9/11 Memorial

There will never be enough tears for that horrible day on September 11, 2001. The beautiful waterfalls on the footprint of each tower and the names of each person lost will never bring them back. NEVER. The water falling over those beautifully built memorial decorations will never match the amount of tears cried. When you think of the actual intent of the attack on America it was a political mental masturbation by one person that corrupted an entire religion for the sake of what he personally thought God wanted. In reality, it was two political systems sick that used to be in cahoots with one another and they were simply tired of dealing with each other. The two sides could no longer work together and then became enemies. ALL POLITICS!

The end result was thousands of innocent lives lost on 9/11 that will live on in American history as a reason to fight extremist of every kind. Our nation has paid a heavy price for our vengeance and those days need to end. We need to move forward and stop paying the vengeance forward with our military sons and daughters. We as a nation do not need to fight the war that is thousands of years old of who killed who's goat that has been going on for over a millennium in the Middle East.

There was a mindset in this country several generation ago in law enforcement when it came to the Gangster Wars. They make our jobs easier if they keep killing each other. And in the words of Ule Brenner as the Pharo in the classic movie The Ten Commandments, "So let it be written and so let it be done. We need to get out of the Middle East and back in touch with the people of America. Our nations resources in law enforcement do not need to forget the mission but our troops need to come home. Ten years is enough. Let them settle tribe differences the way they have always done. Vengeance, and more vengeance, and more vengeance, and more vengeance. It is a way of life in their countries. It is not ours. That is not the American way. Never has been and never should be.

I have a little watched link in the sidebar that counts the number of troops that have been killed since these two wars started that you should look at. Add it to your own site if you like. It scares me that the number keeps growing and the end result is that nothing will ever change if the mentality of revenge keeps existing. You can not change a culture that is refusing to accept change. You can not bomb or kill enough people where the culture that you are fighting only sees that a reason for revenge. It has never happened as the result of war. Never. And it never will.

For all of my friends that have a close six degree of separation to 9/11, you are in my thoughts and prayers. For all the military families that have lost a loved one, you are in my prayers also. One thought that keeps coming back to my mind is that I can never forget all of the innocents killed on that day. I just can't get that out of my head. Call me stupid for thinking that enough blood has been shed for a goat killed 1000 years ago. But I think we all can say that the leader of the extremist group has been taken out, the leader of Iraq has been taken out, and the leadership Taliban in Afghanistan has been taken out? What left is to be done? Can we get the hell out of there now? Or do we have to bring Jesus Christ back to make it an okay plan that is acceptable to all political faction to get the hell out of the Middle East?

God bless all of the souls of the fire fighters, police, and all of the other first responders that went in where everyone else was running out that paid the ultimate price for saving another persons life. For all the innocents lost to a madman and his quest for revenge I pray for eternal peace for your souls. Rest in peace and dance with Kings.

Papamoka

Eve of Destruction

Today we honor all of those lost on this day back on September 11, 2001. We also should pay tribute to all the men and woman serving in our nations military that paid the ultimate price for our freedom from terrorists on 9/11. On this day of all days there is no difference of political opinion when it comes to the thousands of lives lost in our nation on 9/11. We all lost a piece of ourselves that day with the cowardly attack on our citizens. Many of us are far less than six degrees of separation from someone that died that day. Too many of us.

My heart and prayers go out to all the families who lost a loved one in New York in the World Trade Center Towers, to the families of all the firefighters and police that ran toward the burning building rather than away from it only to loose their lives in the collapse. To the families that lost a loved one in the Pentagon, to the families that lost a loved one in the countryside of Pennsylvania, and to the families that had loved ones on all of those hijacked planes. I offer my humble thoughts and prayers.

Video Link



What we can all be proud of is the amazing ability of this nation to heal from its wounds but never forget. That is something we need to remind ourselves over and over again my friend. Politics aside, we need one another as Americans, as neighbors, and as an extended family to survive an ever changing world.

Papamoka

One last thought, if you were thinking this was a political post it isn’t. May Osama Bin Laden rot in Hell for eternity! I think we can all agree on that.

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…

George Orwell was Right!

Picture courtesy of The White House

Now that President Cheney… I mean Bush, has the nation firmly embracing the mentality of fear in his roll as Big Brother… I mean as our President, we should all sleep better at night. Snug in our beds while surveillance cameras keep a watchful eye out for terrorists committing acts of terror and running a yellow light at three in the morning.

Billions of tax dollars are being wasted by the Department of Homeland Security with a vast conspiracy theory that everywhere you look the terrorists are going to pop out and get you. The Boogie Man could only have dreamed of having a public relations campaign like these guys have worked up.

With FDR rolling over in his grave at a couple of thousand RPM’s a minute, Bush has succeeded in making us all for the most part live in fear simply because he thinks that we should. The only thing we have to fear is…(insert Bush tag line here) __________!

Over at the Boston Globe they have this interesting point of our governments efforts to protect us all…

US doles out millions for street cameras
Local efforts raise privacy alarms

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff August 12, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The Department of Homeland Security is funneling millions of dollars to local governments nationwide for purchasing high-tech video camera networks, accelerating the rise of a "surveillance society" in which the sense of freedom that stems from being anonymous in public will be lost, privacy rights advocates warn.

Snip

In the last month, cities that have moved forward on plans for surveillance networks financed by the Homeland Security Department include St. Paul, which got a $1.2 million grant for 60 cameras for downtown; Madison, Wis., which is buying a 32-camera network with a $388,000 grant; and Pittsburgh, which is adding 83 cameras to its downtown with a $2.58 million grant.

Small towns are also getting their share of the federal money for surveillance to thwart crime and terrorism.

Recent examples include Liberty, Kan. (population 95), which accepted a federal grant to install a $5,000 G2 Sentinel camera in its park, and Scottsbluff, Neb. (population 14,000), where police used a $180,000 Homeland Security Department grant to purchase four closed-circuit digital cameras and two monitors, a system originally designed for Times Square in New York City. - Boston Globe

This story reminds me of yet another one from ten or twenty years ago where the FBI infiltrated a local KKK organization to keep an eye on them. While the surveillance went on for months it was later reported that in the local group that they were keeping a close eye on there was actually only one or two members that were not undercover FBI agents. My point in mentioning this little story is that whenever we put total trust in our agencies to protect us they inevitably screw it up or are over zealous with their efforts.

I’ve always been a firm believer that there is no better deterrent to crime than a person in a police uniform patrolling the community we live in. Pick a city or pick a state and where there is a strong police presence crime goes down. There is not a camera out there that will ever stop a crime from happening but a uniformed police officer can. All of the money that Homeland Security spends on surveillance cameras on our streets could actually pay for several years worth of police officers salaries.

What’s next on the Bush/Cheney doctrine to protect us from the terrorists is American Blue and Grey uniforms so authorities can more easily spot the terrorists amongst us. If George Orwell only knew.

Papamoka

Cross posted at Gun Toting Liberal

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Professor Fired for being an Idiot?

Picture courtesy of University of Colorado

I should start off by first saying that I think Ward Churchill is a self serving intellectual moron that thinks that there are no consequences for his own words. It comes as no surprise to me that the man was fired not for saying that the victims of 9/11 were Nazis but for negligence in his duty as a professor to his students and college trust.

Over at the New York Times they have this to say about the Professor with an “I am so wicked smart” attitude….

Colorado Regents Vote to Fire a Controversial Professor
By DAN FROSCH
Published: July 25, 2007

BOULDER, Colo., July 24 — After more than two years of public tumult, the University of Colorado Board of Regents voted Tuesday to fire a professor whose remarks about the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks led to a national debate on free speech. But it was the professor’s problems with scholarship that the board cited as the cause for his termination.

The professor, Ward L. Churchill, was dismissed on the ground that he had committed academic misconduct by plagiarizing and falsifying parts of his scholarly research.

The board voted 8 to 1 to dismiss Professor Churchill.

“We wanted to do what was right for this university,” the board chairwoman, Patricia Hayes, said after the vote. “We did not address Professor Churchill’s freedom of speech as part of our discussion.”

The university president, Hank Brown, who recommended that the board fire Professor Churchill, said he deserved to lose his job because he had “falsified history” and “fabricated history.”

At a news conference after the decision, Professor Churchill, who cut a dramatic figure with his mane of gray-black hair, towering frame and dark sunglasses, criticized the process by which he was fired.

“I am going nowhere,” Professor Churchill said. “If there is a question in anyone’s mind to the political nature of the Regents, this should resolve it.”

He continued, “All this did was confirm what it was in the first place about the nature of the academic process and lack of integrity within this institution as a whole.”

Professor Churchill, a tenured faculty member at Colorado since 1991 who became chairman of the department of ethnic studies, caused an uproar when he criticized United States foreign policy in a 2001 essay written shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, characterizing some of the office workers killed in the World Trade Center as “little Eichmanns,” a reference to the Nazi Adolf Eichmann, who helped carry out the Holocaust. - New York Times

Ward Churchill thinks and believes that he is being fired based on his 9/11 statements and it could be argued that he just might be. Being a Professor at the University of Colorado grants you an audience of young minds that are not just there to be coerced into one professors ideology. Those students have parents that want their children educated with the highest of standards in mind. If my children attended the school I would question the professors teaching and the schools leadership based on such remarks.

Yes, Professor Churchill called the victims of 9/11 Nazis which I disagree with entirely for the record. Freedom of speech lets you do that sort of thing here in America. BUTT, (Big Old Hairy Butt) if you or I said that in our daily jobs, would your employer not look into what else you have said in the past? That is what the University of Colorado did and what do you know there just happened to be more than enough evidence to fire him for multiple reasons.

I was trying to think of why the University of Colorado would fire him given the controversy around him and all I can think of is money. This particular university is no different than any other in America and they all rely heavily on repeat business from their own alumni. If the alumni do not support the University with private donations as well as sending their children to the school then it gets real tough to pay the bills to keep the school going?

I’m thinking that Joe Q. Public that owns a corporation called ABC Widgets is not going to want his companies name on the same stationary as a professor that calls one of our nations greatest tragedies a self inflicted wound because they were Nazi’s? This professor was fired for being an idiot that thought he was better than his employer. The interests of his employer have never entered this mans mind in my opinion. Companies fire people that do that all the time and the University of Colorado finally served Professor Churchill his pink slip.

You can’t teach common sense at any school, it has to be learned the old fashioned way.

Apparently, the Professor was a little deficient in that department. Now that he is free and clear of the bonds of the University of Colorado he can scream at the moon what he thinks. In his mind, maybe the moon will listen and bow to his brilliant intellect.

Pack your desk and don’t let the door hit you in the ass Ward!

Papamoka

Follow up article from Newsweek...

Former FISA Judge Slams Bush

Picture courtesy of Smithsonian NMAH

Finally, there is someone other than the press and the blogosphere questioning President Bush use of warrantless wire taps. Who better than a former judge of the court that used to approve wire taps to speak out on this issue?

Even though the warrantless wire taps were labeled by the courts as technically illegal without the courts approval the President to this day uses them at his own discretion because the laws of the courts do not apply to him.

Over at the Washington Post they have this to say about it…

Ex-Surveillance Judge Criticizes Warrantless Taps

By Michael J. Sniffen
Associated Press
Sunday, June 24, 2007; Page A07

A federal judge who used to authorize wiretaps in terrorism and espionage cases criticized yesterday President Bush's decision to order warrantless surveillance after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"We have to understand you can fight the war [on terrorism] and lose everything if you have no civil liberties left when you get through fighting the war," said Royce C. Lamberth, a U.S. District Court judge in Washington and a former presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, speaking at the American Library Association's annual convention.
Lamberth, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan, expressed his opposition to letting the executive branch decide on its own which people to spy on in national security cases.

The judge said it is proper for executive branch agencies to conduct such surveillance. "But what we have found in the history of our country is that you can't trust the executive," he said.
"The executive has to fight and win the war at all costs. But judges understand the war has to be fought, but it can't be at all costs," Lamberth said at the Washington Convention Center. "We still have to preserve our civil liberties. Judges are the kinds of people you want to entrust that kind of judgment to more than the executive." - Washington Post

Can we get an Amen from the choir?

President Bush using warrantless wire taps for expedience purposes was blown out of the water by Judge Lamberth when on 9/11 the darkest day of this century he approved FIVE warrants during the commute from his home to the court. Is that not quick enough for President Bush?

Papamoka