10.07.06
Posted in Politics, 9/11, War on Terrorism at 11:38 am by JB
Everytime I hear this “we’re creating more terrorists” stuff, I think immediately of Pat Tillman. Remember him ?
This is a guy who turned down just over a million a year to join the Army after 9/11. I know that there is some controversy about his actual war views, but it does make me wonder…. after those jackass backwards bastards hit us on 9/11, how many people in this country soon thereafter joined/re-joined the military to try and save these countries from themselves ?
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09.15.06
Posted in Humor, 9/11 at 3:13 pm by JB
Just read this whole thing and watch where it goes…. (by the way, I agree about cell phones):
I HATE CELL PHONES.
Well, hate is probably too strong a word.
No, it’s not. I hate them.
I know they’ve become as essential for all of us as deodorant and bottled water, and that without our phones, we would all sit very still for half a minute or so, then begin drumming our fingers, then roll our necks a couple of times, take a deep breath in and out, quietly whistle a bar or two of “Arriverderci, Roma,” then suddenly vault up, screaming, and dive out the nearest tenth story window.
The ones who astonish me are the people who wear hidden, hearing-aid-sized models and strut down the street yakking to no one and looking for all the world like escaped mental patients. (By the way, do we even have mental patients who escape anymore? If so, do guards in all-white uniforms still chase them down with butterfly nets? You know, where by the time they catch the guy he’s already talked himself into being the head of Ford or something? And everyone’s shocked to find out he was just crazy? On the other hand, maybe that explains why they made a car called the “Probe.”)
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09.12.06
Posted in Unhinged, 9/11, Alex Jones at 3:28 pm by JB
Alex Jones is right, because Hugo Chavez agrees with him.
President Hugo Chavez said Tuesday that it’s at least plausible that the U.S. government was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Chavez did not specifically accuse the U.S. government of having a hand in the Sept. 11 attacks, but rather suggested that theories of U.S. involvement bear examination.
The Tinfoil-Hat Society can open their Venezuelan branch office now.
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Posted in Unhinged, 9/11 at 2:52 pm by JB
Sonny Bunch (great name) takes on a book meant to debunk the conspiracy theories.
The conspiracy theories are legion: the twin towers were brought down by a controlled demolition and not airplanes; the towers were brought down by airplanes, but the airplanes were laden with explosives; the Pentagon was struck not by a passenger jet, but by a missile; United Flight 93 did not crash, but was shot down by an F-16. All of these theories incorporate tiny pieces of “evidence” (or the absence of evidence) and lead to the same conclusion: that a massive conspiracy was orchestrated by a shadowy faction of the United States government in order to draw the country into a global conflict with Islam.
Evidently Popular Mechanics has done the heavy lifting to crunch these conspiracy kooks.
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09.11.06
Posted in General, 9/11 at 6:58 pm by JB
From a DNC email I got today:
Today we remember many things.
We remember where we were. We remember the scenes on television.
We remember the victims who were murdered. We remember the families and loved ones they left behind.
We remember the heroes who charged into danger to save lives.
We remember a moment of unity at home and around the world, where people rallied around a single mission and a common sense of justice that must be done.
Today we face many challenges at home and abroad. And too often it’s too easy to be distracted by the politics, the pundits, and the posturing.
We must always remember that the dangers we face know no political party, and the solutions and leadership we need now go beyond ideology.
We must meet these challenges head-on — remembering to stand together in action as we live together under threat. We are all Americans.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
We will not be silent.
Today we remember many things.
And tomorrow, back on the campaign trail, we will remember to take with us the plain truth and a commitment to true justice for all those whose lives were transformed on this day five years ago.
Thank you.
Governor Howard Dean, M.D.
Well said, doctor. Well said.
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Posted in Politics, 9/11, War on Terrorism at 4:58 pm by JB
First time I’ve seen this, but it’s worth reading in toto. (All emphasis mine)
My friends, it’s time to face a hard, cold fact. Militant Islam wants to kill us just because we’re alive and don’t believe as they do. They’ve been killing us for decades. So it’s time to stop pretending these terrorist incidents are mere episodic events and face the reality that our way of life is in grave danger. This threat is not just going to go away because we choose to ignore it. Some say we should try diplomacy. Yeah, well, tell me, how do we negotiate with people whose starting point is our death? Ask them to wait for ten years before they kill us? When good negotiates with evil, evil will always win and peace follows victory, not words issued by diplomats. But some Americans, sadly, not interested in victory, and yet they want us to believe that their behavior is patriotic.
Well, it’s not. When the critics are more interested in punishing this country over a few incidents at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay than they are in defeating those who want to kill us; when they seek to destroy a foreign surveillance program which is designed to identify those who want to kill us and how they intend to do it; when they want to grant those who want to kill us U.S. constitutional rights, I don’t call that patriotic. Patriotism is rallying behind the country, regardless of party affiliation to defeat Islamofascism. Patriotism is supporting our troops in the battlefield, not undermining the mission and morale. Let there be no doubt about this: America will prevail. We’re the same country that survived a bloody civil war, defeated the Nazis and the Soviets. Each generation has a responsibility to the next, our generation will not disappoint.
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Posted in Politics, 9/11, War on Terrorism, Democrats at 4:45 pm by JB
Byron York of NRO wrote this a while back. It’s a good thing to remember. It also bolsters the “docu-drama” that everyone has their panties in a twist about. The summation:
Clinton then asked, “What do I need to do to be first tier?” “I said, ‘You can’t,’“ [pollster Dick] Morris remembers. “‘You have to win a war.’“ Clinton then asked what he needed to do to make the second or third tier, and Morris outlined three goals. The first was successful welfare reform. The second was balancing the budget. And the third was an effective battle against terrorism. “I said the only one of the major goals he had not achieved was a war on terrorism,” Morris says. (This is not a recent recollection; Morris also described the conversation in his 1997 book, Behind the Oval Office.)
But Clinton never began, much less finished, a war on terrorism. Even though Morris’s polling showed the poll-sensitive president that the American people supported tough action, Clinton demurred. Why?
“He had almost an allergy to using people in uniform,” Morris explains. “He was terrified of incurring casualties; the lessons of Vietnam were ingrained far too deeply in him. He lacked a faith that it would work, and I think he was constantly fearful of reprisals.” But there was more to it than that. “On another level, I just don’t think it was his thing,” Morris says. “You could talk to him about income redistribution and he would talk to you for hours and hours. Talk to him about terrorism, and all you’d get was a series of grunts.”
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Posted in 9/11 at 2:33 pm by JB
Today is 5-years…. This is Jonah’s take at one. Have a lil’ taste.
Let’s face it. It wasn’t all funereal bagpipers, terror alerts, and the righteous boom of the arsenal of democracy in far-off lands. I still get chuckle when I think about the special-forces troops who modified their standard headgear for urban warfare. While storming a nest of al Qaeda members in downtown Kabul, the good guys donned New York Yankee caps for a little payback from the Big Apple. And, truth be told, I still grin whenever I hear President Bush talk about “getting the evildoers” because, from the way he says it, I always hear “getting the evil Dewar’s”; “We’re going to find the evil Dewar’s”; “When it comes to the evil Dewar’s, there’s no place to hide…,” etc. Don’t even get me started on Johnny Walker.
…
Consider Mohammed Atta who had the intestinal fortitude to carve up innocent men and women in order to crash a plane into more innocent men and women, but who went to his grave shaking with terror that a woman might touch his man-panties, even after he died.
Classic G-File.
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Posted in Politics, 9/11, War on Terrorism at 1:51 pm by JB
and checks it twice. He also has a little advice for civilization.
In the past five years, I have either registered or witnessed or protested at or simply “observed” the following:
(1) The reopening of a restaurant in Bali, where several dozen Australian holidaymakers and many Indonesian civilians had earlier been torn to shreds. (2) The explosion of a bomb at a Tube station in London which is regularly used by two of my children. (3) The murder of a senior Shiite cleric outside his place of worship in Iraq. (4) The attempt to destroy the Danish economy–and to torch Danish embassies and civilians–as a consequence of the publication of a few caricatures in the Danish press. (5) The murder of the U.N. envoy to Baghdad: a heroic Brazilian named Sergio Vieira de Mello, as vengeance (according to his murderers) for his role in shepherding East Timor to independence. (6) The near-successful attempt to blow up the Indian parliament in New Delhi, and two successful attempts to disrupt the commerce and society of Mumbai. (7) The destruction of the Golden Dome in Samara: a place of aesthetic as well as devotional importance. (8) The bombing of ancient synagogues in Tunisia, Turkey and Morocco. (9) The evisceration in the street of a Dutch filmmaker, Theo van Gogh, and the lethal threats that drove his Somali-born colleague, a duly elected member of the Dutch parliament, into hiding and then exile. (10) The ritual slaughter on video of a Jewish reporter for this newspaper.
This list is not exhaustive or in any special order, and it does not include any of the depredations undertaken by the votaries of the Iranian version of Islamic fundamentalism. I shall just say that I have stood, alone or in company, with Hindus, Jews, Shiites and secularists (my own non-sectarian group) in the face of a cult of death that worships suicide and exalts murder and desecration.
Read it all, of course.
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09.08.06
Posted in Politics, Television, Unhinged, 9/11, 2006 Races, Democrats at 4:42 pm by JB
The Dem leadership in the Senate is threatening the broadcast license of ABC if they air that movie…
September 7, 2006
Mr. Robert A. Iger
President and CEO
The Walt Disney Company
500 South Buena Vista Street
Burbank CA 91521
Dear Mr. Iger,
We write with serious concerns about the planned upcoming broadcast of The Path to 9/11 mini-series on September 10 and 11. Countless reports from experts on 9/11 who have viewed the program indicate numerous and serious inaccuracies that will undoubtedly serve to misinform the American people about the tragic events surrounding the terrible attacks of that day. Furthermore, the manner in which this program has been developed, funded, and advertised suggests a partisan bent unbecoming of a major company like Disney and a major and well respected news organization like ABC. We therefore urge you to cancel this broadcast to cease Disney’s plans to use it as a teaching tool in schools across America through Scholastic. Presenting such deeply flawed and factually inaccurate misinformation to the American public and to children would be a gross miscarriage of your corporate and civic responsibility to the law, to your shareholders, and to the nation.
The Communications Act of 1934 provides your network with a free broadcast license predicated on the fundamental understanding of your principle obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest. Nowhere is this public interest obligation more apparent than in the duty of broadcasters to serve the civic needs of a democracy by promoting an open and accurate discussion of political ideas and events.
Disney and ABC claim this program to be based on the 9/11 Commission Report and are using that assertion as part of the promotional campaign for it. The 9/11 Commission is the most respected American authority on the 9/11 attacks, and association with it carries a special responsibility. Indeed, the very events themselves on 9/11, so tragic as they were, demand extreme care by any who attempt to use those events as part of an entertainment or educational program. To quote Steve McPhereson, president of ABC Entertainment, “When you take on the responsibility of telling the story behind such an important event, it is absolutely critical that you get it right.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA !!!!
This is ridiculous, and the almost reflexive action to protect the legacy of Clinton, and to protect their own electoral potential, is hilarious. I think the boy-who-cried-wolf routine has been played enough by these idiots.
Frankly, that ABC and Disney would consider airing a program that could be construed as right-wing political propaganda on such a grave and important event involving the security of our nation is a discredit both to the Disney brand and to the legacy of honesty built at ABC by honorable individuals from David Brinkley to Peter Jennings. Furthermore, that Disney would seek to use Scholastic to promote this misguided programming to American children as a substitute for factual information is a disgrace.
Could be constued…. I could construe everything Jennings every did as left-wing, and quite a bit of Disney/ABC policy is left-wing…
Sincerely,
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid
Assistant Democratic Leader Dick Durbin
Senator Debbie Stabenow
Senator Charles Schumer
Senator Byron Dorgan
Yeah…. those are some reasonable people. Surprised Durbin didn’t equate the Disney and ABC executives to Pol Pot.
This is getting funnier by the day.
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Posted in Politics, 9/11, Democrats, Media Morons at 12:32 pm by JB
Just occured to me… Disney/ABC is notoriously liberal, and yet they are putting this movie out…. Now, follow me here….
Most objective observers have said that the Clinton and Bush administrations both are hit pretty hard in this thing. (As well they should be- both could have done better to prevent terrorism.)
However, only the Democrats are raising holy-hell about it…. or at least they are the only ones getting media attention. Republicans are responding to the silliness of it all, at times to the point of pettiness.
Is it possible, could it be, that this is just a huge setup to:
- entice the GOP and it’s defenders into looking a little childish
- let the DNC get out their talking points CONSTANTLY
When the entire plan all along was to:
- drum up interest in the film
- remove the parts critical of the Clintonites leaving only the anti-Bush parts
- producing the near-guarantee that everyone will want to watch it to see how it turns out
Hence, leaving them with 6 hrs of Bush-bashing ? Just a potential theory.
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Posted in 9/11 at 11:59 am by JB
Going on over at brain-terminal, called Crystal Morning. Bravo !
I expect a lot of things like this in the coming days, but I’d wager few (if any) will be done better.
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Posted in Politics, 9/11, Democrats at 10:13 am by JB
I don’t want to get too deep in the weeds on this ABC 9/11 movie, The Path to 9/11, but I have to giggle everytime I read stuff like this:
At a question-and-answer session following a screening last month in Washington, D.C., Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democratic member of the 9/11 Commission, challenged the film’s authenticity. “There was no incident like the one portrayed,” he said of the scene in which Berger vetoes the bin Laden operation. He also objected to the negative portrayal of Albright: “I was disturbed by that aspect of it.”
First, Ben-Veniste is hardly an objective player. Second, I love it when these Clintonites go bonkers, and then pin their hopes on what Sandy Berger told the 9/11 commission. This is, once again, the same Berger who removed unknown documents from the National Archives and stored them in his drawers (not the kind in a desk, the kind in your pants).
Isn’t that a bit like trying to clear Nixon by relying on the 18-1/2 minutes of missing tape ?
UPDATE: Morgan Freeberg has a good solid analysis.
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09.06.06
Posted in Politics, Television, 9/11 at 1:02 pm by JB
on the back-story of this documentary than in the documentary itself.
An upcoming TV mini-series about the origins of the Sept. 11 plot is provoking angry complaints from Democrats about the portrayal of the Clinton administration’s response to terrorism.
Methinks thou dost protest too much.
My favorite parts involve our good friend Sandy Berger.
A statement from Samuel “Sandy” Berger, who was national security adviser to President Bill Clinton at the time, calls the scenes involving him “complete fabrications.”
…
“The incidents depicted did not happen,” said Berger in the statement. “They are not contained in the Sept. 11 Commission report, which is the most authoritative review of the events before and after the attack.”
Is this the same 9/11 commission that didn’t get to review the documents Berger stuck down his pants and subsequently “lost” ?
The film does paint a rather unflattering portrait of the incoming Bush administration — showing how they demoted White House counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke, and failed to act against al-Qaida even after their responsibility for the November 2000 attack on the USS Cole became clear.
Not even sure what this means. Who was president in November of 2000 again ? For that matter, what administration and campaign made the results of the 2000 election unclear for almost 40 days ? Was that the distraction that prevented any response to the Cole attack ? I love watching the Clintonites squirm.
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Posted in Unhinged, 9/11, Alex Jones at 11:43 am by JB
What exactly qualifies someone to be a “leading academic” ?
The 9/11 terrorist attack on America which left almost 3,000 people dead was an “inside job”, according to a group of leading academics.
Around 75 top professors and leading scientists believe the attacks were puppeteered by war mongers in the White House to justify the invasion and the occupation of oil-rich Arab countries.
But this is the “jump the shark” passage….
The group also maintains World Trade Centre 7 - a neighbouring building which caught fire and collapsed later in the day - was only partially damaged but had to be destroyed because it housed a clandestine CIA station.
Koo-koo…. koo-koo….
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09.04.06
Posted in Politics, Television, 9/11, Media Morons at 11:21 pm by JB
Some CBS affiliates are afraid to show a 9/11 documentary because of potential reprecussions from the FCC.
Broadcasters say the hesitancy of some CBS affiliates to air a powerful Sept. 11 documentary next week proves there’s been a chilling effect on the First Amendment since federal regulators boosted penalties for television obscenities after Janet Jackson’s breast was exposed at a Super Bowl halftime show.
Can these clowns really not see the difference between a documentary on the most deadly terrorist attack in this country’s history, and Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson showing titties to spice up the Super Bowl ? I mean really…. this is just silly.
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