since I haven't used this picture in the past week:



Anthrax victim's widow says government may know who killed husband

Nearly five years after Bob Stevens' death, the first in the anthrax attacks that terrified a nation, "I want to know what happened," his widow, who's sued the government, said Wednesday from her lawyer's office. "I want to go into court and find out what happened. What information's obviously there. The truth is there."

Bob Stevens of Lantana, a photo editor for Boca Raton-based tabloid The Sun, died in October 2001, after he apparently opened mail laced with the deadly substance.

The government said in February of 2002 that it had a "short list" of 18 to 20 people who had the knowledge, equipment, access, and motive to obtain and "weaponize" anthrax. Richard Schuler, Stevens' attorney, said Wednesday it might be fewer than a dozen.
...
And she and families of the other four people confirmed killed by anthrax met with the agency in Washington in November of last year.

Stevens said the agents told the families they were getting close to solving the case and that she felt positive after that meeting. But, she said Wednesday, "it was just lip service. I don't want to say things like this, but I do feel that."

And Schuler said, "To only get with families once in five years, and to give what's only window dressing, I believe is a disgrace."

- rob 1:03 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Yesterday we linked to the study.

In the post below we link to the video.

It looks like this finally may be getting some press:

Princeton prof hacks e-vote machine - Security - MSNBC.com

TRENTON, N.J. - A Princeton University computer science professor added new fuel Wednesday to claims that electronic voting machines used across much of the country are vulnerable to hacking that could alter vote totals or disable machines.

In a paper posted on the university's Web site, Edward Felten and two graduate students described how they had tested a Diebold AccuVote-TS machine they obtained, found ways to quickly upload malicious programs and even developed a computer virus able to spread such programs between machines.
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The machine Felten tested, obtained in May from an undisclosed source, was the same type used across Maryland in its primary election Tuesday, according to Ross Goldstein, a deputy administrator with the state's Board of Elections.

- rob 11:49 AM - [PermaLink] -

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A demonstration you have to see:



YouTube - Experts Easily Reverse Diebold Results & No One Would Know

- rob 11:45 AM - [PermaLink] -

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A book TCS will never get around to writing:



But if we did we'd have stuff like this:

Appeasing the Nazis - Bush family history

and

Bush Jr's Narrative: The Spoiled Rich Kid

- rob 6:16 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Papa calls on his consigliere to help out Sonny (I mean Dubya):

Baker surfaces as key adviser to Bush on Iraq

President Bush has acceded to his father's urging and has made former Secretary of State James Baker a leading adviser on Iraq.

You ever get the feeling that the Bush family keeps Baker in a cage, slipping him dog food under the bars, and then release him only when they've really really screwed up?

And then nothing happens except the Bush family pretends they did something - "hey, we tried, we put Baker on it."

- rob 5:52 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Meanwhile no one knows who won in Maryland yet. But not the voters who paid for those machines.

Center for Information Technology Policy - Voting Study

Abstract This paper presents a fully independent security study of a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine, including its hardware and software. We obtained the machine from a private party. Analysis of the machine, in light of real election procedures, shows that it is vulnerable to extremely serious attacks. For example, an attacker who gets physical access to a machine or its removable memory card for as little as one minute could install malicious code; malicious code on a machine could steal votes undetectably, modifying all records, logs, and counters to be consistent with the fraudulent vote count it creates. An attacker could also create malicious code that spreads automatically and silently from machine to machine during normal election activities — a voting-machine virus.

Thanks to BoingBoing

- rob 5:43 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Great idea

The Punch Clock Campaign | Sunlight Network

We are offering members of the public a "goodwill bounty," or fee, of $1,000 for each Member of Congress, and $250 for each candidate, that they persuade to sign the Punch Clock Agreement, an agreement to put their daily schedules on the Internet.

Members of Congress work for us, and we should know what they do every day.

- rob 5:40 PM - [PermaLink] -

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There has always been corruption in government - always will be - but it wasn't always the sole purpose for the existence of government.

The GOP is so against the government that they have decided looting it is perfectly okay - kinda of like stealing from a thief?

ABC News: 'Anything Goes' at Interior Department

Earl Devaney, the inspector general of the Department of the Interior, will give a blunt assessment of the level of ethics there in testimony to be presented to a congressional subcommittee Wednesday.

"Simply stated, short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior," Devaney will tell the subcommittee, according to an advance copy of his prepared remarks obtained by ABC News.

- rob 5:39 PM - [PermaLink] -

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I have nothing to add.

DARK MILESTONE: More Americans Have Now Died In Iraq Than Died On 9/11 - Yahoo! News

- rob 5:28 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Our own home grown religious terrorists - does Bush call these guys Christifacists (since the term Islamofacists [or whatever the made up word is] is all the rage these days at the neo-con tea parties)?

Police: Bomb Suspect Planned Attack On Abortion Clinic

A man who told police he made a pipe bomb to attack an abortion clinic was arrested Thursday, shortly before the device went off in a friend's home while authorities tried to disable it, according to court documents.

and in Iowa we have: Cleaning Up Edgerton Women's Clinic

A man accused of trying to blow up a Davenport women's clinic is being held without bond tonight. Police say David McMenemy drove from Michigan to Davenport and smashed his car through the front of the Edgerton Women's Clinic. Police say he then doused the vehicle with gas and tried to blow up the building....

So what is the difference between these two and car bombers in Iraq?

These guys are Christians. That's it. Well that and they aren't competent enough it thier evil acts to kill anyone.

In fact, speaking of competence, let's go back to the Michigan fellow who tried to blow up the clinic in Iowa. I left off the last part of the sentence I quoted above - because it is such a good punchline.

So here it is

Police say he then doused the vehicle with gas and tried to blow up the building because he thought it was an abortion clinic, it is not.

Yep - it wasn't even an abortion clinic.

- rob 4:46 PM - [PermaLink] -

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oooookaaay..

CNN.com - Air Force chief: Test weapons on testy U.S. mobs - Sep 12, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before being used on the battlefield, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday.

The object is basically public relations.

Using microwave devices on our own citizens will definitely be good PR. mmmmmm. ooookaaay.

"If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation," said Wynne. "(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press."

Wow. Ummm, we launched a war underfalse pretences, torture Iraqis, and have secret prisons and suddenly were all sensitive about our coverage in the world press?

wha?

And I love this - "If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation." Seriously how can you not mock a statment like that.

- rob 4:38 PM - [PermaLink] -

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I'm so glad ABC and Disney are reaping the benefits of their GOP propaganda piece.

They are going to get hit where it hurts - their wallet:

Airline Could Pull Ads From ABC

American Airlines is prepared to pull its advertising from ABC in order to protest its portrayal in the network's recently aired movie The Path to 9/11, according to a source. The carrier also said it is considering legal action against the network.

This reminds me about something I've noticed about Republican's and their media/freemarket issues.

Republicans are supposedly the more economically libertarian of the parties touting the belief that the consumers decide - and all benefit from their decisions. True their policies always support Multinationals at the expense of true competition, but that's a different post.

When it comes to the media and their ideas they don't believe in the free market system - they depend on handouts. We already know they don't believe in the free market of ideas and have stooped to actually having the government pay columnists for good press - but it is beyond illegal government propaganda efforts - the entire conservative pool of thought leaders are subsidized do nothings who couldn't make it on their own without Scaife, Murdock, or Rev. Moon.

Fox News makes money, but it was only possible with Murdock's deep deep pockets and willingness to put ideology ahead of finance in the early years of the effort. The Washington Times has never made money, and it seems that via a very circular route Scaife is who funded this 9/11 lieudrama.

Many conservative columnists are employees of conservative think tanks - simply stated they are salaried PR hacks for propaganda outfits. The think tanks are subsidized by various mega-corporations. And they become shills for their sponsors - not much deep thought going on there.

ABC didn't air this piece for financial gain either - it was aired commercial free - and the cost to them in reputation is much higher.

Plus this piece of revisionist history was broadcast on the airwaves that we own as citizens. ABC is given the right to use our air to broadcast their shows because they are legally bound to serve the public's interest. Note I said "public" and not "republican."

That is why conservative columnists crying out "but this is just like fahrenheit 911." But it is not. Proving that liberal ideas make economic sense fahrenheit 911 existed because it was going to make money - and it did. It made a lot for a documentary. It wasn't a subsidized propaganda piece, it was a capitalist effort. And unlike the ABC show fahrenheit 911 didn't piggyback on the American people's property (our very air) but rather it was a movie - at movie theaters - and people paid tickets to see it. Capitalism at its best.

- rob 4:20 PM - [PermaLink] -

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President Bush's Reality - New York Times

Mr. Bush has been marking the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11 with a series of speeches about terrorism that culminated with his televised address last night. He has described a world where Iraq is a young but hopeful democracy with a “unity government” that represents its diverse population. Al Qaeda-trained terrorists who are terrified by “the sight of an old man pulling the election lever” are trying to stop the march of progress. The United States and its friends are holding firm in a battle that will decide whether freedom or terror will rule the 21st century.

If that were actual reality, the president’s call to “put aside our differences and work together to meet the test that history has given us” would be inspiring, instead of frustrating and depressing.

Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terror until the Bush administration decided to invade it.
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Establishing democracy at the heart of the Middle East no longer qualifies, desirable as that would be. Where Mr. Bush sees an infant secular Iraqi government, most of the world sees a collection of ethnic and religious factional leaders, armed with private militias, presiding over growing strife between Shiites and Sunnis. Warning that American withdrawal would “embolden” the enemy is far from an argument as long as there is constant evidence that American presence is creating a fearful backlash throughout the Muslim world that empowers the fanatics far more than it frightens them.
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It’s hard to figure out how to build consensus when the men in charge embrace a series of myths. Vice President Dick Cheney suggested last weekend that the White House is even more delusional than Mr. Bush’s rhetoric suggests. The vice president volunteered to NBC’s Tim Russert that not only was the Iraq invasion the right thing to do, “if we had it to do over again, we’d do exactly the same thing.”

It is a breathtaking thought. If we could return to Sept. 12, 2001, knowing all we have seen since, Mr. Cheney and the president would march right out and “do exactly the same thing” all over again. It will be hard to hear the phrase “lessons of Sept. 11” again without contemplating that statement.

- rob 5:35 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Maryland spends millions upon millions to make sure its citizens can't vote.

Another Diebold success story.

Montgomery to Extend Voting Hours After Election Glitches

Polling stations in Montgomery County will remain open an hour later than usual tonight, to accommodate voters who were turned away from the polls this morning because of a glitch that left computerized voting machines across the county inoperable.

Billions in Iraq, because (as the most recent excuse for the war goes) we want to bring them democracy.

Meanwhile our ability to vote - the paramount requirement for a representative democracy - is at risk because of petty bureaucrats standing by their poor purchasing decisions, corrupt companies pushing machines that at best can be described "poorly designed" and could accurately be described as voting black holes in which the actual verifiable results can never be determined, a complacent media, and politicians who seem not to mind as long as the problems benefit them.

- rob 5:11 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Now watch what you say
or they'll be calling you a radical,
liberal, fanatical, criminal.
Won't you sign up your name,
we'd like to feel you're acceptable,
respectable, presentable, a vegetable!
- Supertramp (The Logical Song)

Now nothing is truly Sensible, Practical, advisable, Logical...

Everything's Political

What's also telling, as usual, is what Bush didn't say yesterday, and doesn't say, period.

He doesn't say we won't allow ourselves to be terrorized, and we won't be afraid. (That would run counter to the central Republican game plan for the mid-term election.) He doesn't say that in our zeal to fight the terrorists, we won't give up the qualities that make America great. He acknowledges no mistakes, he calls for no sacrifice, he refuses to reach out to those who disagree with him.

- rob 5:03 PM - [PermaLink] -

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This is so powerful that to take just snippets from it would reduce its impact. So I'm going to reprint the whole piece here so you can read it now.

But after reading it do go to MSNBC and give Olbermann some good traffic on this.

Bloggermann: This hole in the ground

Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space. And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.

All the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and -- as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul -- two more in the Towers.

And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.

I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.

And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.

However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast -- of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds -- none of us could have predicted this.

Five years later this space is still empty.

Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.

Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.

Five years later this country's wound is still open.

Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.

Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op.

It is beyond shameful.



At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial -- barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field -- Mr. Lincoln said, "we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."

Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.

Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground." So we won't.

Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they're doing instead of doing any job at all.

Five years later, Mr. Bush, we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir, on these 16 empty acres. The terrorists are clearly, still winning.

And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.

And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation. There is its symbolism of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.

The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.

Those who did not belong to his party -- tabled that.

Those who doubted the mechanics of his election -- ignored that.

Those who wondered of his qualifications -- forgot that.

History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.

Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.

The President -- and those around him -- did that.

They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."

They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.

The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."

The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."

Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space, and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.

Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.

Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible for anything in his own administration.

Yet what is happening this very night?

A mini-series, created, influenced -- possibly financed by -- the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.

The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.

How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11?

Just as the terrorists have succeeded -- are still succeeding -- as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero.

So, too, have they succeeded, and are still succeeding as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans.

This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially one from March of 1960. But as Disney's continuing sell-out of the truth (and this country) suggests, even television programs can be powerful things.

And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone" broadcast a riveting episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."

In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extra-terrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for calm. Suddenly his car -- and only his car -- starts. Someone suggests he must be the alien. Then another man's lights go on. As charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably produced. An "alien" is shot -- but he turns out to be just another neighbor, returning from going for help. The camera pulls back to a near-by hill, where two extra-terrestrials are seen manipulating a small device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that there's no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of the human machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and it's themselves."

And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find ourselves tonight: "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men.

"For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own -- for the children, and the children yet unborn."

When those who dissent are told time and time again -- as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus -- that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American...When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"... look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:

Who has left this hole in the ground?

We have not forgotten, Mr. President.

You have.

May this country forgive you.

And after going to Olbermann's site - go here: "We Have Not Forgotten, Mr. President," on Yahoo News and email this piece to friends and rate the article at its highest rating. It is the highest rated story on Yahoo News so far. Keep it there. The longer it is there the more exposure this piece gets. It needs to be read.

- rob 12:49 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Disney - if you have right wing nut jobs right revisionist history for you and you advertise it as the truth with a disclaimer (a very 21st century phrase/oxymoron - you piss off your viewers and your advertisers.

American Airlines Statement Regarding The Path to 9/11 on ABC-TV

"The Disney/ABC television program, The Path to 9/11, which began airing last night, is inaccurate and irresponsible in its portrayal of the airport check-in events that occurred on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

"A factual description of those events can be found in the official government edition of the 9/11 Commission Report and supporting documents.

"This misrepresentation of facts dishonors the memory of innocent American Airlines employees and all those who lost their lives as a result of the tragic events of 9/11."

- rob 12:39 PM - [PermaLink] -

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5 years in charge of the entire government, and what do they have to show for it:

no successes
no improvments
just fiasco after fiasco

So - to know one's surprise. They decided to go nasty.

In a Pivotal Year, GOP Plans to Get Personal

Republicans are planning to spend the vast majority of their sizable financial war chest over the final 60 days of the campaign attacking Democratic House and Senate candidates over personal issues and local controversies, GOP officials said.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, which this year dispatched a half-dozen operatives to comb through tax, court and other records looking for damaging information on Democratic candidates, plans to spend more than 90 percent of its $50 million-plus advertising budget on what officials described as negative ads.

- rob 6:32 PM - [PermaLink] -

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It's not news.

But it needs to be said loudly because a significant portion of America do not know it.

Senate Finds No al - Qaida - Saddam Link - New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Saddam Hussein rejected overtures from al-Qaida and believed Islamic extremists were a threat to his regime, a reverse portrait of an Iraq allied with Osama bin Laden painted by the Bush White House, a Senate panel has found.
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The report, released Friday, discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government ''did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward'' al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or his associates.

As recently as an Aug. 21 news conference, President Bush said people should ''imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein'' with the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction and ''who had relations with Zarqawi.''

- rob 6:28 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Halliburton

Halliburton Fraud Lawsuit Details Super Bowl Party

WASHINGTON — Halliburton Co. executives ordered a big-screen television and 10 large tubs of tacos, chicken wings and cheese sticks delivered to Iraq for last year's Super Bowl, then billed U.S. taxpayers for their party, according to a lawsuit unsealed Friday.

The Houston-based company also defrauded the government by double- and triple-billing for Internet, food and gym services for soldiers, according to the lawsuit by a former employee for KBR, the Halliburton subsidiary that runs dining halls for troops in Iraq.
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The accusations in the lawsuit are the latest involving Halliburton's controversial multibillion-dollar contract to feed and house American soldiers in Iraq. Democrats have been quick to criticize the company, which was run by Vice President Dick Cheney from 1995 to 2000.

In June, a KBR subcontractor was indicted on kickback charges involving the dining halls, which feed tens of thousands of soldiers a day in camps throughout Iraq and Kuwait. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has withheld $55.1 million out of a total of $13.7 billion in payments on the contract as a result of disputed costs.

Halliburton Secretly Doing Business With Key Member of Iran’s Nuclear Team

According to journalist Jason Leopold, sources at former Cheney company Halliburton allege that, as recently as January of 2005, Halliburton sold key components for a nuclear reactor to an Iranian oil development company. Leopold says his Halliburton sources have intimate knowledge of the business dealings of both Halliburton and Oriental Oil Kish, one of Iran’s largest private oil companies.
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Oriental Oil Kish dealings with Halliburton first became public knowledge in January 2005 when the company announced that it had subcontracted parts of the South Pars gas-drilling project to Halliburton Products and Services, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Halliburton that is registered to the Cayman Islands. Following the announcement, Halliburton claimed that the South Pars gas field project in Tehran would be its last project in Iran. According to a BBC report, Halliburton, which took thirty to forty million dollars from its Iranian operations in 2003, “was winding down its work due to a poor business environment.”

However, Halliburton has a long history of doing business in Iran, starting as early as 1995, while Vice President Cheney was chief executive of the company. Leopold quotes a February 2001 report published in the Wall Street Journal, “Halliburton Products and Services Ltd., works behind an unmarked door on the ninth floor of a new north Tehran tower block. A brochure declares that the company was registered in 1975 in the Cayman Islands, is based in the Persian Gulf sheikdom of Dubai and is “non-American.” But like the sign over the receptionist’s head, the brochure bears the company’s name and red emblem, and offers services from Halliburton units around the world.” Moreover mail sent to the company’s offices in Tehran and the Cayman Islands is forwarded directly to its Dallas headquarters.

- rob 6:23 PM - [PermaLink] -

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I have nothing to add:

Bin Laden Trail 'Stone Cold'

- rob 6:08 PM - [PermaLink] -

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So the options are - did Bush spend 7 minutes trying to come up with a graceful way of exiting the room - or did he just sit there and contemplate the fact that he had no idea how to react at all?

Schoolchildren Spent 9/11 With the President - AOL News

SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) - Tyler Radkey and other second-graders at Emma E. Booker Elementary School didn't know what to think when an aide leaned in and whispered something to President Bush on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001

His face just started to turn red," said Tyler, now 13 and in seventh grade. "I thought, personally, he had to go to the bathroom."

For a puzzling seven minutes, the youngsters read aloud from the story "The Pet Goat" while the shaken president followed along in front of the class, trying to come to grips with what he had been told - that a second plane had just hit the World Trade Center and the nation was under terrorist attack.

"He looked like he was going to cry," said Natalia Jones-Pinkney, now 12.

I know I'm beign unfair - what would I do in those seven minutes - I don't know - but then again I didn't apply for the job in which I would have to react within those 7 minutes - A President (a "decider") should react. A lot can happen in seven minutes.

A lot did.

- rob 5:59 PM - [PermaLink] -

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I don't necessarily think CATCHER'S MITT would have caught the terrorists, but I do think it is important that history notes that Bush was not considering terrorism to be a big priority prior to 9/11.

Daily Kos: Why 9/11 happened: Bush curtailed Operation CATCHERS MITT

The Bush Administration's axing of Catchers Mitt was revealed in a single article in Newsweek on March 21, 2004 which was never followed-up on. A press release highlighting Catchers Mitt was scrubbed from the publication's website. That report was, fortunately, noted on April 2nd by American Progress: http://www.americanprogress.org/... A mirror is still hosted at Wayback:

http://web.archive.org/...

NEW YORK, March 21 PRNewswire -- Newsweek has learned that in the months before 9/11, the U.S. Justice Department curtailed a highly classified program called "Catcher's Mitt" to monitor Al Qaeda suspects in the United States, after a federal judge severely chastised the FBI for improperly seeking permission to wiretap terrorists. During the Bush administration's first few months in office, Attorney General John Ashcroft downgraded terrorism as a priority, choosing to place more emphasis on drug trafficking and gun violence, report Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff and Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas in the March 29 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, March 22).

Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism chief of the national-security staff, tells Newsweek that at an April 2001 top-level meeting to discuss terrorism, his effort to focus on Al Qaeda was rebuffed by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. According to Clarke, Wolfowitz said, "Who cares about a little terrorist in Afghanistan?" The real threat, Wolfowitz insisted, was state-sponsored terrorism orchestrated by Saddam Hussein.

In the meeting, says Clarke, Wolfowitz cited the writings of Laurie Mylroie, a controversial academic who had written a book advancing an elaborate conspiracy theory that Saddam was behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

- rob 5:41 PM - [PermaLink] -

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My TCS Post from September 11,2003 (yes this site's been around for a while):

September 11.

Two years ago today I left work early after it was announced that every member of our downtown NY office was accounted for. At home my wife was with a friend whose husband worked across the street from the WTC but was safe, the woman was still shaken up. So to give them some calm I took my then 4 year old son to the park.

The park was filled, it was, like today, a beautiful day. All the parents in the park had these weak fake smiles for their children, and frequently would look away from their children for a chance to frown. An odd scene.

On the way back from the park we passed a house with a whole family, extended family even, looking anxious as a car pulled up with a father and son coming out covered in dust head to toe, both wore trading floor jackets. The family was overjoyed, the mother, I assume, crying ran to the son saying “never do that to me again.” The son had a dumbstruck smile on his face as he said “what’d I do?” with a laugh.

My son stared. I prodded him to keep walking. “They need their privacy,” I said.

Today, at 8:46am I was at the Stop and Shop (a grocery store) when all the customers and store employees held hands for a moment of silence.

Afterwards I went back to my car and listened to the radio as children read out the names, each ending with the name of their lost love one; either a father or mother or a more distant relative. Many children were crying. Other put on the type of brave face only children are capable of. I cried as I drove to work.

- rob 5:34 PM - [PermaLink] -

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