I've always seen the continuing hole at Ground Zero as symbolic of the last 8 years of political leadership. With the full weight of New Yorkers & the American people behind them to do what's right after a terrible tragedy, instead the reconstruction at what used to be the World Trade Center has been plagued with cronyism, flawed engineering, piss poor aesthetics, numerous design revisions, cost overruns and general ineptitude that has left more or less a 16 acre hole in Manhattan 7 years after the attack. It's basically the same quality of judgment exemplified with Iraq & the rebuilding of New Orleans.

To pour more salt on the wound, this week a report by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey said the project may go as much as 20% over its $15 billion dollar budget. Also, construction at the site, originally slated to be done by this year, may not be completed until as late as 2014. That would make the rebuilding process at Ground Zero longer than the time it took NASA to put men on the Moon.

On Saturday we learned that the army’s official historian is about to issue the second volume of its account of the war in Iraq. The army does this sort of thing routinely so they can learn from their experience. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

The first volume covered the invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein and concluded that, regardless of what one thinks about the war, it went well.

The second volume is about the ugly. How the Bush administration did not have a Plan B beyond they-will-welcome-us-as-liberators-and-immediately-become a-Western-style-democracy.

On 9-11, Barry Jennings was the Deputy Director of the Emergency Services Department of New York City Housing Authority, and worked in World Trade Center 7 in Rudy Giuliani's emergency command bunker.  In the following just released video, he recounts his amazing story:

http://www.youtube.com/...

Based on evidence of what he believes is unignited thermite particles in debris collected within minutes after the collapse of the World Trade Center's first tower, retired BYU physicist Steven Jones called for a criminal investigation into the destruction of three World Trade Center high rises in a speech at a 9/11 conference in Boston.  Public video of his presentation at the Decemeber 15, 2007 event was released on May 1 and can be seen below.

Site compliance note: This diary does not advocate any conspiracy theory. It  attempts to report objectively to interested Kossacks a significant development in ongoing investigations about the events of 9/11.

I have never worn a flag pin.  I own an American flag that was presented to my mom by the Tuskegee Airmen, Philadelphia Chapter, at my dad’s funeral.  I come from the generation that was more apt to burn flags and draft cards during the Vietnam War, than wear them.   I too have been associated with groups that were  on J. Edgar Hoover’s favorite hit lists.  The recent "tarring" of Barack Obama for socially knowing William Ayers,  and his wife Bernardine Dohrn is chilling.
   
My husband and I live upstate New York, two hours from New York City in an area that is an odd mixture of hard-core Republican’s, Green Party members, aging Woodstock hippies and an assortment of Democrats.  

Darrell Issa's (R-CA) stunning statement reducing the 9/11 attack on the United States to a "simple" plane crash is just the latest outrage from the execrable California Republican.  After all, the one-time accused car thief turned car alarm magnate attacked the families of dead Blackwater contractors, accused Valerie Plame of perjury and played a vital role in purging a U.S. attorney, just to name a few others.  Yet less than five years after he cried like a baby while announcing his withdrawal from the California governor's race, Darrell Issa mysteriously remains a force in American politics.

Here, then, are the Top 10 Moments from Darrell Issa's Hall of Shame:

Remember the Maine.

Remember Pearl Harbor.

Never Forget, 9/11.

What 9/11?

Whatever there was of 9/11 was buried not on the Staten Island Landfill, but on the streets of Baghdad which ironically enough, had nothing at all, except as an abstraction to do with the streets of New York.

For a brief while there was fetish with the dead, replaced now with different fetishes of which it is hard to keep track.

It could get real ugly!

The Krongard brothers have demonstrated their remarkable lack of ethical standards, with one at State investigating Blackwater's killings while the other works for the company. But was their another conflict even more sinister?

Soon Giuliani will unveil his "official" version of his bio.  He is uncritically examined by most of the MSM; in fact, I would venture to say that he is given a free pass.  I want to set the record straight.

He constantly makes statements that are flat out lies and is not challenged on them.  His handling pre-,during, and post-9/11 was abysmal and contributed to the deaths of first responders and Ground Zero workers.  He also continues to consort with known felons and pedophile priests.

In a 436 word article for The New York Times on September 13, labor reporter Steven Greenhouse covers a new lawsuit against cleaning contractors put forth by Legal Aid Society, Outten & Golden and Emery Celli Brinckherhoff & Abady on behalf of nine workers who cleaned buildings around the World Trade Center site after the attack of September 11.

The suit, filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, says the workers often put in 70 or more hours a week, but did not receive time-and-a-half pay for overtime, while the companies profited greatly.

What's missing?

Hello and welcome to...

Got a Happy Story is a community gathering every Friday night where we share stories large and small that have put a smile on our face.  It is a time to acknowledge the joy and wonder we experience.  The Happy Story diary exists as a way to anchor the community in hope and comfort while we do the hard work of taking back our country. Everyone and all sorts of stories and pictures are welcome. May we find joy and strength here.

Tonight I’ve chosen a subject that would seem almost impossible as a place to go for a happy story.  Where the World Trade Center is concerned there has been little else besides pain and suffering in the six years that have passed since that tragic attack.

But I’ve still got a little something to share. I’ve got a history with those two buildings and pre 9-11 memories. I’ve been holding on to the little bit of good I can find in that horror. They can’t take that away from me, not my fond memories.

Perhaps this diary is an attempt at closure. On thing it definitely is not is a form of disrespect for the 343 brave firefighters and the other 2284 innocent victims who died in the Twin Towers.

After all, these were just buildings.

I wrote a diary about this subject one year ago today. So why am I writing about it again? Because, more or less, there is still a 16 acre hole in the middle of lower Manhattan. That hole has been there for six years, and as each year passes you wonder how it could still be there.

Rebuilding after the destruction of the World Trade Center had been a debacle from the beginning, with it due largely to former New York Governor George Pataki using cronyism, flawed engineering & physics, and piss poor aesthetics to get the Freedom Tower. Since it has been announced, the Freedom Tower has underwent numerous design revisions to correct problems, and photo-op ceremonies to supposedly show the progress being made at the site seem to go nowhere.

Current reports claim construction on the site may not be completed until as late as 2013. That would make the rebuilding process at Ground Zero longer than the time it took NASA to put men on the Moon.

In a few hours, I will be giving a speech at a 9/11 memorial. The memorial is one that I designed and commissioned a team of builders to construct. It is not a traditional monument; it only seems to be made of red granite and....holographs.

Yes, you read that right. Holographs.

On September 11, 2007, a virtual reality World Trade Center Memorial will be presented to the people of the world. The location is in Second Life, on the island we have named after the original design: Celestial Requiem NYC. We have built this memorial because, to be blunt, the world needed it done years ago, and the two years longer to await the completion of the "Reflected Absence" memorial in New York city (by Michael Arad and Peter Walker) was in our opinion two years too long.

But the waiting is over. The memorial is open. And we have already had so many visitors. More from them on the way...

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


click to enlarge

It's 1 minute to midnight here on the east coast, and I can't help but think, "it's about to be 9/11."  Hard to believe it's been 6 years.  Someday, I suppose it'll be viewed in a historical context, the way that Pearl Harbor is today.  Perhaps.  Check with me in 60 years.  Right now, it feels like yesterday.

Where were you when you heard what happened?  

I was living in Berkeley at the time, and it was a call from my mom that woke me up to tell me what had happened.  The images on CNN left me stunned.  You see, I was living in Berkeley, but had grown up just outside of NYC.  On a clear day, I could literally see the Twin Towers in the distance from my high school.  Later on, after college, I worked at the World Financial Center, just across the street.  "World Trade Center" was my subway stop, and the complex was where I did much of my shopping.

It was a pretty harrowing day, as I tried to track down in my mind all the people I knew who could've been among the victims.    

Many technical analyses cast doubt on the official explanation of the collapse of three World Trade Center buildings, including those presented by an impressive new group: Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.  More difficult than discovering the truth, however, is convincing most of the public to accept the bitter truth.

This political THING got on "60 Minutes" and lied about EPA and the weeks after 9/11.
FACT: the only public statements fron EPA -- voiced by this same Whitman -- said that the air in Manhattan was SAFE.
FACT: we all went to Wall Street after 9/11 not believing a word of it.
FACT: EPA and the Federal government provided zip-zero-nada for N99 masks for area workers.
FACT: The very first samples from WTC on "The Pile" showed asbestos.
*** BELIEVE NOTHING *** from this satanic government. They will kill you for any trivial narcissistic convenience.
Possibility today: if you work in Manhattan, be prepared. Home Depot's MSA Respirator for Toxic Dust (Lead, Asbestos, Hantavirus, Highly Toxic Dusts.) $30. I never commute without it.