) The war would come quickly: Yosef Lapid of the Shinui party declared in the Jerusalem Post, once Iran had a nuclear bomb in its possession “within three or, at most, five years.” (7)

Whereas George H. W. Bush had kept Israel on the sidelines during the fist Gulf War, an unnamed “Western diplomatic source” now told the Jerusalem Post that Israel would be a full partner in George W. Bush’s anti-terror coalition. Israel might now be allowed to even “participate in attacks against Iraq, as well as Iran and Afghanistan.” (8)

A few days later, however, Efraim Inbar, Director of Bar Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Institute of Strategic Studies (BESA), suggested in a radio interview that the inclusion of Muslim states in the U.S. “coalition against terrorism,” among them Iran, might require some “compromises” on the part of the U.S. (9) Subsequent reports in the Israeli media built on this apprehension that the participation of Muslim countries would not only restrict Israel’s membership in the anti-terrorist coalition, but might pressure the U.S. to demand Israeli concessions to the Palestinians. Alon Pinkas, the Israeli Consul in New York, informed the Foreign Ministry in a cable eight days after the attacks that a “paradigm shift” was taking place in American thinking that could raise questions about the U.S. role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and criticism of Sharon in major American newspapers might be early warning signs of an anti-Israel backlash.

Pinkas noted that the U.S. media was beginning to link Israeli policies and Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the September 11 attacks, and predicted that “this topic will gain currency on the U.S. agenda… and it becomes clear that Israeli and U.S. interests on the matter are not identical.” (10)

Foreign Ministry officials accused Pinkas of being an “alarmist.” But Israel did not appear on any of the televised maps of the “coalition against terror,” and none of the 27 terrorist-supporting organizations whose assets had been frozen by Bush were groups linked to terror against Israel.

Adding to growing concern in Israel was the news that then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair had phoned Bush to inform him of a “remarkable conversation” with Iranian President Mohamad Khatami, and that he was dispatching his foreign minister to Tehran for a three day trip in late September. The Bush administration, the Jerusalem Post worried on September 23, “has no formal links with Tehran but regards Iran as a critical element in legitimizing the coalition and cloaking it in Islamic credibility.” (11)

Israeli politician Efraim Sneh complained on Israeli radio that Iran “will buy itself legitimacy at very little expense.” After the campaign against Bin Laden was over, Sneh predicted gloomily, “[Iran] will continue its support for terrorism, but with a kosher certificate from the United States.” (12) Just before his arrival in Tehran, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw wrote in an Iranian paper that “events over the years in the Palestinian territories” were a root cause of terror. Sneh called the article “an obscenity,” and denounced the trip as a “stab in the back” of Israel. (13)

Israeli President Moshe Katsav refused to meet with Straw during his visit to Israel. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres canceled a dinner in Straw’s honor, but met with him briefly. During their meeting, Peres accused Iran of both funding and directing Hizbullah, publicly calling for the destruction of Israel and of developing nuclear weapons. In the hands of extremist ayatollahs, Peres said, these weapons are “a danger to the entire world.”

In late September, the Jerusalem Post offered the view of a senior IDF intelligence officer, speaking anonymously, that Iran “could have had a hand” in plotting the attacks on the U.S. “We don’t have any information to support the possibility that Iraq is part of the plot,” the officer said. “But we can’t say the same for the Iranians. They are very deeply involved in everything that carries the label of Islamic radical terrorism.” The anonymous officer declared that Osama bin Laden, Hizbullah and Hamas were all from the same school of thought, but Iran was unique as a nation state seeking weapons of mass destruction. (14)

Not surprisingly, 81 percent of nearly 13,000 respondents to a reader survey on the Jerusalem Post website said that they thought Iran was in some way involved in the attack on the World Trade Center. (15)

In Washington, when addressing Congress on September 20, Netanyahu lumped together Bin Laden, Syria, Iran, Hizbullah and Palestinian groups as a terror “network.” The catalyst for the network, he said, lay in Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution: “This created a sovereign spiritual base for fomenting a strident Islamic militancy worldwide, a militancy that was often backed by terror.” (16)

Sharon’s domestic priorities — including containment of his right wing coalition partners who demanded he get tough on terrorists, expel Arafat and reject once and for all the idea of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza — were on a collision course with growing U.S. concern about how Israeli actions might affect the dynamics of the U.S.’s new coalition. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres [now Israel's president] proposed that Israel reaffirm its agreement with U.S. aims in the “war on terror.” Several cabinet ministers agreed that “the [Palestinian Authority] should be presented in the U.S. as ‘Israel’s Taliban,’ which gives aid and succor to terrorists.”

In subsequent weeks, a series of Israelis came to Washington for visits with Bush administration officials. In a single week in mid-October, over a dozen government officials, envoys and senior military officers visited Washington. The Director General of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission briefed the U.S. administration on Israel’s ent estimate of the progress being made in Iran’s nuclear research, and urged the administration to make Russian support of Iran a foreign policy priority.

During talks with Condoleezza Rice, Sneh complained to reporters that the U.S. seemed to be ignoring Iran’s terrorism record, and that Iran should be disqualified from any role in the U.S. alliance against terror. “Iran stands in first place as a sponsor of terrorism,” Sneh said. “If someone forgets that, we are willing to remind them.” Sneh expressed his certainty that Russia was damaging Israel’s security by supporting Iran’s nuclear weapons program. “We believe they cannot be considered as countries that fight terrorism,” he said.

The Israeli visitors were assured that the U.S. would win its war against terrorism and that Israel would benefit from the new international order that would follow. Iran and Syria would be watched carefully, and Hizbullah and other groups fighting Israel would be added to the list of terrorist organizations. However, senior U.S. officials expressed concern that Israel was trying to force the Palestinian Authority to collapse, a move the U.S. would not support because it would undermine regional stability and endanger American strategy by creating friction between the U.S. and moderate Arab states.

Iran was recognized among the “six-plus-two” states that met in New York on November 12, 2001, the day before the fall of Kabul, to decide Afghanistan’s future. Iran’s support of the Northern Alliance was credited with helping the U.S.-led forces seize large swaths of the country. But U.S. insistence that Afghan forces not enter Kabul aroused Iranian suspicions that the U.S. might attempt to install a puppet regime composed of Pashtun remnants of the Taliban hostile to Tehran.

In early December, Sharon met with Bush for a “working visit” that would discuss, according to the White House Press Secretary, “the international campaign against terrorism and the pursuit of peace in the Middle East” (17). Although analysts had expected little from the meeting, what emerged was Israel’s inclusion, at long last, in the frontline of the “war against terror,” and an unprecedented affirmation of Israel’s right to act both defensively and proactively against terrorism.

[jorod]

Why Obama's policies are bad:

People work about 40 to 50 years of their lifetime. During this time, people must accumulate enough wealth to maintain and even increase their standard of living and to support themselves and their children and for retirement. Higher taxes make accumulating wealth difficult. Why is this important? Wealth provides the foundation for economic growth. Unless wealth is formed and economic growth is achieved, the succeeding generations will have less chance of finding work, accumulating wealth and increasing their standard of living. The Marxist-Socialist policies of government will insure that our children and grandchildren will have a lower standard of living. They will work not to accumulate wealth, but to pay the taxes for the spending excesses of our government.

As part of this shift to socialism, politicians use the class warfare tactics of rich against poor to generate support for policies. The fact is, most people start out with nothing and accumulate wealth over time. Many people move from poverty to being millionaires. Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs...all started with nothing and accumulated wealth that created well paying jobs so that others may accumulate wealth and so forth. The current economic and political policies will destroy this process of improving living standards for generations to come.

[Rocco]

OT: I've been looking for this link since yesterday when the subject of the Dome of the Rock was discussed. I thought it was on the Jewish Virtual Library webpage...it was linked from there. Note the neglect and disrepair!

[narciso]

It's curious how all these folks are far from underprivileged, both Soetoro and Obama Sr, were government officials or high ranking businessman, Khalidi's family were equally prestigious, Rauf, Al Azhar is like Cambridge
in some respects, Said went to the top high school in Egypt, Victoria College

[Neo]

I find it odd that any one would consider this news LUN

[narciso]

It rounds counter to the template they created or something, more often this is like
the Truman Show, nothing they present is real

[narciso]

runs

[Neo]

... rooted in a statistical fact: in the ranks of captured and confessed terrorists, engineers and engineering students are significantly overrepresented.

Engineers, the basis of all terror ?

Well, maybe not ...

Gambetta and Hertog found engineers only in right-wing groups — the ones that claim to fight for the pious past of Islamic fundamentalists or the white-supremacy America of the Aryan Nations (founder: Richard Butler, engineer) or the minimal pre-modern U.S. government that Stack and Bedell extolled.
Among Communists, anarchists and other groups whose shining ideal lies in the future, the researchers found almost no engineers. Yet these organizations mastered the same technical skills as the right-wingers.

... but of course, the Weathermen probably could have used an engineer.

[narciso]

Stack was probably a Communist by all indications, Bedell an anarchist with truther tendencies, Butler, that old relic, might as well throw in William Pierce, while your at it

[Captain Hate]

As for what's next for the young men, they plan to celebrate Eid with their Muslim brethren in Dearborn, Michigan -- happy to have discovered an America that still embraces them, even if that's not always portrayed in the news media.

I wonder if the CNN writer wrote that fully aware of the irony. Hopefully it was a free-lancer not immersed in the group-think.

[daddy]

Just to let you know that once again, come Tuesday, September 14th, Our President is going to be addresing our Nation's School Children in a specially designed speech.

You'll recall when he did it last year there was great outcry about the whole thing, with tons of angry parents demanding to keep their kids out of being mandated to watch this creep's speech.

Well he's doing it again and somehow it is slipping under the radar screen.

Here are some links from around the country:

1) ">http://www.whitehouse.gov/back-to-school"> President Obama's 2010 Back to School Speech

2) ">http://www.canyonsdistrict.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=836:obama-talks-to-us-schoolchildren&Itemid=231"> Obama Talks to U.S. Schoolchildren - 9-14-10

3) ">http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=1088842"> Obama Speech to School Children 9/14/2010

4) ">http://www.journaltimes.com/news/local/article_ab3a96be-bd3a-11df-a22a-001cc4c002e0.html"> Obama’s back-to-school speech Tuesday

Obviously it is going to vary as to if the kids will be required to watch our holier than thou preener in Chief, but in about half these stories, "parents can request that their children not view the speech if they provide a written note to the teacher", but that only applies if parents know he's giving the speech in the first place.

Our local paper put a minimal story on the website up, but only quickly and perfunctorily, and it disappeared before a single person commented. As usual, only if you knew the story existed could you then hunt it down and find it. And FWIW, neither of my kids have brought home anything saying squat about any speech or if I have to "Hand write some note to the Teacher" to excuse them.

The only good news is that my kids already despise this narcissistic creep, and having to sit and watch his preachy blather is only going to make them dislike him even more.

[PD]

Greetings from York, NE, on the way to Vail, CO. Many flags at half mast along the highway, a reminder that we have not forgotten.

Haven't heard any news today, so just wondering: Has Iman Rauf made any gesture of outreach today, such as condemning the act of war perpetrated nine years ago?

[daddy]

Topic from the previous thread.

Green Jobs. We are supposed to build a Windfarm of 26 turbines on Fire Island, just a mile off the end of the Anchorage Runway.

The Fed's are giving us 44 Million to build it and the State is required to cough up 25 million.

But the Fed's 44 Million goes away on 31 Dec 2010 if we don't build it, and our Power Companies don't want to sign any contracts with the proposed facility because they know it's unwieldy, unproven, expensive, and will require major modification to fit into their Power Grid system.

Here's the story: ">http://www.adn.com/2010/09/08/1445434/fire-island-wind-farm-has-yet.html?pageNum=4&&&mi_pluck_action=page_nav#Comments_Container"> Fire Island wind farm has yet to generate power contracts

And thankfully some of the comments are loaded with intelligent skepticism.

Seems to all boil down to 2 groups:

"Oh quick, we have to do this right away or we lose that Federal 44 Million dollars. Build it, build it, build it, build it, build it...

and on the other hand

"Are you crazy? This is unrealistic and extremely expensive and even the power companies don't want it, and when the Fed's 44 Million is spent and we have to maintain this unworkable White Elephant, then the money comes out of our taxes. Plus we have to chip in 25 Million right now for this boondoggle."

[peter]

Barbecueing pork ribs today.

[centralcal]

peter: Barbecueing pork ribs today.

I had a BLT sandwich for lunch. And will have pork chops for dinner tonight.

[Mustafa Mooga]

Others barbecuing Koran today....LUN

Press egging guy on.

[Mustafa Mooga]

Try this LUN instead...

[daddy]

Arghhhh,

Too angry to stay indoors. Apologies for my morning rants.

Off to see the great outdoors now with the Lab and simmer down.

Cook 'em up Peter, Yum!

[anduril]

Thought experiment time: would the Conservative movement--and thus the country--be better off if we had had a President Gore or a President Kerry? Recall that Rush figured we might be better off with Obama rather than McCain? The reasoning would run something like this:

a President Gore or Kerry would have come in with a somewhat viable Republican presence in the Legislative Branch. They could never have pushed a Gorecare or Kerrycare through a rubber stamp Congress, and they would probably have pissed off the country to the extent of being one term presidents. Then--doofuss Bushie and wacko Cheney having lost in 2000--we would have had a shot at an actual conservative candidate running and winning.

The real downside that I see is the possibility that there would have been no Roberts or Alito on the SC.

All water over the dam, of course, but something to keep in mind for 2012. A Hillary insurgency that toppled Obama would not be easy to defeat if the GOPers put up a weak candidate. I'm psyched for Christie, myself, but what if the GOPers put up somebody like [fill in the blank]. Voters still haven't forgotten what a pig's breakfast the GOPers made of the country--what's fueling the GOPers right now is simply that the voters hate the Libs worse after Obamacare, etc. Don't want to blow it again with a goofball like Bushie. Eight years down the freakin' drain, except for Roberts and Alito (and no particular thanks to Bushie--he wanted Miers!).

[PD]

Green Jobs. We are supposed to build a Windfarm of 26 turbines on Fire Island, just a mile off the end of the Anchorage Runway.

I noticed while driving on I-80 across Iowa today that there are a lot more wind turbines, i.e., eyesores. What a blight on the landscape. I suppose it's worth it, though, if someone's electric bill goes down a couple bucks a year.

[anduril]

Wow! According to Bibi Netanyahu:

"The best estimates at this time place Iran between three and fve years away from possessing the prerequisites required for the independent production of nuclear weapons. After this time, the Iranian Islamic republic will have the ability to construct atomic weapons without the importation of materials or technology from abroad."

Holy shit--that's pretty scary! 3-5 years away from the end of the world, and I'd been planning a trip to the Holy Land in that time frame. Oh, wait...that was Bibi in 1995, in his book Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat the International Terrorist Network.

So, let's see. 10 years after the world was supposed to end--that was the outside estimate--the Iranians still don't have that bomb, but the Neocons want us to believe that now it's just 1-3 years off--still plenty of time for us to do something really drastic, like, tanking the world economy with a war in the Persian Gulf. That's if we get sucked in by the scare talk.

[squaredance]

You do not want to sound like me?

You are just starting to get it.

You are not even close to what the real game is, though it is hitting you right in the face. It will bang harder in your face in the coming years. You ought to listen to me, but instead you are lost in your dreams of a country that no longer exists. You polish your lens for a future that is never going to come.

I have news for you, those "commie nuts" have been controlling much of the key institutions of this country for decades. That is why Obama is POTUS. The left is wholly embedded and immersed in the power structure of the West. The so-called "right" is not, and if you do not believe that take a gander at the sort of organizations that the corp. 2000 gives their donations to. Have a look at the orientation of most "foundation" or NGOs that get government funding. Go walk onto almost any public school or any university.

Stop thinking that it is just Obama or his administration. Clinton would have done the same thing as Obama if he could have gotten away with it. So to would have Carter. Have you forgotten LBJ?

"commie nuts", indeed. You indulge in foolishness and willful ignorance. Get real.

Obama is just a front man. They are winning

Do you really think that there is going to be a "tidal wave" this November? Do you really think that there will be a sea-change. Do you really think that we are going to reverse the whole legacy of the New Deal. Do you really think we are going to remove the elites from power by a political "process"? Cast of all the Cultural Marxism?

They will not even be able to repeal Obamacare. Just watch. You people are dreaming. In fact, the GOP will be lucky to pick up 42 house seats. What does that tell you about the Nation?

Much worse is coming. Much worse.

Just you wait a few years.

It is profoundly structural and systemic, the nightmare that we are in, and it was designed to be that way. They maybe be "commies nuts" but they are crazy like foxes.

Do you think we have the "design margin" to bounce back after we did after Carter? Do you think that American industry in in the same place it was 30, 40 years ago?

Do you think our moral fiber, the strength of our character is the same? Do you think our institutions of learning, our capacity for real leadership in science and engineering is what it was 30 years ago?

Through the decades of weakening, America is challenged to win a war in Afghanistan. Think aobut that for a minute.

Ask yourself: Were was American 9 years after Pearl Harbor? Where is it now?

American have been had and it is almost too late to do anything about it. America is in for a very hard time. In for real, work-a-day tyranny, radically reduced economic opportunity and a great deal of humiliation in the world at large.

Do you think this all was an accident?

You think you live in the America of your youth, that it is still out there just waiting to come back if only the right party is in power and the right "policies" are in place. This is not true. You might as well be wishing for the old WASP ascendancy to rise up again. They are as vanquished and destroyed as the Prussians.

You have the POSTUS of the USA, the Congress and almost all elite institutions making all out war on Capitalism, Democracy and the Constitution; You have the POTUS supporting ISLAM--covering for ISLAM in a speech on 911 no less.. You have elites who assault everything that is good, decent and enduring about this nation. All of this is out in the open and pushed in our faces most brazenly.

People like Ayers are just middle level flunkies--point men. Wait until all defense is gone. Wait until there is no middle class. Wait until it is impossible to get your (grand) child a real education. Wait until that child can not have a house or a job until he kowtows to the local commissar.

Then you will see the real monsters come out.

You will not be mocking me then. You will be wishing you would have listened.

[anduril]

Cool pie charts here:

This is a chart that Steve Ballmer presented. Do you notice what I notice? Linux has a significantly larger market share than Apple. Well, this is Steve Ballmer, right? Still, he's talking about being really focused on Linux as a competitor.

[anduril]

squaredance, would you mind not doing those copy and paste jobs in the middle of my commentary? Thanks.

[squaredance]

androol: You could not reach the level of accomplishment of the driver of that "wacko Cheney", much less the attainments of the man himself.

Rarely has there been a man of such accomplishment, vision or sound judgment in the office of the VPOTUS. Rarely has a VPOTUS done so much good for this nation. He is perhaps the best one we have ever had. Now if the nation saw fit to elect him POTUS I would recant my prognosis for this country. Truly, that would be a revolutionary seachange.

That you call him a wacko only speaks of the weakness of your character and not one but of his.

[anduril]

Via FR--I wonder how many countries around the world you could go to and hear a song like this on the radio?

"September 11th" - Polish song - tribute to the victims
Cezary Makiewicz
Posted on Sat Sep 11 2010 15:18:41 GMT-0500 (CDT) by lizol

I came across this song on the radio today, and I found it really poignant.

I decided to translate it, and post it here, on FR, to show you, that we in Poland are with you on this sad day.

God bless United States of America and the American people.

Cezary Makiewicz

„11 Września” „September 11th”

Nie miałem tam nikogo z bliskich,
I didn’t have my beloved ones among them
Nikogo kogo bym choć znał,
No one, I’d even know
Widziałem tylko w telewizji,
I only saw it on TV
A jednak sercem byłem tam.
Yet –I was there with my heart

Nie wiem, nie powiem ci dlaczego,
I don’t know, I won’t tell you why
Poczułem z nimi coś wspólnego.
I felt something in common with them

Może to winny polski wrzesień
Maybe it’s the Polish September to blame
I dusza skłonna do uniesień,
and soul so eager to rapture
Żeby pozostać Polakami
to remain Polish
Wciąż przepływamy oceany.
we still cross the oceans

Wiara, co szła przez pokolenia,
Faith, that goes through generations
Że jedno niebo, jedna ziemia,
That there’s one sky, one soil,
To czym nas Matki-Polki karmią,
What our Polish mothers feed us with
Ta prosta, ludzka solidarność?
The simple, humane solidarity?

Nie lubię tych w czerwonych szelkach
I don’t like those wearing red suspenders
I drażni mnie przekupniów wrzask,
And I’m annoyed by yelling of the hucksters
to miasto, które jest jak giełda
That city, wich is like a stock exchange
Z wieżami, co sięgały gwiazd,
With the towers reaching stars
Lecz od tego dnia wrześniowego,
But – since that September day
Wciąż czuję z nimi coś wspólnego.
I still feel something in common with them.

[sbw]

Ah... don't drink the water.

[Ignatz]

--You will not be mocking me then.--

I don't mock your ideas. I mock your insipid, insulting, 1930's-serial-style, cliffhanger dialogue and your explicit and implicit assertions that anyone who doesn't agree in the same purple prose is too stupid, ignorant or indolent to deserve liberty or even to respond to you.

--You will be wishing you would have listened.--

Maybe you think you sound like Paul Revere, but of course people listened to him.
So either people aren't listening to you because they are all abysmal fools destined to be led as sheep to the slaughter. Or maybe, just maybe, you're the one who sounds like the fool and the people quietly going about their business working for real change rather than trying to sound like the Peril's of Pauline are the ones doing the valuable work.

[anduril]

Through the decades of weakening, America is challenged to win a war in Afghanistan. Think aobut that for a minute.

Ask yourself: Were was American 9 years after Pearl Harbor? Where is it now?

And who was prosecuting that war for virtually all of those years? Bushie and nutso Cheney.

[narciso]

I had rice with shellfish (specifically shrimp) today, maybe not enough of an infidel
meal, although the "Juice Palace" is probably
one of the better places for chunks of pork, and other strictly dietary foods

[glasater]

Soylent is living amongst these whackos:

Thousands in Afghanistan protest now-suspended plan to burn Korans

[JM Hanes]

squaredance:

"You will not be mocking me then. You will be wishing you would have listened."

I listened the first couple times, and it's not like you've added to the formula since then. Running around with your hair on fire doesn't actually count as doing something, you know.

[Captain Hate]

Off to see the great outdoors now with the Lab and simmer down.

Anything to avoid the garbage called ACC football which has been polluting my television.

[Ignatz]

--Anything to avoid the garbage called ACC football which has been polluting my television.--

Or the two chuckleheads upthread.
Think I'll take a walk too.

[RichatUF]

Ignatz-

Of, by, and for the SDS.

Ask yourself: Were was American 9 years after Pearl Harbor? Where is it now?

At the start of the Korean War, in the middle of the long unwind of the British Empire, helping France in French Indo-China, and watching our position collapse in China as Mao chased Chiang Kai Shek to Taiwain. 3 years post-the long telegram and still in Europe, Japan, and implementing an overall strategy for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (op-plan 1320).

[narciso]

Honestly, Capt, they are paid enough, why don't they do their if not level best, well why show up at all

[DrJ]

SDS

Hey! There's something I know about.

What? You mean it is not the surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate? Really?

Well never mind then.

I'll let the two d**kheads resume.

[Thomas Collins]

See LUN for a video on one of the 9/11 heroes.

[Thomas Collins]

Kevin Durant leads America to victory in basketball. See LUN.

[anduril]

Wow--this is big!

American Lindsey Vonn to Forfeit her Gold Medal

by IOC

DATELINE; Lausanne, Switzerland; Friday, September 10, 2010: The IOC ruled that American Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn has had to forfeit her Olympic Gold The International Olympic Committee announced today that it has taken back the gold medal previously awarded to American skier Lindsey Vonn and given it to U.S. President Barack Obama (who gladly accepts any award). Olympic officials said Obama deserved the medal more than Vonn because no one has ever gone downhill faster than he has.

[Frau Nasevoll]

Isn't that *Misters* Dickhead, DrJ?

This is just peachy. Today's state of the nation in the LA Times and these two are just plain dickheads:
"It shouldn't be up to Muslims to say, 'Hey, we're good people,' " Ahmed Abdel-Moniem, a 24-year-old college student, said after praying Friday at a Los Angeles mosque. "We shouldn't have to take time out of our day to teach people that they're judging a whole group of people based on the actions of a few."

Such a notion puts the onus on victims of discrimination, said John Esposito, director of a center for Muslim-Christian relations at Georgetown University. He said Americans "say things about Muslims and Islam that they couldn't get away with saying about Jews or African Americans or Italian Americans." It is up to American society to change, not Muslims, he said.

"Muslims *try* to turn hate and fear to tolerance." LUN

[anduril]

Steve Sailer offers:

Non-cootie-covered ways to make an effort?

I'm totally out of touch on this subject, so let me ask commenters for ways for young men to come up with "interests" to put in personal ads beyond Tom Clancy and Van Halen, interests that might incline young women to think they might have something to talk about with you if you were to get together. My guess is that my median unmarried male reader is not a Roissy-style silver-tongued devil who can improvise brilliantly on every woman's favorite subject (Let's Talk About Me!), but instead prefers something slightly impersonal to discuss when first getting acquainted.

I'll give you two possibilities to get started:

1. For example, develop some level of expertise in the architectural history of where you live. Architecture is aesthetic, yet manly. Not that many girls know much about architecture relative to their other aesthetic interests, but they are naggingly aware that they should know more. (Obviously, if you live in Chicago, you will have more to talk about than if you live in Palmdale, so your mileage may vary.) For example, the recent indie romantic-drama hit, 500 Days of Summer, uses architectural fandom, with LA's rather spotty downtown carefully framed to look like downtown Chicago, as the basis for a rather nerdy young man's appeal to Zoey Deschanel.

An interest in architecture also provides a high-minded excuse to talk about what every 20 or 30 something is actually fascinated by: real estate. What neighborhoods will go up in value, which ones down? Architecture appreciation provides an excuse to stroll around gentrifying but still slightly edgy neighborhoods on cheap dates.

2. Read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (or at least watch one of the 3 movie/TV adaptions of the last two decades). It's really witty, it's increasingly influential (it's the touchstone for popularizations of evolutionary psychology, among much else), and it will teach you a lot about the feminine mind. Plus, girls like it!

Now, what's the worst that could happen? These two suggestions might totally fail to help you with the ladies, but you will still have learned something of the architecture of your town and you will have read one of the great books in the English language.

That about exhausts my list of suggestions. What are yours?

[Neo]

The irony is ...

A ranking Saudi diplomat told NBC News that he has asked for political asylum in the United States, saying he fears for his life if he is forced to return to his native country.

The diplomat, Ali Ahmad Asseri, the first secretary of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles, has informed U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials that Saudi officials have refused to renew his diplomatic passport and effectively terminated his job after discovering he was gay and was close friends with a Jewish woman.

In a recent letter that he posted on a Saudi website, Asseri angrily criticized his country’s “backwardness” as well as the role of “militant imams” in Saudi society who have “defaced the tolerance of Islam.” Perhaps most provocatively of all, he has threatened to expose what he describes as politically embarrassing information about members of the Saudi royal family living in luxury in the U.S.

... unbelievable

[DrJ]

Isn't that *Misters* Dickhead, DrJ?

Mr. is a term of respect, as is Mrs. or Ms. I will not offer that respect to either of those two whatevers.

[anduril]

Neo, the solution to this situation is perfectly obvious: Obama should send Asseri back to freakin' Saudi with a polite request that he (Asseri) be treated tolerantly.

[anduril]

I like much of this commentary, but the author conspicuously fails to address two questions with specificity:

1. Exactly who is that enemy?

2. What is the best way to go about defeating that enemy--is what we're doing the best and smartest way, or are there better alternatives?

Terry Jones is not the enemy

By David French

I've been defending free speech and religious liberty for virtually my entire legal career. Nineteen years ago I volunteered - as a law student - on my first religious liberty case, and I haven't stopped working since. I can safely say that I've seen it all. The price of America's robust commitment to religious liberty is that we have more than our share of fringe characters - borderline sane individuals with small followings preaching fire and brimstone (and sometimes running eBay businesses) from storefront churches across the land. Rarely do these fringe figures attract attention - though they try desperately - and even less frequently do American presidents, much less Angelina Jolie, hang on their every word.

But Terry Jones has found the formula - one that Fred Phelps, the soldiers' funeral protestor, no doubt wishes he'd discovered years ago: Tell the media you plan to burn a Qur'an.

Our media never met a tabloid freak show it didn't love, and one that involves an extremist Christian is catnip for reporters looking for evidence of "Islamophobia." And so now our nation's remembrance of 9/11 has become Terry Jones week, and a burning book changes our focus from where it should be: the burning people and burning buildings in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.

Terry Jones is not our enemy. He's a seemingly peaceful, eccentric, and positively cranky man who's doing a stupid and senseless thing. I hope he ultimately chooses not to burn the Qur'an. But if he does, he does nothing more than place himself in a long line of offensive American speakers - of all faiths. By now we are all used to burning flags, to desecrated crucifixes, and to the ever-escalating efforts of fringe figures to shock their way onto the front pages.

The enemy reacts to our free speech with bombs. The enemy despises our liberty not for its permissiveness towards Qur'an burners but because it exists and because it is utterly inconsistent with Sharia law. I served a year in Iraq with the 2d Squadron, 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment. During that year Terry Jones was toiling away at his church/eBay business in total obscurity, yet al Qaeda still seethed with enough hate to launch a female suicide bombing campaign and to commit atrocities that the American public can scarcely comprehend.

Terry Jones wasn't burning Qur'ans on September 10, 2001. He wasn't burning Qur'ans when the "Blind Sheik" plotted the first World Trade Center bombing or when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland. Our enemies don't need Terry Jones to hate us or to recruit thousands of suicide bombers and tens of thousands of jihadists. So on this week of remembrance, let's take the cameras off the crank from Florida and put them instead on the yawning gap in the New York skyline and on the soldiers who fight to make sure the enemy can never strike again.

The media has made Terry Jones. The media can unmake him. And they should - after all, there's a real enemy out there to challenge, to shame, and to defeat.

David French is a senior counsel for a Christian religious liberties organization, a captain in the United States Army Reserve, and a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

[hit and run]

Posted by: anduril | September 11, 2010 at 04:48 PM

Sounds like some original thought from you,rather than your ritual copy-paste stuff. I just wish you hadn't squandered the privilege of being read for your original thought through all your long copy-paste jobs. I would have read it if you hadn't.

No doubt,my loss,whatever it is you wrote.

Bummer for me.

[maryrose]

I watched some of the original footage of 9/11
and remember being at school and having to reassure the students. We didn't know how much of the horror to let them see. Obama finds it necessary to politicize this day and make it all about Muslims.We had muslim students who were distressed and all the students were helping them. I originally stated that I thought Rauf's statements were akin to blackmail about insisting violence would come if it was not built at Ground Zero. Sensitivity to those who have lost family members should be of paramount importance. Unfortunately Obama because He is a Muslim doesn't get this. I also noticed he had to defend his claim of Christianity at the Friday press conference.

[OldTimer]

Neo--Seems to me we need a few million more Ali's, fed up enough with Islamic 'backwardness' to break from the pack. We've yet to see a vocal, active contingent of Muslims willing to expose the darkness of Islam's inner sanctum, or dare to reach out en mass for a zone of sanity.

Andrew McCarthy makes a point of this in his 'Imagining Islam' piece in the LUN, first linked this morning by Ann Mongrel. I would trust Andrew as president--when it comes to our enemy, he gets it.

[anduril]

Neo--Seems to me we need a few million more Ali's

Oh, there're plenty more where he came from. That's pretty much endemic over there. But we sure as hell don't need more Ali's here.