Photo Credit: Richard Drew, APOut walking the dog early this am I worked on a remembrance for this hallowed day. Of all the images that I could have picked the one at left, Falling Man, is the most illustrative. Each of the 2,977 who died that day met their fate alone, as individuals, meeting their maker one-on-one, no matter if large numbers of them perished in the same instant.

Death is the most personal experience one has after birth. For these fated 2,977, the radical Islamic jihadists that brought down the World Trade Center towers, who crashed a jumbo jet into the Pentagon, who tried, and failed thank God, to hit either the Capitol or the White House, took from them and their loved ones all that they could have ever been. From the rest of us, they took what ever innocence about the world we had left — at least from those of us that haven’t refused to grow up.

I’ve been far more eloquent about this day in the past: here, here and here.

Over at Ace, they have 18 videos covering the entire day.

Michelle Malkin is pretty worked up and challenges us to keep it real and NEVER FORGET!

At 8:46am this morning, nine years ago, murderous jihadists crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

At 9:03am this morning, nine years ago, murderous jihadists crashed United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

At 9:37am this morning, nine years ago, murderous jihadists crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon.

At 10:15am this morning, nine years ago, the official notification of the downing of United Airlines Flight 93 into a field at Shanksville, Pa. by murderous jihadists was received by the feds.

This is a day to honor the 2,977 innocent men, women, and children slaughtered by evil Islamic jihadists — and to resolve that “Never again” remains America’s operational stance, not an empty slogan.

Let nothing overshadow their memories today.

I for one will never forget . . .

On the dog walk this AM I composed in my head a most wordy, commemorative post to both honor those who were lost in the al-Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and those first responders that risked, and for some, gave all to save as many as possible — as well as to lambaste those among us that no longer give a whit. But hey, for those so lost in their own narcissism that they care more about community organizing, punishing American business, depriving US from opportunity or protecting the weak from the likes of the Taliban — why waste words on them.

They HAVE FORGOTTEN!

They have forgotten the sight of their fellow Americans and yes, some from across the globe, making the harrowing choice to plunge to their deaths instead of burning alive. They have forgotten those that listened on their cell phones as loved ones on the doomed flights said their last good byes. They have forgotten the bravery of the resistors on Flight 93 as they forced that jumbo jet into a Pennsylvania field instead of allowing the hijackers to use it as a bomb against the Capital or the White House. They have forgotten those first responders that rushed into the twin towers to rescue as many as possible, but never made it out themselves.

They HAVE FORGOTTEN!

Not everyone has forgotten:

In today’s dead-tree-edition of the LA Times, they remember as best they can, with a single story on page 17 — with no blurb or mention on page one. Now, this current 9/11 has become “the first official National Day of Service and Remembrance,” to honor the spirit of volunteerism or some such parlance.

The Anchoress is remembering this 9/11 in a very different state of mind:

This 9/11 Anniversary, it just feels like too much. Or not enough. This 9/11, the day feels huge, too big for sentimentality, almost.

{…}

That’s kind of what I am feeling on this terrible anniversary – that the Day of the Bully may yet dawn again, but I am not so sure how psyche-scarred America will handle it. I know our first responders, our military, our Protector lads and He-men (and She-ra’s) will do what they always do; they will never let us down. But this is a very different -much more divided and thus weaker- country than we were 8 years ago. Our trust in each other has been shaken. I believe we would weather another attack and come together, as before, but is that simply because I want to believe it?

Michelle Malkin remembers:

Remember: Project 2,996.

Remember: “Let’s roll!”

Remember: The angels on loan from God.

Remember: The 9/11 babies.

Remember: Falling Man.

Remembrance is worthless without resolve. Resolve is useless without action.

Hugh Hewitt puts our struggle with the Islamists that would gladly have another 9/11 happen every day in perspective:

Thanks to the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, coast guard, counterterrorism and public safety professionals who have prevented a second attack for eight years.

The enormous cost of the battles in Afghanistan, Iraq and around the world have been made so that there have not had to be more pictures like this one. We remember the victims of 9/11 today, but we also need to salute the thousands killed and tens of thousands wounded in the war with the Islamists, fanatics who would gladly see a 9/11 every day in their war with the West.

Doctor Zero at Hot Air answers those that minimize the importance of that day and our efforts to see it never repeated:

Eight years later, it’s a lot to ask people to think about 9/11 every single day. On this one day, at least, we can remember three thousand people who began an ordinary morning, and ended it by falling through fire. It was not a natural disaster, or a “tragedy,” and by God I am weary in my soul of people who amuse themselves by pretending it was a government conspiracy. It was an attack. It was murder. Across the Middle East tomorrow, there will be people who celebrate the murderers. Don’t turn away from the sight. We cannot afford to allow this enemy to become invisible. We can’t afford to let our heroes become invisible, either. The savages with box cutters were real. So were the men who ran into those collapsing towers. In their name, with love for their memory, and luminous with their spirit, we will prevail.

James Lileks has put together a moving remembrance of that fateful day:

As for me, I can’t forget.

I can’t forget how such a level of EVIL existed eight years ago that 19 men armed with box cutters slaughtered so many of US purely out of their hatred for our society, our freedoms, our faith. I can’t forget that in Pakistan the Taliban is working and fighting night and day to overthrow the ruling government and get their hands on nuclear weapons to use on Israel and on the West. I can’t forget . . . well because to do so would be suicidal. With our current slate of leaders and their misguided policies it will most likely happen again, sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately, next time will be worse . . .

John Holdren — The Obama administration’s eugenics/forced abortion/forced sterilization proponent, a.k.a. their Science Czar, is caught on video stating that a belief in American Exceptionalism is a misguided concept and that we in the US will have to give up a portion of our ability to create wealth so that the poor of the world can have their chance at getting theirs. WTF?

Ace pegs it nicely:

We won’t be producing the excess wealth in the first place, under his plan. Rather, he speaks of redistributing the capacity for wealth production, rather than the produced wealth itself.

It should be noted that never previously has the right to produce wealth been considered a “commodity” that can be regulated/restricted/taken away by the government. Not like this.

The government has long taken wealth itself through taxation, but has not considered the very ability to produce wealth something it could redistribute. Sure, there are some special exceptions — paying farmers not to farm, etc., maximum-hours laws. But it’s not been proposed, hitherto, that the government has the power to generally reduce your wealth-producing ability just for shits and giggles.

The Obama administration does NOT believe in the American Dream — but they do believe in their own version of an American Nightmare . . .

Oh boy — here we go folks, and my own representative, Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committee, leads the health-care-bill-panic-parade:

House Democratic leaders, pledging to meet the president’s goal of health care legislation before their August break, are offering a $1.5 trillion plan that for the first time would make health care a right and a responsibility for all Americans. Left to pick up most of the tab were medical providers, employers and the wealthy.

“We cannot allow this issue to be delayed. We cannot put it off again[.] We, quite frankly, cannot go home for a recess unless the House and the Senate both pass bills to reform and restructure our health care system.”

Included in the bill will be “a surtax on millionaires of 5.4 percent”, gotta pay for all this free health care ya know? They’re bettin’ on folks like most of us sayin’, “Screw them millionaires — it’s not like we’ll be one o’ them anytime soon!” What they aren’t gonna tell ya is that a millionaire surtax isn’t going to cover this monster of a program — not even close. The tax implications will go waaaaay down the income chain and that won’t be enough. Only rationing and finally denial of services to the elderly and chronically infirm will make it even remotely feasible — and that’s a stretch. Just try getting treatment for arthritis in the UK!

Thousands of rheumatoid arthritis sufferers face a lifetime of agony because they are not being treated quickly enough, a report says.

Guidelines state that patients should receive treatment within three months of the first symptoms appearing.

But the average wait is nine months – and GPs are not trained well enough to know what help to offer.

That’s what Obamacare will bring to the US. Crunch the numbers — there’s no way around it. There’s no bi-partisan support for this fiasco either, but that isn’t going to stop this most-leftist-in-chief and his Democrat Congressional majority from jammin’ it down our throats or more likely, up our collective wazzoos!

But, why would our newly-minted President Obamessiah want to punish such a large number of his own subjects people? Well, if you consider the track record of the man that he has made the Science Czar, John Holdren — maybe His Majesty President Obama thinks that humans are the biggest problem in the world, a virus that needs to be controlled, contained, eliminated bit by bit — so that Gaia can return to a state of un-human-contaminated grace? Just askin’ . . .

In her syndicated column today Michelle Malkin compares the mainstream media’s shocked reaction to the “evangelical Christian faith of NIH director-designate Francis Collins” with their complete ignoring of John Holdren’s lifelong record of support for eugenics, forced sterilization & abortion, and world-wide draconian measures to control the world’s human population.

If a conservative blogger or Republican political candidate had published such lunatic claptrap, the Department of Homeland Security would have him on a watchlist. Instead, Holdren is Overlord of Science Policy. “Ecoscience” remains on his curriculum vitae. Obama is still perceived as the champion of reason. And the national media, so concerned about the dangers posed by a born-again Christian scientist, have responded to a secular extremist’s wild blueprints for forced abortions and mass sterilizations with a collective shrug. Scary.

Go and spend time with the Malkin piece, and then follow the ZombiTime link to the source documents. All this preoccupation with humans as a curse to the world gets me to thinkin’ about our ol’ University of Texas buddy, Professor Eric R. Pianka, who believes that “90% of humans must die.”

Oh, and the best part, as Malkin also reveals:

Well, I have indeed read one of Holdren’s recent works that reveals his clingy reverence for, and allegiance to, the gurus of population control authoritarianism. He’s just gotten smarter about cloaking it behind global warming hysteria.

Just last Sunday we experienced the out-in-the-open revelation that the Greenies, led by good ol’ Al Gore, will give it their best shot to rule the world for our own good. They’re gonna get loads of help from good ol’ population-control-by-any-and-all-means-possible Obama Science Czar, John Holdren.

Tons of Change — but not much Hope! Elections. Have. Consequences!

Technorati Tags: Henry Waxman, health care legislation, “Ecoscience”, Eric R. Pianka, Obama Science Czar, John Holdren

I’ve had a mental block about Twitter, to the point that I don’t use it, don’t track it, don’t really understand it — kind of like the derivative in Calculus. Thank the heavens that the people of Iran are more Twitter savvy than this ol’ Okie! The Anchoress writes in Twittering Liberty…and Hope.

Emily Dickinson wrote:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune–without the words
And never stops at all…

How appropriate then, that the communications tool most responsible for keeping hope alive in shattered Iran is “a thing” called “Twitter,” and that the 140-character dispatches being sent and received by people in desperate straits are called “tweets.”

People are “tweeting” for their lives, and their messages are bold, frightened, determined and unbelievably moving. Students are sending out: “They are trapped in the dorms,” and “I cannot remain; I must participate.” They head off, unsure whether they are headed to a peaceful rally or a massacre, and they are not heard from for 18 hours; and people around the world -strangers- pray and wonder.

Then, miraculously, they are back, tweeting news, stories of destruction, injury, damage, hope; they are passing messages.

{…}

It occurred to me over the weekend, while the MSM was, to their everlasting shame, not reporting on the Iranian uprising, that Twitter had become the pre-eminent tool for breaking news. Blogs immediately receded into the background and became secondary, and the big-time-professional news organizations were somnambulist non-players (perhaps they were unsure how to frame the thing until orders were received from “wherever”).

A CEO that I worked for in the ’90s would opine that the Internet was possibly the spawn of Satan. Tonight I would have said to him, “Perhaps, but in this moment, Twitter appears to be made up of legions of angels soaring high on thermals of the apocalypse.”

The people of Iran are pouring into the streets in protest of last week’s election, which has all the signs of having been stolen by current President/anti-Semitic lunatic Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Some of the protesters have been shot. News is leaking out of this tightly controlled country via Twitter!

What has been the very late reaction of our own fearful leader, President Barack Hussein Obama?

Mr. Obama said he was deeply troubled by the violence surrounding the election, but stressed it was up to the Iranian people to choose their leadership. He said he would maintain his policy of directly negotiating with Iran’s leaders on its nuclear program, irrespective of the vote.

Way to go, Barry. Give this homicidal A-hole legitimacy while the Mullahs charge the enforcers with the task to put down this protest before it becomes a new revolution. Can’t have freedom breaking out all over the place, now can we.

Especially since our own government is working overtime to abridge ours.

When even WaPo notices, that’s sayin’ something.

My message to the people of Iran?

Viva La Revolución!