2,996 – Requiem For One Never Met

(For Cynthia Giugliano)

We never had the chance to meet. We lived far apart and traveled in different circles. I know you only through the words of others. Those heartfelt, hurt and longing words of those who did know you and miss you so very much. Words that describe a loyal friend, a respected coworker, a person sorely missed.

We never had the chance to meet. You spent your working hours helping people. You made people around you laugh and were there when a friend needed you. Your friends remember someone who was professional, yet also had a sense of humor. A ready smile and a kind word. The people who knew you can still feel you all about, that is how strong your presence was.

We never had the chance to meet. You left a void within those who knew you. That is both a terrible and a wonderful thing. It is terrible for those who miss you so much but a wonderful tribute to you that you left such an impression behind you. I know you only through the words of others who miss you so much. But those words paint a picture of one I would have been proud to have consider me a friend. May you rest in peace knowing that you are so loved and missed. 

We never had the chance to meet.

How very sad those words are.

2,996 Mirror  here. (Please use this link to view the whole list of tributes. The 2,996 website is crashing due to overload).

Khatami At Harvard

The Boston Herald has an article about former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami's visit to Harvard. There were about 200 protesters outside the hall, and not too much serious grilling for him, although it appears some people did call him on some actions of the government of his country.

Despite his regime’s official U.S. designation as an oppressive sponsor of terrorism, Khatami repeatedly condemned terrorism and extolled democracy. There was little discussion of Iran’s controversial nuclear program or its support for Shiite militias in Iraq.
 
Khatami joined the rest of the audience and stood for a moment of silence for Sept. 11 victims and condemned the attacks as “barbaric and savage acts.”
 
“I express my deepest sympathies with the families of the victims,” he said, those words followed by audience applause.
 
In response to an audience question, he said he wants to see Osama bin Laden captured.
 
“I have my problems with him,” he said. But he criticized the United States for going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 
“My government was in opposition to the way Afghanistan and Iraq were dealt with,” he said. “There are other ways we could have battled dictatorial regimes. Unfortunately, Iraq has turned into a focal point for violence and terrorists.”
 
Khatami faced several pointed questions about Iran’s support for the anti-Israel Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which the United States has branded a terrorist organization.
 
“You’ve said you love Hezbollah,” asked a Harvard senior. “Do you still feel that way today?”
 
Khatami denied Iran had given aid to Hezbollah and painted the terror group as “a symbol of Lebanese resistance.”

His regime still abused and supressed people and his protests ring hollow to my ear. I'm also quite sure some people bought every word he said without question. The difference, of course, is that here he could say what he did without reprecussion. One rather doubts the same freedom of speech is tolerated in his country today. After all, it was not while he was president there.

Oh. My.

I think there might just be a little bit of trouble in paradise right now. I was going to comment on this post by Glenn Reynolds about watching The Path to 9/11. Which is well worth the read. However. I also just caught the "Special" from ABC that followed the broadcast of that film. I saw a, quite frankly, very nervous looking Richard Clarke saying that on three separate occasions the US had missile submarines ready to launch attacks on Osama bin Laden and George Tenet personally called them off.

I am really beginning to wonder why the Clintonistas were so vigorous in trying to kill this television show. I am also wondering why Clarke looked as nervous as he did. And why he dumped all responsibility on Tenet. (I wish I had the expertise to capture his appearance. Hopefully, someone did).

I suspect this little uproar is not even close to being over.

UPDATE: Greetings Instapundit readers! Please do take a look around while you're visiting.

ABC Won’t Cave

As of about twelve minutes from the scheduled start of The Path to 9/11, ABC is still running promos on their website. I suspect the show will go on now. The furious flailing on the left has probably done more to make people watch this "docudrama" than if they had done what the administration did when Michael Moore's hit piece came out.

Ignore it.

Now we'll be treated to several more days of left wing meltdown as they expose their anti-free speech agenda for the entire moderate electorate to see. The results will not be at all what they expected. There will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth, one suspects.

Ground Zero

President and Mrs. Laura Bush placed wreaths at the site of both World Trade Center Towers today. Please maintain a respectful silence for the victims of 9/11.

“If We Pull Out Now It’s All For Naught”

Rich Warner, a wounded veteran of the Iraq war describing why he is against voting for Ned Lamont.

Rich Warner was respectful to U.S. Senate candidate Ned Lamont on Saturday at a picnic in Wallingford and patiently answered all his questions about serving in Mosul, Iraq, last year.

But when it was over, Warner – who fought in Iraq with the U.S. Army 25th Infantry until he was wounded by shrapnel from a roadside bomb in March 2005 – was lukewarm about the encounter.

"I don't agree with him," Warner said, referring to Lamont's position critical of the Iraq war. "We should stay the course. If we pull out now it's all for naught."

That is exactly the problem the anti-war Lamont is up against. People do not want to see the sacrifice wasted. They do not want defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. They do not want people to turn against the troops or what they have done and continue to do. Lamont is also scrambling to defuse the major, major error he made a few days ago.

While Lieberman's staff on Saturday pointed to Lamont's recent criticisms as hypocrisy in light of the 1998 e-mail, Lamont said he stands by its contents.

"Look, I understood the content of his statement. But I would have taken it to the president privately if I had been a friend of his for 30 years," Lamont said Saturday while campaigning at a country fair in Hebron.

He also said he stands by his position that the public rebuke exacerbated the situation.

Good luck with that line. I saw earlier that a few Lamont supporters were going so far as to whine that Lieberman hadn't been fair by releasing that email. You know, violation of privacy and all. Oh dang. Now you find out how it is played in the major leagues instead of in the echo chamber.

Lectures On Tolerance By Thugs

Gateway Pundit has the details on a planned peaceful protest of the "talk" at Harvard by former Iranian president Khatami. You know the one about tolerance. By the guy who violently suppressed student demonstrations for democracy. Yeah, that guy.

Please help spread the word!

Stand in solidarity with fellow students in Iran and hold Khatami accountable for his human rights abuses:

WHO: Leading Iranain activists Ala Khaki and Lily Mazahery, representatives from the Harvard College Democrats and Republicans, and members of the Iran Freedom Concert Coalition.

WHAT: Non-violent student rally outside of the hall where Khatami is speaking.

WHERE: John F. Kennedy Park (next to the Kennedy School of
Government, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138)

WHEN: This Sunday, September 10, at 3:00 p.m

WHY: Students in America, and around the world, have an obligation to stand up for their Iranian counterparts who have been arrested and tortured on Mr. Khatami's orders.

BRING: Signs (both English and Farsi encouraged). Examples include:

"Promote 'dialogue' at home before you lecture us at Harvard"
"Release Ahmed Batebi"
"Civil Rights for All in Iran!"
Bring friends, too!

-Iran Freedom Concert-
Right on, Charles Johnson!

Mitt Romney made the right choice.

Dumb Strategy

Sorry, folks, whoever came up with this particular strategic gem for the Democrats to follow is either crazy or an idiot. Or both.

Rockefeller went a step further. He says the world would be better off today if the United States had never invaded Iraq — even if it means Saddam Hussein would still be running Iraq.

He said he sees that as a better scenario, and a safer scenario, "because it is called the 'war on terror.'"

Does Rockefeller stands by his view, even if it means that Saddam Hussein could still be in power if the United States didn't invade?

"Yes. [Saddam] wasn't going to attack us. He would've been isolated there," Rockefeller said. "He would have been in control of that country but we wouldn't have depleted our resources preventing us from prosecuting a war on terror which is what this is all about."

This is a sure-fired loser. The Democrats, already seen as weak on defense and on terrorists, are now putting spokesmen forward that say they are in favor of thuggish dictators who commit mass murder. There are a lot of ways to criticize a policy you disagree with.

Embracing murderers isn't a smart one.

Tinfoil Dreams

Michelle Malkin has a piece in the New York Post on the raging tinfoil hat brigade of 9/11 denialists who like to call their particular delusions "Truth". Essentially, it is a review of the essential book that effectively and systematically dismantles the "Truther's" arguments, Debunking 9/11 Myths. Not that logic, laws of physics or real facts can make a dent in that particular psychosis, but it can at least inoculate the uninfected from descending into that fever swamp.

I GET several e-mails from 9/11 conspiracy theorists every week, usually typed in all capital letters with minimal punctuation and maximum sputter. Here's a typical message I received last Tuesday: "It appears you are not a believer. So, I have only one question, perhaps, but doubtfully, you can answer. WHY DID BUILDING SEVEN COME DOWN?"

As it happens, Popular Mechanics magazine's new book, "Debunking 9/11 Myths," answers that question concisely – with the caps key off. Among the unhinged fever swamps in academia and on the Internet, there is widespread suspicion that World Trade Center 7 collapsed as a result of a controlled demolition set by Secret Service and CIA agents who had offices there.

Reality check for the Twilight Zoners: Federal investigators and experts believe a combination of massive damage from falling debris plus raging fires led to a progressive collapse of WTC 7, causing structural failures that brought the building down.

Popular Mechanics patiently bats down the paranoid delusions of Bush-bashers and terrorism-deniers who have seized on flimsy evidence and cherry-picked quotes and misquotes to bolster their cockamamie theories.

Read the whole thing, it is vastly entertaining. As always when I discuss this particular topic lately, I'd just like to take a moment to Google Bomb:

Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change,

A Sunny Day In September

On September 9th, 2001, I arrived in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to attend a seminar at Lehigh University. The subject was improving coal power plant efficiency. I was there with two of the engineers who worked for me at the time. It seemed like the subject matter would be useful to us since we were always under pressure to make the plant run better. We got a rental car at the airport and drove into town, making a side trip up to the Lehigh campus, just to scope out where we would be going the next day.

I've always hated business travel, particularly trips that lasted a week, as this one would. I sleep badly in hotels for whatever reason. I wasn't really looking forward to the stay in Bethlehem even though I was looking forward to the seminar, if you understand what I'm saying. But it was a nice enough hotel, not the most expensive, but also not the cheapest. It did have a restaurant and a bar in it, always a plus when you really don't want to drive around a strange city.

On Monday, we attended the first day's session. Basically it ran 8 am to 4 pm every day except Friday when we'd end at noon. There was an enormous amount of material to go over, but the Lehigh professor who was teaching was actually quite good. The sessions were in a bright, airy room, with its own separate greeting area where a snack buffet was set up. The facility also had its own rest rooms, so it was a self-contained area. Like a little world of our own.

Tuesday was a bright, sunny fall day. The temperature was a little bit crisp in the morning, warming up to shirtsleeve temperature as the day passed. The leaves were just beginning to turn, showing the slight tinge that would shortly become the bright riot of color that marks autumn. We were in the seminar by 8 am, cocooned in our bright, airy and yet isolated area. So we never heard any of the news from 80 miles away for quite some time. We never left that little world of ours until after 11am. We didn't know the rest of the world had changed forever that morning.

Sometime after 11 am, we took a break and a few of us decided to walk around a bit. We went outside to enjoy the sunny, beautiful late morning. A young man ran past us and shouted that the World Trade Center had just collapsed, but he just kept running and we couldn't ask him anything. Another dazed looking young man walked by and we asked what was going on. He told us that airplanes had hit both towers and that both had collapsed a short time ago. We went in search of a television. And saw the endlessly repeating images one after another.

And the world changed. Just like that.

They closed the University for the afternoon (they did reopen it the next day). We couldn't leave Bethlehem, of course. There were no flights. So I called my boss, he said just stay and see what happened. We continued to attend the seminar for the rest of the week, but I honestly think that nobody actually learned anything. I can't remember a single thing from the rest of the sessions. By the end of the week, the airport still wasn't open. So we simply cut the last session of the seminar and drove the rental car all the way back to the Midwest with all the other heavy traffic on the interstates. We drove in shifts and went straight through.

China Clamps Down On News Services

The Chinese government has put new regulations into effect on the distribution of news within China. All of the wire services must go through Xinhua or Xinhua authorized entities.

The new measures took effect immediately upon being issued by the state Xinhua News Agency. The regulations give Xinhua broad authority over foreign news agencies, requiring them to distribute stories, photos and other services solely through Xinhua or entities authorized by Xinhua.

The rules would affect The Associated Press, Reuters and other foreign news agencies seeking wider access to the rapidly expanding Chinese market. It was unclear how other news organizations would be affected.

Under a decade-old set of regulations, foreign news agencies were allowed limited distribution of financial data and other information — deals that the new rules appear to rule out.

The tighter restrictions underscore how the Communist Party's political agenda and Xinhua's business interests are coinciding.

We can already be pretty certain that the New York Times will preemptively surrender to these news blackout rules since they have already demonstrated their willingness to obey British laws they are not subject to (even when they misinterpret them). While being above US law, of course.

The Greatest Movie Line Ever?

My blog buddy from Thailand, Agam, just sent me a link to what he calls the greatest movie line ever. He noted all the coverage here about Baron Samedi and the zombies so he naturally thought of this site when he cam across this video clip.

Agam has also tracked down the author of a video clip that made the rounds in the blogosphere a while back. You might want to go read what he has to say. Thanks, Agam!

Another Althouse Thumping

I've read Ann Althouse's blog for a long time. When she delivers a thumping, it is direct, to the point and quite lethal. As is here take today on both The ruckus over The Path to 9/11 and especially to those left wing bloggers calling for hard core suppression of free speech.

Now, why in hell did you look at that? Don't look at that! What repulsive right-wing prurient urge made you want to look at that Limbaugh-style political porn star… Tom Brokaw.

ADDED: And everybody also wants to look at the very parts of the show that most rile its opponents.

MORE: How insanely repressive. You know, mainstream politicians really should worry about bloggers. Ironically, the bad judgment shown by bloggers here is about wishing for hardcore repression of speech, but free speech is our lifeblood!

Clearly Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger, Madeleine Albright and American Airlines have good cause to sue Disney/ABC, the BBC, Australian and New Zealand television, and any local affiliate that broadcasts the show. How can we further help their lawsuit? I think a first step is paying close attention in each country to how the show is being marketed. Get us copies of ads, promotions, etc. that show local broadcasters and others promoting the show as true and non-fiction. How else can we help their suit?

Oh, yeah, bloggers really ought to want to encourage lawsuits by public figures who think something inaccurate has been said about them. This is the worst case of myopia I've seen in my years of blogging. You guys are complete idiots.

Do read the whole thing. It is pure art.

UPDATE: Thanks to Ann Althouse for linking back to this post. It really was art.. Also, do not miss Sister Toldjah on this, well worth the read.

They Act Like This Is A Good Thing

The Associated Press has an article about the reemergence of lake sturgeon in the Great Lakes. They write about it in glowing terms and say scientists are encouraged by these developments.

Sturgeon — prized for its caviar and smoked meat — are slowly starting to make a comeback in areas where water quality has improved. The fish, which are protected in just about every state where they're found, were overfished and nearly disappeared in the early 1900s despite being so abundant on Lake Erie that they were burned for fuel in steamships.

Many obstacles — from poachers to polluters — remain before efforts to restore the sturgeon population will allow them to be fished in more than a handful of waters.

"The biggest problem is we have dams on nearly every spawning river," said Douglas Peterson, a fisheries researcher at the University of Georgia.

The dams limit how far sturgeon can swim upstream to find a spawning site. And it's doubtful that dams built to provide drinking water and electricity will be removed.

Sturgeon also are coveted by poachers who sell their pricey caviar eggs on the black market. Wildlife officers in California broke up a ring in June that netted poaching charges against 17 suspects.

In Wisconsin, volunteers line the rivers near Lake Winnebago during the spring spawning season to protect the sturgeon and their eggs from poachers.

What makes the sturgeon so appealing to environmentalists and anglers is their size and appearance.

They're covered with bony plates and often called "living fossils." There are nine species in North America, and at least one can be found in most states. The Atlantic sturgeon can grow up to 800 pounds while the lake sturgeon can grow to 200 pounds.

And they can live more than 100 years on the bottoms of rivers, which is why they have been able to survive as a species despite pollution and other threats.

What they aren't telling the public is the danger these prehistoric monsters present when they turn themselves into a fishy cruise missile! Just wait until the reports of wounded boaters start coming in! Then it won't be so encouraging.

Just Explain How

One of the familiar talking points the Democrats are using right now is about how the administration has not caught Osama bin Laden. They love to invoke Tora Bora and the missed opportunity to kill him there. They also say they will get him if they get elected.

Maybe that would be more than a talking point for generating sound bites if they'd just explain how they intend to do it.

The Washington Post has a long article that explains the difficulties involved in hunting down a single man in a remote area. There are a number of gratuitous swipes at the administration, but overall it details a lot of the almost insurmountable problems this kind of hunt entails.

But in the last three months, following a request from President Bush to "flood the zone," the CIA has sharply increased the number of intelligence officers and assets devoted to the pursuit of bin Laden. The intelligence officers will team with the military's secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and with more resources from the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies.

The problem, former and current counterterrorism officials say, is that no one is certain where the "zone" is.

"Here you've got a guy who's gone off the net and is hiding in some of the most formidable terrain in one of the most remote parts of the world surrounded by people he trusts implicitly," said T. McCreary, spokesman for the National Counterterrorism Center. "And he stays off the net and is probably not mobile. That's an extremely difficult problem."

Intelligence officials think that bin Laden is hiding in the northern reaches of the autonomous tribal region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. This calculation is based largely on a lack of activity elsewhere and on other intelligence, including a videotape, obtained exclusively by the CIA and not previously reported, that shows bin Laden walking on a trail toward Pakistan at the end of the battle of Tora Bora in December 2001, when U.S. forces came close but failed to capture him.

Many factors have combined in the five years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to make the pursuit more difficult. They include the lack of CIA access to people close to al-Qaeda's inner circle; Pakistan's unwillingness to pursue him; the reemergence of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan; the strength of the Iraqi insurgency, which has depleted U.S. military and intelligence resources; and the U.S. government's own disorganization.

Part of the problem with anything of this nature is the fact that there are several bureaucracies involved. Nominally, these are part of the executive branch, but in actuality they operate with their own built-in way of doing things and their career bureaucrats. Political appointees come and go. One only has to look at the disastrous failures within the CIA over many administrations to understand that. If you read through this article and discount the statements that are patently bureaucratic infighting, you come away with a picture of a monumental task.

Then try to explain how you would do it differently. Justify your answer.