MBA Clears Up AP Issue

I owe the Associated Press a huge apology. With all the hype over AP allegedly going after the Drudge Retort with a law suit, the whole matter was a very large misunderstanding. In an email from a fellow blogger I received a link to Media Bloggers Association that has all of the facts behind the AP issue with Drudge Retort. You can read it here. MBA is a group of volunteers that mediate on behalf of bloggers. They are a bloggers best friend when it comes to freedom of speech on the internet.

After reading all of the facts I have to say that I agree with the AP. Drudge Retort was posting entire articles including the headlines from the Associated Press and that is copyright infringement.

Wrapping this story up with a huge apology to the Associated Press.

Papamoka

****My friend over at the Gun Toting Liberal has linked to this post with his own thoughts on this issue...

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Associated Press Blindsiding Bloggers

*****UPDATE From Media Bloogers Association


On my own site and others that I post on I am a stickler for linking to the site the quote comes from, the author when listed also. Over at the Associated Press they are going after bloggers for monetary damages for using quotes in their posts that originated from AP.

You can check the Associated Press thought here.

What I just don’t get is the terms of their definition of “Fair Use” in the news and blogging world. My good friend is a retired Newspaper Editor and she has this definition of “Fair Use” listed on her blog. I may be way off the mark on who knows what is “Fair Use” policy in the printed media world but I’m going to trust my friend BJ. God forbid the Associated Press would go after someone that used to buy ink by the barrel that has a blog. I would be the first one to go to her defense with a fat check for her lawyer if the AP attempted to sue a retired editor that is slowly loosing her vision. I’ve deliberately not linked to her site to protect her happy retirement life from AP lawyers thinking they are on the scent of blood and bloggers… Sorry BJ.

"This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of current issues. I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes."

Tell me I’m wrong and that the Associated Press is making up there own rules for the internet use that they post on the internet that people read every single day. Most legitimate bloggers link back to the persons originally credited with the article which in exchange drives people to the AP post that was paid for by the news service posting it. That in turn pays the advertising bills for the site and thus money is made by the original site. For that fact to be true then Crooks and Liars can steal my work seven days a week if the link back benefits my advertiser. Daily Kos, feel free to hold my entire posts hijacked on a trip to Cuba. As for the Huffington Post, I don’t want those bastards stealing my works. What the AP is doing is picking and choosing what web sites or blogs they want there work to appear on and that is wrong. The law is clear and the AP does not write the law. Legally I don’t think they have a leg to stand on but I will defer that to the people in the know of the law, AP lawyers not included.

As a blogger I read dozens of blogs a day and each one is more or less opinion of the article written than content theft. In that same thought I have found myself clicking on many AP articles to read the associated quote from many sites across the internet. I’m not talking about just AP articles but many other sources of news in the “Fair Use” presentation of the articles posted online. If any organization posts its writers articles online then they are open and free to interpretation just as much a letter to the editor is in your local paper. Or are you guilty of theft if you send a letter to the editor in opposition to an article labeled “XYZ on ABC”?

Some of the folks in the undergound blogger union have spoken of a united front to boycott the Associated Press and I’m finding myself looking favorably toward that position. We bloggers have our own secret handshake and manifest destiny that compels us to rebel against the institution of society. And there is that other thing where we are just one person writing opinion where the media has no clue as to the real world in America.

At the next meeting for the local chapter of Bloggers I’m going to raise the resolution to ban AP from our posts. From now on I will be only quoting over the fence news from my neighbor. No, that won’t work. Maybe I could use this search engine called Google to find relevant information? I’ll have to just check that out.

Papamoka

Feel free to link to, borrow, steal, or call this post your own. A link back is appreciated though!

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The Twin Towers Still Falling

Back in the days of World War II my Grandmother was elated that she had two sons that survived the war. Her son Richard was a Captain flying bombers over Nazi Germany and her son Edward was in the Navy serving in the Pacific. The war was finally over for her and soon her two boys would be home safe and sound. So she thought.

Her son Edward, while transferring from his ship to a launch boat to shore in San Francisco missed his footing and fell into the bay. She received the telegram that the Navy believed that he had drowned in San Francisco Bay. His body would not be recovered for a long time period after that initial telegram.

From my Grandmothers perspective there was always the possibility that he didn’t drown simply because there was no body to go with the Navy’s thoughts on what happened to her son. There was hope that only a mother could truly ever understand. Thinking about that it makes feel outright overwhelming sympathy for the many families still waiting for the official word or their loved ones remains to be identified from the 9/11 attacks. Over at MSNBC they have this interesting article from the Associated Press…

Remains of 4 more 9/11 victims identified
AP - Associated Press
updated 12:41 a.m. ET, Tues., April. 8, 2008

NEW YORK - The city has identified the remains of four more victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, including one man whose DNA was found beneath a service road that was initially paved over, officials said Monday.

Ronald Keith Milstein's remains were found beneath the road that was built to carry cleanup and construction trucks in and out of the World Trade Center site after the 2001 terrorist attacks, the city medical examiner's office said. Milstein of Queens was 54 when he was killed.

More than 400 human bone pieces have been recovered from beneath the road, which has become known as "Haul Road" because of the hauling of debris.

~Snip~

More than 1,800 of the 21,000 body parts recovered from ground zero have been found in the last two years in and around the trade center site. The remains of more than 40 percent of the 2,749 people killed at the site have yet to be identified. - MSNBC

Many people today have mistaken this tragedy as a political issue for our reasons to go to war or to end the war. What side of that argument you personally agree with bares no issue on this article. One simple fact remains and that is 1,100 people from this horrible day in 2001 have still not been identified. That is 1,100 families that don’t have closure on what really happened to their loved one. That is 1,100 families with thoughts in their mind that all start out with “What if…?

It’s understandable how remembering the terrorist attacks of 9/11 became a political issue and it’s also understandable how simple it is for those that call themselves politicians to use it for political gain. There is a very large difference between remembering those that were lost on 9/11 and using those that were lost on 9/11.

For the families of the victims of this horrible day in history, those towers are falling every single day. Until the last victim is identified, they will continue to fall.

Papamoka

Feel free to link to or borrow this post…

Bipolar Testing Gone Mad

When it comes to knowing what someone that is diagnosed with Bipolar disorder is all about I think I have a front row seat on the topic. By no means am I any kind of medical doctor or someone with fifteen letters after their name with advanced degrees in mental health education. I’m one of two parents that have faced it for years with one of our children and it is not an overnight diagnosis. Matter of fact, technically you can not be diagnosed bipolar until you are an adult. But Bipolar conditions in people can be narrowed down and treated with the right professional medical care and tested medications.

One of the things that I am certain of is that there is not one single doctor out there that will overwhelmingly say that any individual is bipolar even after several visits with the patient. Apparently, all of the medical doctors, counselors, psychiatric health care workers are out of a job due to a spit in a cup test that nails a person as bipolar. I can’t make this stuff up and MSNBC has this to say on it…

Experts troubled by at-home bipolar gene tests

Many such products sold online with almost no government oversight

Associated Press
updated 2:23 p.m. ET, Sun., March. 23, 2008

SAN DIEGO - Dr. John Kelsoe has spent his career trying to identify the biological roots of bipolar disorder. In December, he announced he had discovered several gene mutations closely tied to the disease, also known as manic depression.

Then Kelsoe, a prominent psychiatric geneticist at the University of California, San Diego, did something provocative for the buttoned-down world of academic medical research: He began selling bipolar genetic tests straight to the public over the Internet last month for $399.

His company, La Jolla-based Psynomics, joins a legion of startups racing to exploit the boom in research connecting genetic variations to a host of health conditions. More than 1,000 at-home gene tests have burst onto the market in the past few years.

The proliferation of these tests troubles many public health officials, medical ethicists and doctors. The tests receive almost no government oversight, even though many of them are being sold as tools for making serious medical decisions.

Health experts worry that many of these products are built on thin data and are preying on individuals’ deepest anxieties.

“People are always rushing to the market on the basis of one or two studies,” said Dr. Muin Khoury, director of the National Office of Public Health Genomics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We have very little evidence that telling people their genetic information is going to make any difference.”

Tests have become available claiming to help predict and diagnose everything from serious illnesses like cancer and Alzheimer’s to athletic ability and a person’s ideal diet. Psynomics’ offering is one of the first psychiatric gene tests on the market. - MSNBC

First off, the human mind is a very complex machine that will never be fully understood even with thousands of years of research. Granted that great progress has been made in the last forty years but that progress is only the very tip top of the iceberg.

Having been through the long trials of a child with mental health issues it is not anything that you would ever want to go through. It’s painful, it’s full of very difficult decisions, and it’s full of many highs and many lows. There is no middle ground when it comes to being the parent of someone that is probably Bipolar. All of the heartaches faced are from the person afflicted with the diagnosis that is not guaranteed and the ones that love them without question. One thing I am certain of is that many well educated people saw my child, diagnosed approximate disorders, missed the medications she needed and missed the overall picture. Standing back after years, if you picked apart the summation of each doctor and psychiatrist she saw you might have the overall picture but it is still a guess. Even to this very day it is a mystery so spitting in a cup is not the tell all diagnosis by any means.

One thing I am certain of is that you can not know what a persons mind is truly all about completely. Spitting in a cup and mailing the results back to your doctor is only one possible piece to the big picture that is the human mind. Our human mind is a jigsaw puzzle of the magnitude that if you spread all of the pieces out end to end it would take millions of light years to reach the end of it and that would only be the first we would ever understand. Assembling the pieces is a challenge we might never find the solution too when all of the pieces can change shape at any point in time. This kind of test is not cast in stone result positive of Bipolar, Alzheimer’s, Dementia or any other mind altering medical condition.

These conditions of the mind are not like being pregnant that chemically changes the entire human bodies chemistry. Don’t ever think that you can diagnose a child or anyone simply by spitting in a cup and sending it off to some lab that has unknown conditions for testing your samples. That is where the dangers of this miss appropriated use of a general knowledge of the bodies DNA and chemical properties can be greatly mistreated.

One of the things that scares me about this type of alleged science is the simple fact that is not regulated or perfected and the possible abuse that it will cast forth on millions of innocent people will never be known. I can literally picture someone thinking their child might be bipolar and rather than spend the time with therapists and doctors they choose the unproven method of spitting in a cup and it becomes biblical results to the parents. Same thing goes for someone that thinks they might have Alzheimer’s disease and spitting in a cup with positive results ends up destroying the future they had as a person.

You can never replace the serious education it takes to actually treat someone with Bipolar conditions. Many of the drugs needed to help someone with symptom’s similar to bipolar have been tested and proven to work for years before actually on the market. In some cases it could be as simple as vitamin deficiencies to help the patient brain chemistry and in others it may take a combination of prescription drugs but being Bipolar is treatable.

What I truly find ironic about this testing by spitting in a cup will be substituted by many as real health care by people without health insurance. That is how this story and diagnosing anyone with a mental health issue will find the abuse of a very willing open unregulated market that does not care what you do with the results as long as your check clears.

Thank you UMASS Medical and Transitions for stabilizing what was once a child diagnosed as possibly Bipolar. The future is far better than the past and true mental health professionals made that possible.

Papamoka

Feel free to link to or borrow this post...


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Say Hello to MSYahoo

When it comes to corporations strong arming their way through any competition Microsoft is King. Once more Microsoft will obliterate yet one more great internet tool for all of us to use and insert themselves as the new messiah of the Internet. All the news about Microsoft buying Yahoo are officially over with the meeting of all the executives to find some common ground to get the deal done.

Pass out the billion dollar paychecks to all the Yahoo executives and wait for your Yahoo email account to suddenly become a Hot Mail account. Latest news from the New York Times on Yahoo being bought out by Microsoft…

Microsoft, Yahoo Execs Finally Meet

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 14, 2008
Filed at 5:42 p.m. ET

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. met with Yahoo Inc. to discuss the software maker's unsolicited takeover bid earlier this week, a breakthrough that could be the first step toward a friendly deal between the two rivals.

The meeting occurred Monday near Yahoo's Sunnyvale headquarters, according to a person familiar with the situation. The person spoke Friday on the condition of not being identified because the preliminary talks haven't been formally disclosed.

No investments bankers attended Monday's meeting, nor was there any discussion about whether Microsoft is willing to raise its offer, initially valued at $44.6 billion, or $31 per share. Yahoo's board already has rejected that bid, arguing the company's Internet franchise is worth more.

Although it's unclear whether Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer and his Yahoo counterpart, Jerry Yang, attended Monday's meeting, senior management from both companies were on hand. - New York Times

I’m doing my best to help out Bill Gates with his latest email tracking software but this situation calls for my full attention and yours as well. Bill sent me a personal email from his old Netscape email account and asked my thoughts on the new name for the former Yahoo. I’ve been scratching my head over it but this is what I have so far.

Yarightthebastid’sofferedusmoremoneythanGodcouldcountwaaahoooo!.com

Msminefuhrerhoo.com

Mswemadethemadealtheycouldnotrefuseboohoo.com

Yawesquashedthemhoo.com

Msborgyouwillbeassimilatedyahoo.com

Micascrewyooo.com

MicroYoowillonlyseewhatwewantyoutoseesoft.com

Yawewillownalloftheinternethoo.com

Let me know if you come up with some other names for the new Microsoft division soon to be formerly known as Yahoo. I’m under a hot deadline because Bill wants to come out with five versions and new releases that will lock up and close you out within the next year.

Papamoka

Cross posted at MichaelLinnJones.com and Bring It ON!

Feel free to link to or borrow this post…

WHAT AN AMIGO THEY HAVE IN GEORGIE

Picture courtesy of the Supreme Court

BY MICHAEL LINN JONES

Bush, Texas at odds over death case reads the headline of this AP article by Mark Sherman.

WASHINGTON - To put it bluntly, Texas wants President Bush to get out of the way of the state's plan to execute a Mexican for the brutal killing of two teenage girls.

Bush, who presided over 152 executions as governor of Texas, wants to halt the execution of Jose Ernesto Medellin in what has become a confusing test of presidential power that the Supreme Court, which hears the case this week, ultimately will sort out.

The president wants to enforce a decision by the International Court of Justice that found the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexican-born prisoners violated their rights to legal help as outlined in the 1963 Vienna Convention.

That is the same court Bush has since said he plans to ignore if it makes similar decisions affecting state criminal laws.

"The president does not agree with the ICJ's interpretation of the Vienna Convention," the administration said in arguments filed with the court. This time, though, the U.S. agreed to abide by the international court's decision because ignoring it would harm American interests abroad, the government said.

I then came across High Court Case Pits Texas Against Bush and International Court of Justiceby Randy Hall of CNSNEWS.COM. There is a little more detail which helps illustrate why this latest action by "The Decider" is so disconcerting.

However, Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, told Cybercast News Service on Monday that the case is intriguing for legal scholars, because it deals with the law on both international and federal levels.

Rulings from the ICJ "are not self-executing," he said, and depend on local and national governments to enforce them.

As a result, the case may turn on the "swing vote" often being cast by Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy and whether he wants the U.S. and the Supreme Court to be thought of highly in other countries. "After all," Shapiro said, "his decision might only result in one more hearing" for Medellin and the other Mexicans facing a death sentence in the U.S.

Nevertheless, Shapiro said that "not only is this a case of federal leaders trying to commandeer state government," it is also an example of "the executive branch trying to tell the judicial branch what to do."

"Ultimately, the ruling should go against the president," he added.

Let us hope so. It is established fact that two teenage girls were kidnapped, repeatedly raped, and then murdered in the most brutal manner. The perpetrators were tried and convicted. Most were sentenced to death as per Texas law. Two had their sentences commuted to life because they were not yet 18 at the time of the crime. Jose Medillin, however, confessed; was convicted, and after 4 years on death row discovered how "Mexican" he was.

There are three avenues being traveled here.

One, exactly how sovereign is the United States if a state's criminal justice system, including its judiciary, is to be determined by a foreign court?

Two, what is an equal protection clause when a foreigner, upon illegally entering the United States commits a crime, and then is entitled to consular assistance IN ADDITION TO the constitutional process guaranteed everyone else?

Three, how intelligent, or dangerous is it for a president to hold the power of dictating to states?

This time, though, the U.S. agreed to abide by the international court's decision because ignoring it would harm American interests abroad, the government said.

"This time, though"..????? Just what the hell does THAT mean? I don't recall reading anything about the inmates at Guantanamo having consular officers assisting them. Nor do I remember anything about consular officers assisting anyone taken to the secret prisons. The Bush administrations reaction to any International Court of Justice condemnation of said programs can be condensed to a simple "kiss off."

The first two questions will be dealt with by lawyers. Their decisions will affect us all but there isn't much we can do, as our "representatives" oversee the installment of the judges who make the final call.

Yet what difference does it make if we have a president who has stuffed Congress into a closet, shredded the Constitution, and declared himself the ONLY one with true decision-making powers? George W. Bush is not concerned with any international court. Nor is he concerned with any domestic court, or state court, or state government. No, he is concerned with placating, once again, the mafiosi who call themselves the Mexican government.

Bear in mind that the Mexican government sued the United States over the treatment of Jose Medillin and 53 other (now, all of the sudden) Mexican citizens on death row.

I believe it was current Mexican President Felipe Calderon who said, “I have said that Mexico does not stop at its border, that wherever there is a Mexican, there is Mexico,” he said. “And, for this reason, the government action on behalf of our countrymen is guided by principles, for the defense and protection of their rights.”

And so also is Mexican justice. Yet what is forgotten in all this are the graves of two teenage girls who were brutally raped, brutally murdered, their bodies left like trash until discovered four days later.

What an inconsiderate inconvenience when the dead cry out for justice from their government. THEIR government, not someone else's.

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Mortgage Broker Bail Out!

Picture courtesy of FHA

Years ago you actually had to qualify for a mortgage and you had better have more than zero down to get a mortgage. The mortgage industry is corrupt and the loans they are qualifying people for are a sham from the start. Federal mortgage insurance is letting them screw over the American people by telling someone that works part time that that person can qualify for a $180,000 mortgage with nothing down. Teaser rates and low entry mortgage payments is no better than stealing candy from every American Baby!

This issue has my blood boiling because my family and I were in fact victims of this crisis. Even though I work full time at a good job and at a decent wage, the wife works part time at a more than decent union wage, we lost our home to the criminals in the mortgage industry. We lost our credit, we lost our pride. We lost our home. Other extenuating circumstances contributed to our situation but the game plan was the same during a refinance of our existing home loan. I take full blame for my own financial stupidity and trusting the people that were supposed to help my family but in the end just buried us.

Over at the Houston Chronicle they have this to say about today’s government bailout created by the used car salesman of the housing industry…

House moves to help struggling homeowners
By MARCY GORDON
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The House today approved a plan to expand federal backing of mortgages in hopes of helping struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure.
The bill, which passed the House, 348-72, would allow the Federal Housing Administration, which insures mortgages for low- and middle-income borrowers, to back refinanced loans for tens of thousands of borrowers who are delinquent on payments because their mortgages are resetting to sharply higher rates from low initial "teaser" levels.

The measure, which exceeds limits favored by the Bush administration, is Congress' first stand-alone bill in response to the mortgage-market tumult of the summer, which came amid a rising tide of defaults and foreclosures. The Senate last week passed spending legislation that includes $200 million to provide aid to nonprofits and other groups that offer counseling and information to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.

House Republicans sharply objected to a $300 million-a-year fund for grants for affordable rental housing and homeownership assistance for low-income families, which would be financed from FHA revenues — a plan also opposed by the Bush administration. But House Republicans mostly were swept along in the vote for the bill, whose overall thrust they endorsed in the face of the mortgage crisis. - Houston Chronicle

Even with the Fed cutting the interest rates one half point it is not going to fix the problems that were created over the last ten plus years by the mortgage brokers of America. All of the schemes and plans to access the lucrative market of housing lending have been played out and for the next three to five years the foreclosures will continue.

I’m sure you know of someone that you can’t believe that they qualified for a mortgage. Maybe a child, a brother or sister, your best friend and the list goes on. What qualified them for the loan was the closing costs that were paid to the people that wrote the loan and sold that same loan within weeks of the closing. Once the loan is sold it is no longer the brokers problem and the commissions made to close the loans are huge!

First they make the kill by luring people in search of the American dream and owning a home. “I can get you into this house and if we have to fudge the numbers a little to get it done, we do what we have to do.” All the potential home owner really heard was “I can get you the loan.” Having the keys to that house is the dream and in that dream comes the people out of the woodwork of that home to make more than a few thousand dollars per loan that they close.

With all the deals that they have they can qualify anyone for a loan and the result is what we are seeing everywhere across America. Bogus adjustable mortgages that reel you in to thinking that you can afford the house payment. No principal payment for X amount of years and the list goes on and on. Everyone qualifies! Or do they? Over at Newsvine.com they have this to say about it…

U.S. Home Foreclosures Soar in August
Tue Sep 18, 2007 6:13 AM EDT

LOS ANGELES — The number of foreclosure filings reported in the U.S. last month more than doubled versus August 2006 and jumped 36 percent from July, a trend that signals many homeowners are increasingly unable to make timely payments on their mortgages or sell their homes amid a national housing slump.

A total of 243,947 foreclosure filings were reported in August, up 115 percent from 113,300 in the same month a year ago, Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac Inc. said Tuesday.
There were 179,599 foreclosure filings reported in July.

The filings include default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions. Some properties might have received more than one notice if the owners have multiple mortgages.

August's total represents the highest number of foreclosure filings reported in a single month since the company began tracking monthly filings two years ago. - Newsvine.com

Getting to the point of my post… Who the hell is screaming for the heads of the Mortgage Corporation’s across America on Capitol Hill? Anyone home? Somebody should call an exterminator for the Congress because there seems to be an infestation of crickets when it comes to the lending industry. I wonder why? Democrat’s and Republican’s both own this mess one hundred and ten percent but the ones that really own this self created crisis is the lending industry. As they walk away from it laughing all the way to their own bank the Congress will spin this as a crisisproblem for the American family. In the end the American tax payer that still has a job and a home will pay for the thievery of gentleman and woman disguised as a mortgage broker in wolf’s clothing.

These predatory lending practices should have been stomped on by the government years ago but they chose to look the other way. Millions of Americans have already lost the American dream and millions more will follow in their footsteps because they never saw the used car salesman standing in front of their future home and dream.

Watch the political spin. It should be pointed at the lending industry but that will never happen because that would point to the people that are supposed to pass the laws to not let this sort of thing happen.

Papamoka

Cross posted at Bring It On!

*****HT Schoem Mortgage has linked to this original post via Bring it On!

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Broken Hearts of Nine Firefighter Families

My heart felt prayers are with the nine families of the Firefighters lost in the fire in South Carolina. Out across the land many of American families will sit down to dinner tonight and Dad will be there. That will not be the case for nine families in South Carolina. When you sit down to your dinner table, say a prayer for those families. Pray for them to get through this difficult time as best they can, pray that they look to one another and embrace one another in grief and mourning knowing that the fallen firefighter in their family was a true hero. Not just any hero but an American hero.

Someone once said that God has no greater love than that of one that looses his own life to save another. I’ll be praying for the families of the lost firefighters. They need all of us now and it is up to all of us to remember the deeds of nine very brave men.

Over at the Washington Post they have this coverage on this tragedy in South Carolina…

S.C. Warehouse Fire Kills 9 Firefighters

By BRUCE SMITH
The Associated PressTuesday, June 19, 2007; 4:19 PM

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Fire swept through a furniture warehouse, collapsing its roof and killing nine firefighters inside _ the nation's deadliest single disaster for firefighters since the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

"Nine brave, heroic, courageous firefighters of the city of Charleston have perished fighting fire in a most courageous and fearless manner, carrying out their duties," Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley said at a morning news conference. "To all of their loved ones, our heart goes out to them." - Washington Post

Just as the nation grieved for the fallen six Firefighters in Worcester, MA we should come together as one people to think and pray for the nine lost in Charleston, South Carolina.

Call your local church and ask that the next service be in their honor. Above all remember to thank your local Firefighters for what they do every single day. When the alarm rings and they go out the door there is always the chance that some of them might never see the fire station or their families again. In Charleston they know that pain all to well today.

From the people of Worcester, MA we send our thoughts and prayers. May God bless them all.

Papamoka

Other folks talking about this tragedy...

The Rev. Chuck Currie