9/11, Seven Years Later

A few years ago I collected all my posts on the subject.  Last year I wrote this:

Four years ago these three links were collected...now it’s two years later. Part 1, part 2 and part 3.  Another one, from 2002.  Still pretty much feel like that, only totally disappointed that we didn’t just rebuild the big ugly bastards in the fastest Manhattan construction project in history.

Anyway, I’m not going to post anything else today.  I’m not interested in scoring political points today.  But that’s just me.  Everyone else can do whatever they want.  It’s still a free country, regardless of what some people might tell you.

I’m not going to say anything any better than that. except to say that you should be careful what you say and to whom you say it today if you play at political point scoring.  Memory is funny...people react strangely to things that normally they wouldn’t.  Maybe today is not the day to play gotcha politics.  Maybe today is the day to remember that we’re supposed to be an American family.

Posted by JimK at 02:00 PM on September 11, 2008
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Categories: 9/11
Tags: 9/11

9/11: Six years later

Four years ago these three links were collected...now it’s two years later. Part 1, part 2 and part 3.  Another one, from 2002.  Still pretty much feel like that, only totally disappointed that we didn’t just rebuild the big ugly bastards in the fastest Manhattan construction project in history.

Anyway, I’m not going to post anything else today.  I’m not interested in scoring political points today.  But that’s just me.  Everyone else can do whatever they want.  It’s still a free country, regardless of what some people might tell you.

Posted by JimK at 08:46 AM on September 11, 2007
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Categories: 9/11
Tags: 9/11

Cuban Refugees, or How Moore Tried Yet Again To Fool You

Originally posted at Moorewatch.com

It never ends.  I actually thought, given how screwed up our health care industry is, that Moore would have plenty of material and be able to make a compelling documentary filled with the truth.  It wouldn’t be necessary to resort to cheap stunts, abusing people, misdirection and flat-out bullshit in order to tell the story of American health care.

Many feel that with all the flaws, the system of health care in America is better than anywhere else.  Proof of that would seem to be that historically, the wealthier a nation grows and the better overall health care it provides, the fatter the citizens get.  Well, me and Mikey are proof walking of that theory.  Well, proof waddling, anyway.

Still...insurance companies make medical decisions and lawyers have made it insanely expensive to practice medicine.  Those two things alone could have made for truthful, compelling footage.  Instead...Mikey pulls another stunt.  This time, he took a bunch of people who worked at Ground Zero after 9/11 to Cuba for medical care.  I suppose his intention was to prove how wonderful socialized medicine is as opposed to the way we do things.  Only Moore would think that a third-world communist dictatorship has better health care than America.  If he loves this country so much, why is he constantly, without exception, putting it down?  Does he ever have anything good to say about America that isn’t a ploy to set up his next insult or criticism?

But I digress.

Here’s the problem(s) with this typical Moore trick: One, we have no way of knowing who has access to the hospital he chose.  Can the average poor person in Cuba walk in like he did?  Two, he’s co-opting 9/11 again to make another dump truck full of cash, just like he did the last time.  Three, one can walk in to any hospital in America and be treated.  They cannot refuse to treat you.  Four, it’s quite possible that Moore lied just to get these people involved:

Responders were told Cuban doctors had developed new techniques for treating lung cancer and other respiratory illness, and that health care in the communist country was free, according to those offered the two-week February trip.

Yeah, you hear about new medical breakthrough coming out of Cuban hispitals like, every week, don’t you?  Where’s the stories about these breakthrough techniques?  Does Moore expect us to believe that not one single New York reporter would have gotten wind of it, and being a New York reporter - which, in case you’ve somehow forgotten, is where the frigging towers fell - wouldn’t have shouted it from the rooftops?

I’d like to see some data about these new techniques.

Regardless, some ill 9/11 workers balked at Moore’s idea.

“I would rather die in America than go to Cuba,” said Joe Picurro, a Toms River, N.J., ironworker approached by the filmmaker via an e-mail that read, “Joe and Mike in Cuba.”

After helping remove debris from Ground Zero, Picurro has a laundry list of respiratory and other ailments so bad that he relies on fund-raisers to help pay his expenses.

He said, “I just laughed. I couldn’t do it.”

First of all, to make a donation to Joe Picurro to help him with his medical expenses, donations can be made through the FealGood Foundation.

WAYS TO GIVE
Donations

100% of the operating income for the FealGood Foundation is provided by undesignated contributions.  You can help improve the lives of 9/11 first responders and their families by supporting the FealGood Foundation and making your tax deductible gift today.  Donations are accepted via Paypal (please direct payments to [email protected]) or by sending a Personal Check to the mailing address listed below.  Credit Cards (Visa/Mastercard/Discover) can be accepted via phone only at (631) 724-3320.

FealGood Foundation
144 Shenandoah Blvd
Nesconset, New York 11767

If you wish to contact us with questions please send an email to [email protected]

The website also sells t-shirts and posters.

That would be helpful to Joe Picurro.  Not promising him a miracle in Castro’s tinpot little dictatorship.

Of course Moore being the sleazy, opportunistic, nihilistic selfish prick that he has always been, you just know someone got screwed over.

Michael McCormack, 48, a disabled medic who found an American flag at Ground Zero that once flew atop the Twin Towers, was all set to go to.

The film crew contacted him by phone and took him by limo from his Ridge, L.I., home to Manhattan for an on-camera interview.

“What he [Moore] wanted to do is shove it up George W’s rear end that 9/11 heroes had to go to a communist country to get adequate health care,” said McCormack, who suffers from chronic respiratory illness.

But McCormack said he was abandoned by Moore. At a March fund-raiser for another 9/11 responder in New Jersey, McCormack learned Moore had gone to Cuba without him.

“It’s the ultimate betrayal,” he said. “You’re promised that you’re going to be taken care of and then you find out you’re not. He’s trying to profiteer off of our suffering.”

Moore’s publicist did not return calls from The Post. But McCormack played a tape for The Post of a telephone conversation between himself and a Moore producer. The woman is heard apologizing for not taking McCormack, while saying the production company was not offering anyone guarantees of a cure.

“Even for the people that we did bring down to Cuba, we said we can promise that you will be evaluated, that you will get looked at,” said the woman. “We can’t promise that you will get fixed.”

Can you imagine?  Imagine the feeling of thinking that a famous rabble-rouser was going to grease some wheels and get you to a new breakthrough treatment in a foreign land, only to find out that bastard left you out of it.

Anyone want to guess why McCormack was left out?  I will make a wager that he didn’t say the right things in the interview, and Moore simply cut McCormack out of the loop out and never gave him a second thought.  This was a very stupid move on Moore’s part, by the way.  McCormack is a very outspoken opponent of the way first responders have been treated by everyone from the City of New York all the way up to the Feds.  He was a medic at Ground Zero.  He’s a whistleblower of sorts who allegedly “leaked” EPA records about the toxicity of the dust surrounding Ground Zero.  He’s connected to the 9/11 “truther” movement.  In fact, he’s often a featured speaker at Truther gatherings.

In other words, he’d have been perfect for Mike’s movie.  Unless...Moore’s scared of being too connected to the Truthers?

Participants in the Cuba trip were forced to sign a confidentiality agreement prohibiting them from talking about the project, the sources said.

Yeah, there’s a surprise.  I wish one of them would have the balls to break it...what could Moore and Weinstein do?  Attack a sick Ground Zero hero because they told the truth?  Yeah...I’d LOVE to see that play out in the press.

If you were on this Cuban trip...speak out.  Moore can’t touch you without ruining his chances of making another Brinks truck full of money.  Money is more important to him than anything else, and that means you would be safe to speak out.

Travel to Cuba is severely restricted from the United States, but Moore’s crew was granted access, the producer told McCormack, through a “general license that allows for journalistic endeavors there.”

Hmm.  Does that sound like lying to the government to get a visa to anyone else?  I think taking Americans for medical treatment falls well outside the purview of “journalistic endeavors.” I’d like to see some legal-minded folks take a glance at the necessary laws pertaining to travel to Cuba and see if maybe he didn’t break one or three.

Like all documentary filmmakers these days, Moore isn’t concerned so much with the truth as he is selling his work.  This is nothing new for Moore, and it’s not even a surprise.  However, like an idiot, and not for the first time, I had hoped for something better.  I know, I need to learn to stop putting faith in documentary filmmakers.  No matter how nice they seem, it’s never about the truth or the subject...at some point it becomes about the money.  At least we know with Moore, it’s like that right from the beginning.

Cuba.  He is really going to try to sell Cuba as a better alternative than the United States for health care.  And the morons that wear Che Guevara t-shirts will eat this up with a spoon.

Sometimes I wish I was utterly ignorant of the world and only cared about what Britney Spears was doing.

Posted by JimK at 06:27 PM on April 16, 2007
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Categories: 9/11,  Michael Moore(on)
Tags: Michael Moore Joe Picurro Michael McCormack 9/11

Where are the moderate Muslims in America?  Right here.

And they’re telling the flying imams to go piss up a rope.

Lawyers and a Muslim group say they will defend at no cost airline passengers caught up in a lawsuit between a group of imams and U.S. Airways if the passengers are named as “John Does” and sued for reporting suspicious behavior that got the Muslim clerics booted from a November flight.
The six imams are suing the airline, Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airports Commission, and the unnamed “John Does” to be named later, for discrimination, saying they were removed from the flight for praying in the airport.
Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a Phoenix-area physician and director of American Islamic Forum for Democracy—a group founded in 2003 to promote moderate Muslim ideas through its Web site (www.aifdemocracy.org)—told The Washington Times his group will raise money for legal fees for passengers if they are sued by the imams.
“It’s so important that America know there are Muslims who understand who the victims are in air travel,” said Dr. Jasser. “But I hope it doesn’t get to that point because the backlash will be even greater when Americans see Islamists trying to punish innocent passengers reporting fears.”
The lawsuit specifically cites two passengers who stared at the men as they prayed, then made a cell phone call that the imams say went to U.S. Airways to complain about the prayer.

Very cool.  One can only imagine how frightening it must be to be a moderate Muslim and want to speak up about idiots like the flying imams, but feel like you can’t because extremists will mark you for death.  Bravo to Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser and the AIFD.

Hat tip: Wizbang, who got it from JunkYardBlog and HotAir who has video of Dr. Jasser.

Posted by JimK at 02:29 PM on March 21, 2007
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Categories: 9/11,  News,  International Events,  Politics,  The Middle East,  War
Tags: flying imams islam american muslims air travel security

Ladies and Gentlemen, your Los Angeles Times

David A. Bell asks:

Was 9/11 really that bad?

I don’t have the words to explain how much pain I wish karma would inflict on David A. Bell.

Posted by JimK at 01:33 AM on January 30, 2007
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Categories: 9/11,  The Fourth Estate
Tags: media asinine journalism

The path to 9/11 runs through extremism, censorship and revisionist history, but does it matter?

A lot of people are up in arms about the ABC tv movie “The Path to 9/11.” Apparently, it accurately portrays the responsibility Clinton’s administration had in the events that led to 9/11.  So now the left is angry, and the right is smug.  For a good feel of what of the buzz is like, check out this post at Wizbang and this from Mary Katherine Ham.

Only one person on all the interw3bs accurately summed up my feelings on the matter:

Just so you know: 9/11 reset the clock for me. All hands went to midnight. I’m interested in what people did after that date, and if the movie shows that before the attack one side lacked feck and the other was feck-deficient, I don’t worry about it. It’s like revisiting Congressional debates about Hawaiian harbor security in November 1941. Y’all get a pass. The Etch-A-Sketch’s turned over. Now: what have you said lately?

Bingo.  Nothing to add.

Posted by JimK at 05:34 AM on September 08, 2006
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Categories: 9/11,  News,  Politics,  The Blogosphere
Tags: 9/11 path to 9/11 lileks

This doesn’t make any sense

(The following post was restored from Google’s cache after the great hard drive crash of August 2006)

I’m trying to think of a way this guy could be more wrong about 9/11.

Nonetheless, because “World Trade Center” tells a story of joyous survival rather than a story of death, it is a fundamental falsification of the meaning of 9/11 - even though the story it tells is true.

Isn’t that the equivalent of “fake but accurate” only in reverse?

It’s bullshit, plain and simple.  9/11 was as much about those who helped and survived as it was about the evil they were surviving.  Only a truly pessimistic jerk would try to take that away from people.

The movie ends with Nicolas Cage speaking a narration about how on 9/11 we faced adversity but also came together as a people and did nice things for each other. That certainly did happen, and America’s emotional unity was something extraordinary to behold, but that is not what 9/11 was about - 9/11 was a day of barbaric mass murder, not a day of hope.

Podhoretz is absolutely, 100% wrong.  Everyone in America should take a moment to tell him so.  [email protected] - He publishes it at the end of his column.

Hat tip - Malkin, who gleefully tried to turn a simple story that Oliver Stone actually did a respectful 9/11 film into a “bash the left” attack piece.  That’s exactly the kind of unhinged behavior she’s supposed to be against.

Posted by JimK at 10:23 AM on July 21, 2006
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Categories: 9/11,  Things To Ponder
Tags: John Podhoretz 9/11 Oliver Stone

Stop using 9/11 as a weapon

People piss me off.  Like that’s news, right?

The cynical standup who made a cheap bid for laughs off the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks needs to know there’s nothing funny at all about living with the aftermath, say disgusted survivors.
Comedian Sarah Silverman’s flick, “Jesus is Magic,” pokes fun at the day of terror, calling the day tragic “because it happened to be the exact same day I found out that a soy chai latte was, like, 900 calories.”

I think anyone who knows me, has read my stuff or can click my 9/11 category can say that I was, and continue to be, affected by that day.  I didn’t lose anyone...I don’t know why it hits me the way it does.  I can’t explain it.

That having been said...For fuck’s sake, she’s not making fun of 9/11, she’s mocking her own selfish reaction. And it was funny.  I would gladly laugh at that joke, because it’s about her...and by extension, our...sometimes selfish reactions in the face of unimaginable tragedies.  Look at my previous paragraph...”I didn’t lose anybody.” Like everyone else who is, you know, a human, I immediately filter everything through the lens of how it will affect, has affected or might affect me.  The job of a comic is to find something we all recognize and make us laugh about it, either through sarcasm, absurdity or the art of the uncomfortable truth.

There’s also a layer of examination of how some people react to things in a way that seems incongruous with the gravitas of the event.  The comedic device in question is knows as “the emotional disconnect.”

People, stop looking for reasons to be offended.  The world is fucked up enough without this petty shit.

Laugh,
and the world laughs with you.
Cry,
and you cry alone

Posted by JimK at 07:49 AM on November 29, 2005
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Categories: 9/11,  Humor,  The Stupidity Of Man
Tags: Sarah Silverman 9/11 comedy humor

9/11/05

Four years ago part 1, part 2 and part 3.

Also, a story I have never forgotten, paratrooper’s account of that day.

Posted by JimK at 10:45 AM on September 11, 2005
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Categories: 9/11

Sometimes it’s good to be paranoid

Well duh.  How did I not thnk of this the instant I heard about it?

Allowing airline passengers to use personal cell phones during flights could help potential hijackers coordinate an attack or trigger a bomb smuggled on board, U.S. security officials have told regulators.

The U.S. Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation late on Thursday outlined the potential dangers associated with allowing cell phone use during plane flights, as the Federal Communications Commission has proposed if safety issues can be resolved.

Imagine it: a team in the rear of a plane...one in the middle, one in first class.  Text messaging each other instructions and timing.  Texting between planes and people on the ground...or from plane to plane to coordinate attacks.

Go ahead.  Say it can’t happen.

Posted by JimK at 05:54 PM on May 28, 2005
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Categories: 9/11,  Technobabble (Technology),  Crime and Criminals