September 11th Memorial Bookends Attacks with Exhibit Featuring Part of Navy SEAL's Uniform From Bin Laden Raid

The uniform shirt a US Navy SEAL wore during the 2011 raid on the compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan where Osama Bin Laden was hiding went on display this week at New York's September 11th museum earlier this week.

The shirt joins a specially made coin awarded to a CIA operative after the mission and a brick from Bin Laden's compound that go on display at the National September 11th Memorial and Museum this week. The coin was struck after the successful completion of the Abbotabad raid and was reportedly issued to the participating SEALs and an agent known as Maya, who was the basis of the main character portrayed in the 2012 movie Zero Dark Thirty.

"The death of Osama bin Laden is a huge part of the history, and we have an absolute obligation to tell it," National Sept. 11 Memorial Museum President Joe Daniels said Saturday. The display, he said, "allows millions of visitors the chance to recognize the extraordinary bravery of the men and women who sacrifice so much for this country at home and abroad."

The uniform shirt, tan with camouflage sleeves and an American flag patch on the right shoulder — stars forward to invoke the historical role of a flag-bearer leading a charge into battle — belonged to a now-retired member of SEAL Team Six, which put an end to the long manhunt for the world's most wanted terrorist. The garment "connects us in a powerful and immediate way to that operation," Museum Director Alice Greenwald said.

The red, white and blue coin was made to commemorate its conclusion. The coin bears the date — May 1, 2011, in U.S. time — on one side and a red "X'' on the other.

Opened to the public in May, this would mark the first time that the September 11th Museum is open on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks. A memorial for the people killed in the September 11th attacks was opened in 2012.

Even before the museum opened, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) petitioned the museum to edit a video presentation on Al Qaeda, urging them to remove phrases like 'jihad' and 'radical islam' from the presentation. The museum's board reportedly declined any such edit.

88 Searchlights To Return to Lower Manhattan for 'Tribute in Light' To Mark 12th Anniversary of September 11th Terrorist Attacks

Mark Lennihan/AP

What began as a temporary visual arts program a few months after the deadly terrorist attacks in lower Manhattan has evolved into an annual tradition that makes its mark on the Gotham skyline each year in early September.

Beginning in March 2002, the New York Municipal Art Society uses a total of 88 powerful searchlights pointed skyward placed adjacent to the World Trade Center site- even in the bright lights of New York City, the Tribute in Light manages to stand out. The lights are visible from Staten Island and across the Hudson River in New Jersey.

Interestingly, the Tribute in Light was supposed to be a temporary project with each year supposedly being it's last. However, the Municipal Art Society has been invited back to erect the searchlights each year- although with work on the new World Trade Center buildings progressing, it's entirely likely that the Tribute in Light will be crowded out by the newer structures and September 11th Memorial over the next few years.

Other September 11th blog entries:
*Joseph Trombino- the Brink's Guard Who Crossed Paths With Terrorists Decades Before 9/11 Attacks

*Thunder on the Mountain- A Look At the Tiny Pennsylvania Town Thrust Into The World Stage on 9/11

*Ten Years Later

Post Benghazi Update- State Department Insists Deadly Consulate Attack was 'Spontaneous' Demonstration; Filmmaker Identified, Questioned by Authorities

Violent protests and attacks on American embassies throughout the Middle East continued on Friday and over the weekend. Demonstrators in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan and Yemen had stormed the grounds of US diplomatic missions, set fires and tore down the stars and stripes while hoisting a black islamist flag with arabic script.

The continued unrest comes as the White House and State Department repeatedly denied that the deadly attack on the Benghazi consulate was premeditated in any way. The attacks that killed US Ambassador Chris Stevens, Diplomatic Security officers and former Navy SEALS Tyrone Woods and Glenn Doherty and information officer Sean Smith took place on the 11th anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks.

While President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton maintain that the mob that had stormed the grounds of the US Consulate in Benghazi had formed 'spontaneously' in response to a short anti-Islam film that appeared on YouTube, Libyan officials have claimed otherwise. In an interview with NPR, Libyan president President Mohammed el-Megarif said the Benghazi assault was a military-style attack that used heavy weaponry such as RPGs and mortars to assault the consulate and safehouses as well as keep reinforcements at bay. Such an attack, el-Megarif points out, would require comprehensive advanced planning. Egyptian PM Hesham Kandil said that at least some of the rioters in Cairo who were arrested after clashes with police in front of the US Embassy there had confessed to being paid to show up. In the face of all that, White House Press spokesman Jay Carney claimed that the protests, arson, looting and murders directed at American diplomats throughout the Middle East and arab world somehow aren't directed at the USA, but rather a visceral reaction to the anti-Muslim video circulating online.

Curiously, a few days prior to the American consulate in Benghazi being overrun, Canada had announced they were closing down their embassy in Tehran and expelling all Iranian diplomatic personnel from Canada. The Canadian government cited their official designation of Iran as a terrorist-sponsoring state, their continued support of the Syrian regime's military crackdown on its citizens and an attack against the British Embassy in Tehran that the UK insists was orchestrated by Iran's ruling mullahs. I thought Canada's Foreign Affairs ministry was newsworthy in and of itself at the time, but it's taken on greater significance since the murder of American diplomats on September 11.

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration, State Department and US Media's response to the slaughter in Benghazi has been disheartening at best.

While insisting that an attack utilizing heavy weaponry such as RPGs and mortars WASN'T pre-planned, the Obama Administration and American media outlets quickly went on the counterattack- not against the people who murdered our ambassadors and torched our diplomatic posts, but rather Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and the purported filmmaker.

A number of press outlets immediately jumped on Romney shortly after he issued a statement criticizing a message from the State Department that the Administration themselves had backed away from. So as Obama flew out to a Las Vegas campaign fundraiser as American embassies throughout the middle East were burning, there was the matter of a compliant media coordinating questions shortly before a press conference former governor Romney's non-existent gaffe and 'jumping the gun' to the point while President Obama briefly issued a statement and took no questions before leaving to continue his re-election campaign in Nevada.

However, that paled in comparison to what took place in Southern California on Friday night when Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies showed up at the house of one Nakoula Basseley Nakoula to take him into custody. Nakoula, who made The Innocence of Muslims film under the pseudonym Sam Basile, was identified as a Coptic Christian who emigrated here from Egypt and was sentenced to 20 month in prison after being arrested in a 2009 check-kiting scam. Nakoula had also reportedly agreed to become a government informant after his 2009 arrest in exchange for a sentence reduction. Reportedly the deputies were there to escort him to an interview with federal probation officials. However, the late night visit by deputies only came after calls from Islamist groups like Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood to prosecute the filmmaker for insulting the prophet Muhammed.

Over the weekend, images of Nakoula with his face hidden and flanked by deputies had circulated throughout the web. Curiously, some of Obama's more prominent supporters [in the entertainment industry of all places- NANESB!] had come out in favor of prosecuting Nakoula on ambiguous 'hate crimes' charges.

Meanwhile, the press had thoughtfully taken it upon themselves to reveal Nakoula's face and home address to the world. Unsurprisingly, Nakoula and his family have fled their Cerritos, CA home to an undisclosed location. Google- which is the parent company of YouTube- has since rejected a White House request to take down the offending video.

US Ambassador to Libya, 3 Other Americans Murdered in Attack on Consulate in Benghazi

Charred vehicle on the grounds of the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The diplomatic compound was overrun by a mob of roughly 1,000 people before gunmen in the crowd opened fire on the consulate and vehicles with on Tuesday, September 11th

US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens was among four Americans murdered on Tuesday night after a rampaging crowd managed to break in to the grounds of the US Consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi. Heavily armed terrorists moving within the crowd then opened fire on the consulate and diplomatic staff with AK47s and rocket-propelled grenades.

The crowd had reportedly paraded around Ambassador Stevens' corpse while taking photos. A local media report quoted a Libyan official in Benghazi said that the ambassador had died of suffocation. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, an avid online gamer, had reportedly left a message a few hours prior to the attack on the Benghazi facility that read ”Assuming we don’t die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures.”. Smith was also fatally injured in the attack.

A report from CBS earlier on Wednesday quoted an official from Libya's Interior Ministry who claimed that after the consulate's Libyan security detail evacuated the Ambassador and diplomatic staff, some of the security staff had reportedly tipped the crowd off to the Ambassador's new and supposedly secure location.

Wanis al-Sharef, a Libyan Interior Ministry official in Benghazi, said the four Americans were killed when the angry mob, which gathered to protest a U.S.-made film that ridicules Islam's Prophet Muhammad, fired guns and burned down the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

He said Stevens, 52, and other officials were moved to a second building - deemed safer - after the initial wave of protests at the consulate compound. According to al-Sharef, members of the Libyan security team seem to have indicated to the protesters the building to which the American officials had been relocated, and that building then came under attack.

Although the short film had been blamed for inciting angry mobs in both who breached US Diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt on Tuesday, intelligence agencies say the fact that the murders took place on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks it's increasingly likely that the attack was planned well in advance by an Al Qaeda offshoot. Intelligence and media reports indicate that a Libyan jihadist group operating under the name of Ansar Al Sharia is behind the attacks. Stevens was the first US Ambassador to be killed while on assignment since Adolph Dubs- the US Ambassador to Afghanistan- was killed in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in 1979.

Benghazi is the eastern city that's considered the cradle of the uprising that ultimately toppled Mummar Ghdaffi's 42-year reign in Libya. Ghdaffi's Army was on the cusp of crushing the uprising and seizing Benghazi before the international community intervened in the form of NATO air strikes in February 2011. After months of fighting, Ghdaffi was captured and killed in a pitched battle near his hometown of Sitre. Ambassador Steven's had reportedly worked closely with Libya's transitional council after the Ghdaffi regime fled the capitol at Tripoli. The property was reportedly a temporary location that wasn't as secure as a number of permanent facilities.

The Benghazi assault came just hours after protestors in Egypt breached the walls of the American embassy there and tore down the American flag, replacing it with a black flag with white arabic script used by Al Qaeda.

However, instead of immediately condemning the provocation from the Egyptian crowd, the US Embassy released multiple statements criticising the producers of the movie the protestors were supposedly upset with and a series of tweets that bordered on apologetic. The official US Embassy in Cairo statement reads as follows [empasis mine].

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims - as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.

The White House distanced themselves from the Cairo Embassy's statements while Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney criticized the statements coming from the Cairo Embassy as 'an apology for American values' and the Obama Administration's repudiation of the statements as an example of mixed signals the President has been sending to the international community. In Cairo, police and protestors clashed for a second straight night.

A team of about 50 Marines has been dispatched to Tripoli to secure the US Embassy in the Libyan capital while two guided missile destroyers have been deployed off of the coast of Libya.

Thunder on the Mountain- A Look At the Pennsylvania Town Thrust onto World Stage on September 11, 2001

Plume of smoke from Flight 93 crash in rural Somerset County, PA on September 11, 2001. Housewife Val McClatchey caught the image with a new digital camera just moments after impact.

Even before the September 11th terrorist attacks, cities like Washington DC and New York were in the crosshairs of terrorist and dangerous extremists. However, on America's darkest day an unassuming town of just over 200 people became etched in history as the final resting place for the first Americans to fight back against Al Qaeda.

For those of you unfamiliar with United Flight 93, the Newark to San Francisco flight took off on time that morning with four hijackers on board. At 9:28 AM- nearly 45 minutes after the first hijacked airliner slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center- Air Traffic Control in Cleveland, OH received a Mayday call from Flight 93 amidst what sounded like a struggle in the background. When Cleveland attempted to reach the flight crew by radio, they received no reply. The widow of Captain Jason Dahl believes that her husband took measures to interfere with the hijackers such as redirecting the planes radio frequency so that the hijacker's orders to the crew and passengers were instead transmitted to Air Traffic Controllers before he was stabbed.

Within five minutes of the hijacking, passengers were using in-flight phones or their own cellphones to contact family members or the authorities. By that point, the wife of passenger Tom Burnett had told him about watching the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon from their California home. Burnett- a medical device company executive from San Ramon, CA told his wife Deena "Don't worry, we're going to do something". Marketing executive Jeremy Glick told his wife in West Milford, NJ that the passengers had voted to try and storm the cockpit and re-take the plane.

Todd Beamer, an executive with Oracle Inc from Highstown, NJ attempted to call his wife from one of the in-flight GTE phones. However, his call was instead rerouted to a GTE supervisor named Lisa Jefferson. Beamer became apprehensive at one point as the plane changed direction, but he and his fellow passengers had decided they were going to overpower their hijackers and try to take back the plane. Beamer told Jefferson that one of the hijackers claimed to have a bomb, but at this juncture the passengers figured it was a ruse to get them to comply with their orders before they realized they were going to be killed anyway. Jefferson and Beamer also recited the 23rd Psalm before the passengers and crew reportedly counterattacked with scalding water, a drink cart and their bare hands. The line was left open after Beamer was done talking to Jefferson and he was heard in the background urging on fellow passengers with "Let's roll!".

Audio from the black box recorded the sounds of a struggle between the hijackers and passengers in the cockpit before the plane crashed into a field outside of Shanksville, PA at 10:03 AM. Flight 93 was no more than 20 minutes away from Washington DC at the time of the crash. Subsequent Al Qaeda documents seized in Afghanistan and Pakistan seem to indicate that the US Capitol Building was the most likely target, although the White House was seriously considered as well.

Within minutes, firefighters and Pennsylvania State Troopers arrived at the Flight 93 crash site. Unlike the attacks on the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan and the Pentagon in northern Virginia, there was considerably less debris to sift through in the Shanksville meadow and a number of documents and evidence could be recovered by investigators- including remnants of the hijackers' passports.

A monument to Flight 93 passengers and crew erected by Newark-based flight attendants adjacent to a chapel south of Shanksville, PA.

In the ensuing weeks, investigators and media descended on the rural community. Flight 93 was carrying an estimated 5000 lbs of mail, and NTSB officials had recovered undamaged pieces of mail, in-flight magazines, a bible and even a business card from one of the hijackers identifying other accomplices in the attacks. The planes black boxes were reportedly recovered from a 15-25 foot deep crater in the ground.

Close-up of the monument

The immediate aftermath of the crash was caught by a Shanksville housewife named Val McClatchey who was watching the horror unfold in lower Manhattan and northern Virginia on TV when she heard a loud roaring overhead followed by what she described as a ground shaking boom. The image shows an ominous plume of smoke rising over a hill with a bucolic farmhouse and red barn in the foreground.

Thunder on the Mountain- the Flight 93 Memorial Chapel south of Shanksville, PA.

However, McClatchey's photo was also viewed by 9/11 'Truthers' [basically, unhinged conspiracy theorists who insist that the 9/11 attacks were singlehandedly orchestrated by the US government, Jews or the illuminati NANESB!] as an open invitation to harass and stalk the Pennsylvania housewife and real-estate agent.

The real estate agent has recently become a target of bloggers calling themselves "9-11 researchers," who are seeking to prove that the U.S. government was complicit in the attacks that brought down the Twin Towers, pierced the Pentagon and crashed United Airlines Flight 93. "The End of Serenity" has turned out to be their smoking gun.

They have visited Mrs. McClatchey's office and called her at home, posting satellite maps of her property and accusing her of digitally altering her photo to insert a fake smoke plume. The bloggers have picked apart her story, highlighting inconsistencies in different news accounts and questioning her motives. Others have described her as "surly," "hostile," "irate" and "defensive." People have called her at home, accusing her of being anti-American and of "holding the photo hostage."

[Gosh- only somebody with something to hide would be upset at random unhinged loons showing up on their doorstep out of the blue and accusing them of treason and complicity in a shadowy plot to murder thousands Americans- NANESB!]

A look at the recently-opened Flight 93 Memorial at the crash site north of Shanksville, run by the National Parks Service.

The field that Flight 93 crashed into had actually been reclaimed from a strip coal mining operation. Almost immediately after 9/11, people began leaving flowers and mementos at a chain link fence at a temporary memorial near the crash site.

Within a year, Congress had approved funding for a permanent memorial at the Shanksville crash site. The early design of the memorial was fraught with controversy when one of the finalists- Crescent of Embrace- was revealed and critics and relatives of those killed on Flight 93 thought it too closely resembled the crescent moon symbol popular with numerous Islamic groups. The Crescent was later modified into a semicircle bisected by the flight's path.

Marble panels engraved with the name of the 40 passengers and crew members of Flight 93 at the permanent memorial in Somerset County, PA

Stage one of the permanent memorial opened to the public on September 10th, 2011 and is operated under the National Parks Service. Currently, a gently sloping black wall accompanies a walkway and benches that stretch out to a memorial plaza where the names of the passengers and crew are inscribed on a marble wall. There are no plans for a memorial garden of any kind- National Park officials said that the Memorial would be better served by allowing the native wildflower species to bloom in the areas surrounding the plaza. Earlier this year, crews were planting trees along the road leading into the Flight 93 Memorial from US Highway 30 to the north

Even before the National Flight 93 Memoral opened up, the field had seen as many as 150,000 visitors per year. USA Today's Travel Section has even gone so far to reccommend including the recently opened memorial as part of an itinerary for visiting Southwestern Pennsylvania along with Pittsburgh (about 80 miles away), Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water (about 50 miles away) as well as the Rolling Rock Brewery in Latrobe and Horsehoe Curve in Altoona [OK- I just threw the last two in there- NANESB!]. Signs were recently posted on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and US Route 219 to direct people to the memorial.

Future plans for the Memorial call for additional structures to house permanent exhibits and artifacts from passengers and their families to be completed sometime in 2013- currently there is just the one structure before the Memorial plaza where visitors can sign in. Plans also call for a tower with 40 seperate wind chimes to be built near the Memorial entrance- one for each passenger and crew member. Since the meadow is near high mountain peaks, there's a near constant wind or breeze blowing through the site.

Through a series of odd coincidences, a wind turbine farm overlooking the entrance to the Flight 93 Memorial opened up a little over a month after the 9/11 attacks. The executive who made the Somerset County wind turbines possible- Nicholas Humber- was killed in the 9/11 attacks. Humber was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 11 when it slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

The US Navy has also christened the USS Somerset- a San Antonio class amphibious transport dock named after Somerset County where Flight 93 went down. A bucket from a nearby power shovel that had been used in coal mining was melted down in 2008 to form the bow stem for the Somerset and she was christened in July of this year in Avondale, LA. Sister ships USS New York and USS Arlington had incorporated steel from the World Trade Center site and Pentagon respectively.

Blue State Graft Watch- Audit Finds California State Parks Director Sitting on More than $50 Million in 'Hidden Assets'

Wildflowers in bloom at Anza Borrego state park, which straddles San Diego and Imperial counties in Southern California. Anza Borrego is one of 278 state parks in California that has recently been threatened with closure or drastically reduced services while the State Parks' Director was sitting on $54 million in undisclosed or underreported funds.

California State Parks Director Ruth Coleman stepped down and her second-in-command was fired after it was learned that the agency had been sitting on an unreported surplus of $54 million that had been accumulating over the last decade.

The funds were discovered shortly after the Sacramento Bee published an investigative report and internal audits from the California Department of Parks and Recreation regarding an unauthorized vacation buyout program among senior Parks officials that was thought to have cost the Golden State $271,000.

Much of the hidden money was discovered in a controversial Off Road Vehicle fund. Since late last year, off-roading advocates have accused the governor and state agencies of stacking the Parks and Recreation department with personnel hostile towards off-roaders.

The disclosure comes at a particularly awkward time for Gov. Jerry Brown, who has been campaigning for statewide ballot measures supporting tax increases that will be voted on in November. Earlier, Brown had said that as many as 70 California State Parks could be shuttered due to the agency running out of funds.

Officials tapped the department’s new deputy director of administrative services, Aaron Robertson, to examine agency finances. He is credited with finding the hidden funds.

State investigators have determined that nearly $20.4 million, or 39 percent of the money in the State Parks and Recreation Fund, was not disclosed to state budget officials. Nearly $33.5 million, or 20 percent, of the money in the parks’ Off Highway Vehicle Fund, was also not reported. Both accounts subsist on revenue from park visitor fees.

The finance department and the attorney general are reviewing whether criminal activity was involved in hiding the assets. Officials said preliminary findings suggest the reporting errors date back at least 12 years.

A number of donors who contributed to the state parks system before the hidden money was disclosed are now asking for their money back, claiming they were under the impression that their fundraising was the only thing keeping the parks open as the agency sat on more than $50 million in funds.

Earlier this year, it was learned that funds raised by the state of California to go to a September 11th memorial fund through the sale of special license plates was raided by both the Brown and Schwarzenegger administrations to plug shortfalls in the state's budget.

US Born Al Qaeda Cleric Killed in Arabian Peninsula Drone Airstrike

The good news is that you still get your virgins, Anwar. The bad news is that all 72 of them look like Michael Moore.

Anwar al-Awlaki, Al Qaeda's internet savvy, New Mexico-born propagaindist was killed in Yemen on Friday when what's believed to be a CIA drone fired a missile on a convoy.

Fluent in English, al-Awlaki is said to have inspired numerous attacks against American and Western targets, including the failed Christmas 2009 underwear bomber over Detroit, an October 2010 plot to bring down aircraft using explosive parcels. The Islamic cleric is said to have corresponded via e-mail with Nidal Hasan prior to his November 2009 Fort Hood murder spree and Faisal Shahzad's botched May 2010 attempt to set off a car bomb in New York City's Times Square.

Also in may 2010, a 21 year old unemployed woman named Roshonara Choudharay who said she was inspired by al-Awlaki's online sermons and articles stabbed Labour MP Stephen Timms at the Beckton Globe library.

Beginning in 2000, al-Awlaki preached in a San Diego area mosque where he met two parishoners who were later identified as Khalid al-Midar and Nawaf al-Hamzi- two of the 9/11 hijackers. The following year, al-Awlaki moved to northern Virginia before heading back to Yemen by way of London in 2002. From Yemen's tribal controlled hinterlands, al-Awlaki delivered sermons and oversaw recruitment for Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninusla, escaping a similar attempt on his life in May of this year.

On This Date, President Obama's Pastor Delivers Sermon Justifying September 11 Attacks on USA

There's been a school of thought out there for awhile that President Obama is some sort of clandestine Muslim based on some of his foreign policy statnces as well as his background. I refuse to believe that for a number of reasons- for starters, I actually believe that there are a number of patriotic Muslims in the USA who love this country and have valued the rights and opportunities afforded them and in some cases even served it honorably in some capacity [the Persians who fled Iran during the rise of the Ayatollahs had a firsthand glimpse of what a totalitarian regime based on Islamic supremacy looks like, for instance- NANESB!].

Also, I think the truth is much more sinister that the 'Obama is a seekrit Muslim' claims that have been circulating. Obama is not a secret Muslim, but rather he was simply paying attention to the bigoted, anti-Semitic, homophobic hate-preacher Jerimiah Wright all this time. Paying attention and possibly taking his words to heart.

But you might be asking- Fenway, you bigoted right-wing neocon dupe, this was all settled in the 2008 campaign during the primaries. Why are you bringing it up right now? This came to my attention because of the date of one of the racist preacher's sermons at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.



The nation just recently observed the 10 year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 that killed nearly 3000 Americans. This sermon, which at times approvingly repeats statements from Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda justifying 9/11 and previous attacks, took place at Obama's Trinity Church on September 16th, 2001; not even five whole days after the single deadliest attack against the United States. Now it goes without saying that this is a free country and that this ebony Fred Phelps is entitled to his opinion, but lets provide a little bit of context- for those of you who were bitching in 2008 about how the sermon was 'taken out of context'.



On September 16, 2001, first responders from the NYPD and FDNY along with other agencies were breathing in God-knows-what and still sifting through tons of still-burning rubble to try and recover remains of Americans who were crushed and incinerated when the towers collapsed. Instead of any sincere condolences or prayers to those who were brutally murdered, Obama's pastor laments that there isn't enough introspection over his version of American history and foreign policy [which seems to have significant overlap with Al Qaeda's- NANESB!].

This begs the question of whether or not then state Senator Barack Obama was in attendance at Wright's church that weekend. It would not be out of character for Obama to appear at the church only occasionally and ahead of an election to try and lobby the parishioners for his vote.

Moreover, if Obama found the content of Wright's sermons so objectionable [apparently the 'God Damn America!' sermon came at a later date- NANESB!], why did he only choose to distance himself from the man and his words some 7 ½ years later during a contentious Presidential primary challenge with New York Senator Hillary Clinton? Maybe it's just me, but if I were one of Wright's parishioners, I don't think it would take me several years to repudiate him or his anti-American sermons. In fact, I'm sure there are other houses of worship in Chicago- if I was truly disagreed with what Wright had to say, I'm sure I could've made my way to another church.

And ten years later, there really seems to be nothing to disprove that Obama hadn't taken the race-hustling Wright's sermons to heart, only distancing himself from the preacher and his words when it was politically expedient. And now that he won the Presidency, all things Jerimiah Wright-related seemed to have gone away aside from the occasional embarrassing flare-ups in the early going.

On April 4, 2011, President Obama announced the start of his 2012 re-election campaign. I was never convinced he deserved a first term, but since he's seeking four more years in the Oval Office, I think this issue needs to be revisited just in case the first 2 ½ years of America under the Obama Administration wasn't enough to convince you.

Joseph Trombino- The Brinks Guard Who Crossed Paths With Terrorists Before 9/11

While I was researching another subject, the background of an unassuming Brinks armoured truck guard piqued my attention. Francis J Trombino- known by many as simply 'Joe'- was a Korean war vet and truck driver who had been with Brinks since the late 1960s and lived most of his life in Clifton, NJ. He was killed on the morning of September 11th, 2001 when two World Trade Center towers collapsed.

But that sunny September morning was not the first time Trombino had crossed paths with terrorists. In 1993, his armoured truck had left the WTC complex a few hours before Islamic terrorist Ramzi Yousef drove an explosives-laden rental van into the underground parking garage and set the fuse.

However, before either of the Islamist attacks on the World Trade Center site, Trombino survived a deadly ambush and robbery from Weather Underground and black sepratist gunmen nearly 20 years before the 9/11 attacks.

As Trombino and fellow guard Peter Paige were picking up money from Nanuet Mall in Rockland County, NY, in October 1981 when masked gunmen burst from a nearby van and opened fire with shotguns and an M-16 rifle, killing Paige instantly. Trombino was able to get off a round before being struck in the shoulder, arm and upper body multiple times.

After swapping vehicles, the domestic terrorists would then try and shoot their way through a roadblock set up by police in West Nyack, NY, killing two police officers and wounding another before trying to flee on foot or carjack motorists.

Trombino's injuries would require multiple surgeries- he nearly lost his arm in the gunfight. Brinks reassigned him as a driver where he would continue to work for another 19 years. According to family, Joe hardly complained about the surgeries and therapy, telling them that 'These things are a part of life'.

Joe Trombno was about a year away from retirement on the morning of September 11th. According to co-workers, he stayed in the underground garage with his truck when the planes hit, calling the Brinks dispatcher and inquiring about the whereabouts of the gurads who had gone into the WTC buildings to make a pickup (they had managed to escape but had no means of communication). Trombino told the Brinks office in his last phone call that water was starting to seep in and the walls were starting to crumble around him.

Francis J Trombino left behind a wife of 42 years, two daughters and three grandchildren.

Ten Years Later

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and United Flight 93 crashing in a field in Shanksville, PA after passengers fought with hijackers to retake the aircraft.

It seems difficult to believe that some kids in grade school at the time of the attacks are now old enough to go to college or join the military

The terrorist assault on the United States were preceded by an attack on Afghan Mujaheddin leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, viewed by the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies as the last cohesive group standing in the way of the Taliban taking complete control of Afghanistan. Two days prior to th 9/11 attacks, the veteran Afghan fighter was killed by two suicide bombers posing as a camera crew preparing to interview him.

Massoud's death in a nation wracked by more than two decades of conflict half a world away made little, if any, news in the USA at the time. However, the Taliban's ascendancy to power and their autocratic, fundamentalist rule was very disconcerting to anybody that was even paying the slightest bit of attention.

I distinctly remember a conversation with my father about a week before the 9/11 attacks. My grandfather was from the generation that could remember exactly where they were when they heard that Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese. My father was from the generation that could remember what they were doing when they got the news when President Kennedy was shot. So what did that leave my generation? The space shuttle Challenger disaster? The Oklahoma City bombing?

When I went to bed the night of September 10th, 2001, my biggest concern was that I had wasted a few hours watching a rather mediocre Monday Night Football game between the Denver Broncos and New York Giants. As I mentioned last year, that all changed in the bloodiest possible manner in less than 12 hours.



And lest we forget, this is how news of the atrocity was met among the parts of the Arab Street.



Although I was several states away and literally slept through the attacks, I was in New York City several weeks after the attacks. From a distance, the Manhattan skyline looked fractured and vacant without the two iconic towers there. I felt compelled to go and see what I could of Ground Zero for myself.

Washington DC Area Firefighters try to get inferno at Pentagon under control after Flight 77 struck the building.

It seemed pretty nondescript up close- acres of debris with floodlights glaring down on the recovery site for volunteers and workers as the days got shorter. The site was surrounded by some barriers and chain link fences, many of them adorned with faded 'MISSING' posters, wilted bouquets and burned out votive candles. One of the fliers struck me as especially poignant- it was from a bagpipe player who was offering his services for free for funerals of those killed in the attacks. Even if only a fraction of the victims loved ones took him up on his offer, the piper who put up the flier would've been quite busy.

On the way to and from the barrier around Ground Zero, one could see smoke lazily drifting up from grates along the sidewalk a few blocks away. Failing to appreciate the enormity of the original WTC site, it eventually dawned on me that these were smaller, isolated fires that had been smoldering underground since the twin towers collapsed. The sickly-sweet smell from the vents was mixed in with the smell of peanuts from a streetside vendor at one corner.

9/11 Tributes Past- Tribute in Light

Even across town from Ground Zero, the walkway into Grand Central station had a massive bulletin board with 'MISSING' posters- this time they were protected from the elements. The City that Never Sleeps had managed to brush itself off and resume a semblance of normalcy, but there was an almost palpable undercurrent of sorrow and uncertainty to go with the stoicism.

[Please note that I'm not trying to make this all about "me me me", just attempting to relate my firsthand but extremely limited experiences pertaining to 9/11 -NANESB!]

I mentioned this last year, but it bears repeating for as long as my fingers can find the keyboard. It's also important to avoid sugar-coating the events of September 11, 2001, such as many in the entertainment industry referring to it in neutral terms like 'tragedy' or 'disaster'. No doubt the end result is tragic, but the Towers didn't collapse in a stiff breeze. The Pentagon didn't get that chunk torn out of due to a ruptured water main. Flight 93 didn't crash in a field in Western Pennsylvania because a bird got sucked into the engine. These were calculated, meticulously planned acts of mass murder by muslim extremists- to gloss over that or say otherwise is a piss-poor attempt at re-writing history.

This is what so many mean when they say 'NEVER FORGET'.

On the plus side, this will be the first anniversary of September 11th without Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden (may he rot in hell), who was killed in a Navy SEAL raid on his Pakistani compound in May.

Mayor Bloomberg Declines to Invite First Responders, Clergy To City's 9/11 Memorial

Oh my- isn't Micheal Bloomberg one of the founding luminaries of the 'No Labels' party? I guess those labels also include "FDNY" and "NYPD".

For the first time since the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, first responders from the New York Police Department and New York Fire Department were not invited by the city to the 9/11 Ground Zero memorial ceremonies.

The first responders are not invited to this year's September 11 memorial ceremony at ground zero, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office confirmed Monday.

It's a painful insult for many of the approximately 3,000 men and women who risked their lives, limbs and lungs on that monumental day, puncturing another hole in a still searing wound.

In a statement, Bloomberg spokesman Andrew Brent said the commemoration ceremony is for the victims' families.

"While we are again focused on accommodating victims' family members, given the space constraints, we're working to find ways to recognize and honor first responders, and other groups, at different places and times," Brent said.

But first responder John Feal, founder of an advocacy group for the police officers, firefighters, civilian volunteers and others who worked at ground zero, assailed Brent's response, saying Bloomberg "lives in his own world."

"The best of the best that this country offered 10 years ago are being neglected and denied their rightful place," Feal said.

Denise Villamia, a first responder who worked at ground zero for several months, cried over the phone as she recalled her "totally heartbroken" reaction to the news that she could not attend the memorial service.

"I'm crying because it's really a big betrayal on the part of the city, to rob me from my way to pay homage and to find that comfort and healing," she said. "I feel that I have been robbed of my way to pay tribute."

In addition to the victims' families, several politicians, including two presidents, are expected to be in attendance

In New York City, 343 firefighters, 60 police officers and 8 paramedics were killed in the attacks. Some of the first responders and their loved ones have been circulating a petition hoping to persuade the Mayor's office to reverse course on their decision.

The mayor of New York City also declined to invite any clergy from the ceremony, defending his decision as a matter of separation of church and state.

Badger State Civility Update- Racine Firefighter Union Local Pulls Support of 9/11 Memorial Float

Rick Wood/Journal-Sentinel

An Oak Creek, WI fireman who invoked an obscure provision in Wisconsin state law to opt out of his union's political activities says that the union local that had initially supported his parade float has since backed out upon learning that he's a "fair share" union member

Under state law, public employees can drop out of the union and opt to pay just their "fair share" for the cost the union incurs for negotiating contracts. These nonvoting employees don't have to foot the bill for the union's political, social and ideological activities.

Officials say it is highly unusual for Wisconsin firefighters to ask to go fair share. But [Oak Grove FD Lieutenant] Gorniak - who describes himself as a born-again Christian who supports conservative politicians, including Gov. Scott Walker - filed his resignation letter and became a fair-share worker in late March or early April. He said he made the move in response to the protests in Madison over Walker's collective-bargaining plan.

The move is so rare that union officials are still, months later, trying to figure out how much Gorniak should pay to cover negotiating costs.

The theme of the parade float is the now-famous photo of the three New York firefighters raising the American flag amid the wreckage at Ground Zero in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, with local firemen standing in for the FDNY firefighters in the photo.

In 2002, Gorniak and members of his church constructed the float that appeared in three different parades in Milwaukee County. It remained in storage until recently, when Gorniak and others were kicking around the idea of refurbishing it and participating in the Racine, WI Fourth Fest parade. Organizers of the Fourth Fest and the IAFF Local 321 were on board with Gorniak's float- at least until word got back to Local President Craig Ford. Gorniak said Ford, the union president, was on board initially.

"I think he would have hugged me at first," Gorniak said of Ford. The two even agreed to bring in a New York City Fire Department firefighter to march in the parade, with Racine picking up the cost. Gorniak continued, "I was beside myself with joy."

All of that changed a few days later.

"Craig said, 'I've got a question for you: Are you fair share?'" Gorniak said. "I said, 'What does that have to do with anything?' "

Ford decided to take the parade issue to his executive board. Before the vote, Gorniak said, he offered to back out and turn over the keys to the truck, letting Ford and other Racine firefighters lead the float through the parade.

It didn't work.

Gorniak said he was told a few days later that the board had voted not to support the float.

"The float is coming anyway," Gorniak said. "I'm going to run it with or without firefighters."

In 2002, three firefighters stood atop the float, and others from several South Shore fire departments walked solemnly along behind, often with their helmets under an arm.

Gorniak said he is offering an open invitation to any firefighter - union or not - who would like to join the float at Monday's parade.

The last thing he wants, he said, is the homemade tribute to become the latest battle ground in the state's collective-bargaining wars.

"I want to touch our community," Gorniak said. "I'm hoping patriotic people are out in droves, and they don't see this as union or nonunion."

While Ford and IAFF Local 321 officers in Racine may not have wanted anything to do with Gorniak's float, there have been requests for the float to appear in a parade for the upcoming Burger Days in Seymour, WI and South Milwaukee's Heritage Days parade, and its looks as though the float will still participate in Racine's Fourth Fest.

Crane Operators Rake in $400,000 Salaries on Ground Zero No-Show Jobs

A recent report by a major New York developer's group claims that a slew of phantom no-show or no-work jobs on construction sites around Ground Zero is costing taxpayers nearly $100 million dollars.

The Real Estate Board of New York claims that rules dating back to when the International Union of Operating Engineers Locals 14 and 15 were controlled by the Colombo and Genovese crime families in the last decade. Among the affected projects are the Freedom Tower, the nearby transit hub, the 9/11 memorial and surrounding streetwork.

Contractor and union sources confirmed that the eight tower cranes at the WTC site guarantee a bonanza for Local 14 operating engineers and the Local 15 specialists who fix them.

On one day in mid-March, for example, contractors said 56 of 204 Local 14 and Local 15 employees on site held no-work jobs.

The board compiled the statistics in the runup to contract talks with the operating engineers and all the city's construction unions, which start next month.

Many of the jobs are vestiges of an era in which the Colombo and Genovese crime families controlled Locals 14 and 15. Local 14 has been under a federal monitor since 2009.

One example is the full-time Local 14 "master mechanics" the contractor must hire whenever five pieces of heavy equipment or three tower cranes are in use.

With a $135,000 base salary, a master mechanic can make a staggering $405,000 a year with overtime that's guaranteed by six-day, 12- to 16-hour-a-day schedules. Welfare benefits, insurance and other costs hike the annual bill to $700,000 for that one mechanic.

It's a ridiculous requirement, REBNY says, because the manufacturer or crane owner does the repairs, not the contractor's master mechanics.

Instead, they are glorified shop stewards, a part-time job in most unions. With three required on site a day, that should cost about $6.3 million through 2013, the board says.

Master mechanic Carl Carrara Sr., identified as a Genovese associate, was charged in a 2003 racketeering conspiracy as the mob's point man in a no-show scam at the Museum of Modern Art.

He and six other master mechanics pleaded guilty that year in two cases that put much of Local 14 and 15's leadership behind bars.

Local 15 demands a similar piece of the action via "®maintenance engineers." They're required on site full time when a master mechanic is there and three major pieces of equipment are operating in case any machines need fixing.

"There is nothing for these guys to do," a World Trade Center construction supervisor said. Eliminating that requirement would save $7.5 million over three years at Ground Zero, REBNY says.

Then there's the Local 15 position of "crane oiler," a relic from the days when equipment needed frequent lubrication. An oiler is required on site when any tower crane is in use.

Today, the oiler simply fires up the crane at the start of work. With overtime, he can earn more than $100,000 a year.

And there's Local 14's "stationary equipment operator," with one assigned to each compressor, welding machine and spray fireproofer in use. With overtime, they pull down about $110,000 a year, REBNY estimated.

A World Trade Center construction supervisor who asked not to be identified said technology has reduced the job to two simple functions: "They turn the machine on in the morning and turn it off at night," the supervisor said. "They are basically non-essential."

REBNY wants the city to loosen the union's influence over who gets licensed to operate heavy machinery.

Now, only operators with city licenses can work here, and applicants must train with city crane operators - virtually all union workers. That gives the two locals a stranglehold on major projects.

"Locals 14 and 15 have the hammer. They have the power to shut down a job," said Steven Spinola, president of REBNY, which wants to be able to hire nationally licensed crane operators.

This certainly is not the first time a union padded a contract with a number of set-aside no-show jobs in the New York area, but this has been the most contested piece of real estate within the 5 boroughs lately.

Lining their pockets with money scammed from taxpayers? Look for the Union Label!

[Hat Tip: Labor Union Report; Lonely Conservative]

Mentally Marginal Michigan Manatee Meloncholy Most Media Marks Mass Murderer Bin Laden 'Muslim', Minus 'Multimillionaire'

It was bound to happen sooner or later- with Bin Laden apparently dead and the featured dish in some sort of fish buffet, there were bound to be more than a few buzzkills among the foreign press, international left or radical Islamist axis.

One stop over at the rightsphere indicated that didn't take long for one particularly brilliant master of unintentional self-parody to chime in, apparently expecting followers to believe that the wealthy are responsible for acts of mass murder.

Hmm....interesting. Weren't we being told in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 that the 'root cause' of terrorism was poverty? A particularly visionary corpulent mass of alleged humanity has chimed in on the matter.

Wow. The more bloated faux-populist multimillionaire Michael Moore opens his jowly pie-hole, the more I'm starting to think he's this brilliant performance artist portraying some sort of staggeringly obvious and self-contradictory hypocrite who never ever breaks character under any circumstances. Now that's dedication to one's craft.

To be honest, I'm trying to figure out what the point of his outbursts (both in person and via the internet) are. If he's trying to get a rise out of everybody to the right of Daniel Ortega, I suppose it's working to an extent- but at the expense of going on the record saying some incredibly stupid shit that would contradict or discredit himself in the process. Another option is that he's actually serious and a true-believer who somehow forgot that he is a millionaire who eschews union labor whenever possible.

I'm beginning to lean towards the 'performance artist' theory myself.

UPDATE 5/5: Holy shit, this bearded goiter is still yammering away.

[Hat tip- Tim Blair; Sea of Syrah; the Rightsphere; Big Hollywood]

BREAKING: Osama Bin Laden And Associates Killed in US Special Ops Raid on Pakistani Compound

This has been coming in pretty rapid fire (pardon the expression) all night, and it's been difficult to keep up with the various reports and rumors that have been going on.

In an unscheduled news conference from the East Room of the White House earlier tonight, President Obama announced that fugitive al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was killed in a Navy SEAL raid on a mansion in northern Pakistan.

Unlike previous strikes over Pakistan, this reportedly involved a prolonged firefight between helicopter-borne SEALs and Bin Laden along with his couriers and one of his sons at a compound in the city of Abbotabad, some 30 miles from the Pakistani capitol of Islamabad and less than 5 miles away from the Pakistani Military Academy in Kakul.

The U.S. had been monitoring the compound in Abbottabad for months after receiving a tip in August that Bin Laden might be seeking shelter there. He had long been said to be in the mountainous region along the Afghanistan, Pakistan border, hiding in a cave as the U.S. sought to kill him with drone strikes from above. Instead, he was in a house eight times larger than its neighbors, with a seven-foot wall and valued at $1 million. The house had no phone or television and the residents burned their trash. The house had high windows and few points of access, and U.S. officials concluded it had been built to hide someone.

According to U.S. officials, two U.S. helicopters swept into the compound at 1:30 and 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Twenty to 25 U.S. Navy Seals under the command of the Joint Special Operations Command in cooperation with the CIA stormed the compound and engaged Bin Laden and his men in a firefight, killed Bin Laden and all those with him.

Two Bin Laden couriers were killed, as was one of Osama Bin Laden's son, as was a woman reportedly used as a shield by one of the men. Other women and children were present in the compound, according to Pakistani officials, but were not harmed. U.S. officials said that Bin Laden himself did fire his weapon during the fight.

One of the U.S. helicopters was damaged but not destroyed during the operation, and U.S. forces elected to destroy it themselves with explosives.

The Americans took Bin Laden's body into custody after the firefight and confirmed his identity. According to a senior administration official, the U.S. is "ensuring it is handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition. It's something we take seriously and therefore it's being handled in an appropriate manner."

According to Pakistani officials, the operation was a joint U.S.-Pakistani operation, but U.S. officials said only U.S. personnel were involved in the raid.

On eary Monday, Pakistani television network GEO TV broadcast images of the mansion believed to have housed Bin Laden engulfed in flames.
News of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack mastermind's demise was greeted with cheers by crowds in front of the White House in Washington DC and in Times Square and adjacent to Ground Zero in New York City. Among the celebrants were members of the FDNY and NYPD- 343 Firefighters and 60 police officers were among the first responders killed in the 9/11 attacks.

So as it turns out, it wasn't a drone strike like many had predicted (on the assumption Bin Laden was even still alive) or porcine-induced rectal trauma like I had really really hoped he would have inflicted on him in his final hours, but if confirmed then this is good news indeed.

UPDATE: Multiple outlets are reporting that this op has been in the works since 2007.

The operation had been in the works for years. Since 9/11, the CIA gathered leads on those in bin Laden’s inner circle, including personal couriers. During interrogations and questioning, various detainees flagged individuals who may have been providing support to OBL and Zawahiri. One courier in particularly was identified by detainees as one of the few al Qaeda couriers who had bin Laden’s trust. He was identified as a “protégé” of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and a trusted assistant of Abu Faraj al –Libbi, the former #3 of al Qaeda, who was captured in 2005. There were even indications the courier may have been living with bin Laden.

In 2007, intelligence officers discovered his identity. In 2009, intelligence officials identified areas in Pakistan where the courier and his brother operate – but they were still unable to pinpoint precisely where.

In August 2010 came a big break. Intelligence identified a compound that aroused their suspicion – eight times larger than other homes in the area, built in 2005, on a property valued at $1 million. But access to the compound was severely restricted, with elaborate security and 12 to 18 foot walls topped with barbed wire. Incongruently, the compound has no phone service or televisions. The main building had few windows and a seven foot wall for privacy. Residents burned their trash.

Intelligence officials concluded that unit was “custom built” to hide someone. A third family was identified as living there – and the size and makeup matched the bin Laden family members most likely with him. The location and design of compound were consistent with what experts expected his hideout might look like. Their final conclusion: there was a strong probability that this was bin Laden’s hideout.

Personally, I think it would be kinda cute if we could plant a couple hundred thousand in cash in the form of Euros or US Dollars on a couple of the remaining Al Qaeda higher ups, bundled with little strips that would have a cryptic message in Arabic or Urdu about a 'job well done', only to have the cash discovered by subordinates.

Federal Judge, 9 Year Old Girl Killed in Tuscon Shooting Spree Laid to Rest

Security was tight for the funeral services of US District Judge John Roll in Tuscon as Arizona Senators John McCain and John Kyl, Governor Jan Brewer and former Vice President Dan Quayle were among those in attendance at the services on Friday.

Roll, 63, was heralded as a stern-but-fair jurist who had been pressing for more courts and judges to handle the increased federal caseload brought on by illegal immigration in the region. Roll was on his way back from church on Saturday and some accounts said he wanted to personally thank Congresswoman Giffords for addressing the issue of the shortage of judges and courthouses in Arizona.

The day before, 9 year old Christina-Taylor Green was laid to rest at a funeral in St Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Tuscon. The roughly 1700 mourners in attendance passed under the National 9/11 flag- a tattered patchwork of fabric that was pulled from the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001- Christina-Taylor's date of birth. She was also featured in a 2002 book called Faces of Hope: Babies Born on 9/11, which shows photos of babies from all 50 states that were born on 9/11/01.

She had just been elected to student council earlier in the school year [And I wouldn't be surprised if she was taken to Gifford's town hall event that day so she could see representative government in action for herself- NANESB]. Green also loved ballet, gymnastics and baseball, and she was the only girl on her team. Her father John is a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Baseball Hall of Famers Ryne Sandberg and Pat Gillick were in attendance at the funeral.

Christina-Taylor was aware of the significance of her date of birth and said she thought of herself as something good that came from that terrible day. Although horrifically cut down before she could pursue her dreams of public service, she was able to find a way to help others even in death. In an interview on CNN, John Green said that Christina was an organ donor and that the family had already received word from the organ donor network that Christina's organs saved the life of a little girl in Boston.

September 11, 2001- Nine Years Later.

This would actually be my first 9/11 observance of any kind since I started up this blog. There are those out there who are much better at this sort thing than I am, but I'll do my best nonetheless. Everybody seems to have their own story to tell about where they were that day. Mine is particularly anticlimactic- I literally slept through the whole thing since I had the day off and slept in and was functioning on West Coast time. On top of that, I decided to busy myself with some paperwork for awhile before I even bothered turning on a TV, radio or computer. On the radio, the 'Morning Zoo' FM DJs were solemnly trying to estimate how many people were in the World Trade Center Complex on any given workday. It was an odd line of discussion, but I didn't give it much thought until I heard one of them interject without the slightest trace of whimsy '...and the Pentagon is still burning'. By that time, I figured I better turn on the TV and see what the hell was going on. No matter what channel I was watching, they were showing the skyline of lower Manhattan minus the WTC towers- just a giant incomprehensible sprawl of smoke, dust and rubble.


I was in a daze for awhile as I tried absorbing what had taken place while I was slumbering. Although I have relatives in Massachusetts and New York, I figured the odds of them being on one of the planes or in lower Manhattan were remote. Almost in a daze, I left for the grocery store and local pizza place, getting cans of soda and two extra large pizzas. From there, I went to the local chapter of the Red Cross, and sure enough, there was a line of people coiled around the block, volunteering to donate blood (this IS America, after all). Since I'm a total wuss who prefers to avoid needles, I simply started passing out slices of pizza and soda to the people waiting in line to give blood.
I wasn't sure what else I should do- although it would be reassuring to hear from some of my relatives (I have a few who are first responders in Upstate NY), I figured the courtesy call could wait, since they were reporting that almost 400 FDNY firefighters and NYPD officers were among those killed by the muslim terrorists that day. A death toll of hundreds- let alone thousands- was hard for me to comprehend (then again, so is rushing into a burning building of any size) and it looked as though some of my relatives would need to fill in for their besieged New York City counterparts. I was also getting word that there were people celebrating the attacks on the WTC towers and Pentagon. 'What kind of sick, vile, sociopathic fuckers would be celebrating this?' I asked myself.

I soon got my answer. Juxtapose the image of a man who decided he was BETTER OFF jumping to his death with the video from below that day.

The shock and sorrow was replaced by a smoldering anger that seemed to gradually intensify when CNN introduced these patronizing 'Islam is a Religion of Peace' puff pieces in the following days along with the occasional reminder that Timothy McVeigh (may he rot in hell) was a terrorist too. As important as it is that we never forget those who were murdered that day, it's just as important to keep in mind who was dancing on their graves.
It's also important to avoid sugar-coating the events of September 11, 2001, such as many in the entertainment industry referring to it in neutral terms like 'tragedy' or 'disaster'. No doubt the end result is tragic, but the Towers didn't collapse in a stiff breeze. The Pentagon didn't get that chunk torn out of due to a ruptured water main. Flight 93 didn't crash in a field in Western Pennsylvania because a bird got sucked into the engine. These were calculated, meticulously planned acts of mass murder by muslim extremists- to gloss over that or say otherwise is a piss-poor attempt at re-writing history.

This is what so many mean when they say 'NEVER FORGET'

Thomas E Franklin/Bergen County Record

I would also like to take this opportunity to extend my appreciation and gratitude for the first responders in police and fire departments nationwide. Although I have rambled on for quite a bit, I don't think there are adequate words to describe the professionalism and selflessness it takes to endanger your own life and rush into a burning building or lead people to safety as exemplified by those in the FDNY and NYPD that September day.