Daily Kos

It's Okay. September 11, 2007

by kishik

Tue Sep 11, 2007 at 08:27:09 AM PDT

It's okay.

On September 24, 2001, when I returned to work this was the new skyline:
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September 11 - Notes From a Masochist

by kishik

Mon Sep 11, 2006 at 03:26:53 AM PDT

January 2006

Notes from a Masochist

What is it that has me re-reading Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies?  Is it the start of a brand new year?  It will be five years since September 11, 2001 this year.  Or is it receiving an "Applicant Employee Request" form from the NYPD and realizing that one of our high school co-ops is applying for a PO job.  Greg, our office student co-op, will have left us six years ago this year.  Six years means pre-September 11 - when the world was a different place.

***

September 11, 2001 - Where I am Today

by kishik

Fri Sep 08, 2006 at 06:27:24 AM PDT

September 8, 2006

Five years gone now, it's not unusual for me to begin to feel anxious starting around the end of August.  It seems more so this year since the weather pattern is too similar to what it was five years ago.  The morning air these days are cool and crisp.  The hint of fall felt earlier than usual for southern New York.

Katrina Blog: Houses vs Homes, an Outsider's Thoughts

by kishik

Wed Aug 23, 2006 at 06:11:22 AM PDT

I don't really feel right about contributing to the Katrina Blog project since I am nowhere near the area hit by Katrina, but did volunteer from afar locally here in the NYC area in the months soon after Katrina hit.  Anyway, here goes....

Do any of you remember the travesty of a visit by bush that was presented as the "I care, and things will get done" trip that took place earlier this year?

April 27, 2006 Press Release - The White House:

President Visits Damaged Home in New Orleans, Louisiana
Pauline Street
New Orleans, Louisiana

After this is a hyperlink titled:  "In Focus:  Hurricane Recovery."  If you click it, it brings you to another page of BS and photos...

11:58 A.M. CDT

So glad they let us know precisely WHEN this charade, oops I mean, visit, took place.

Whittington: I got shot, I'm Sorry

by kishik

Fri Feb 17, 2006 at 10:45:38 AM PDT

for all the trouble I've caused....

HUH??!!!

From the AP wire...

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) -- The lawyer shot by Vice President Dick Cheney during a hunting trip was being discharged from a hospital on Friday and told reporters he was sorry for all the trouble Cheney had faced over the past week.

''We all assume certain risks in what we do, in what activities we pursue,'' Whittington, 78, said as he stood out the hospital in a suit, his face clearly bruised.

''Accidents do and will happen,'' Whittington said, ''and that's what happened.''

Whittington thanked the hospital staff. He also said he was sorry for all the difficulty the vice president and his family had faced. He said the past weekend encompassed ''a cloud of misfortune and sadness.''

''My family and I are are deeply sorry for everything that Vice President cheney and his family had to go through this week,'' Whittington said, appearing emotional in front of television cameras.

A Perspective on the NYC Transit Strike

by kishik

Fri Dec 16, 2005 at 09:12:52 AM PDT

I know that for those of you who don't live or work in New York City, this won't have an impact on you, but of course for we who do, it's what has been dominating our local news and media.

Today, the Transport Workers Union (TWU) began what's being called a "Limited Strike".  Two private bus lines that have been city-subsidized for decades and and who have recently signed a contract with the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) to be transferred under their direct control have gone on strike.  These two lines, Jamaica and Triboro, have yet made the full transfer under the MTA - which will take place early next year.  About 50,000 riders in Queens are served by these lines daily.

This morning, Roger Toussaint, TWU's president made a statement that struck me, and why I was spurred to write this diary.  He said that the MTA's proposal would leave the next generation of transit worker's far behind and deny them access towards the middle class.

WaPo blog covering White Phosporus Report

by kishik

Tue Nov 15, 2005 at 09:09:59 AM PDT

William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security
"White Death" Is A Losing Strategy
The military's use of white phosphorus during operations in Fallujah last year is making its way around the world media and blogosphere, with the claim being that the United States has again shown its inhumane side by using munitions normally reserved for smoke screens and target illumination to terrorize insurgents and kill civilians.

Libby Legal Defense Fund

by kishik

Wed Nov 09, 2005 at 07:41:49 AM PDT

Anyone see this?

Libby Establishes a Fund to Help Pay Legal Bills
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 - I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, is establishing a fund to help pay for his legal defense in the C.I.A. leak case, and associates of Mr. Libby have begun soliciting money from his friends and Republican donors, lawyers and people who have been contacted about the fund said on Tuesday.

Barbara Comstock, a Republican communications strategist who has been hired to work with Mr. Libby's defense team, has pulled together a list of potential contributors and has been in touch with some of them in the last week, providing an address in Washington for sending checks, the people said.

Ms. Comstock declined to comment. Other people who have been told of the fund said that their understanding was that names of the donors would not be made public, but that some decisions about how the fund would operate had yet to be made. With Mr. Libby having left government, there is no legal requirement for any public disclosure.

Tonight on PBS: Frontline: The Torture Question

by kishik

Tue Oct 18, 2005 at 10:13:42 AM PDT

Check your local listings - this is on tonight!  From their press release:

In mid-August, a FRONTLINE documentary crew made the perilous journey to the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Entering the 280-acre compound in the middle of the night, escorted by helicopters and a convoy of armed Humvees, the crew was following 50 detainees fresh from the battlefield. As they were ordered to kneel in formation on the concrete floor, one detainee nervously asked the FRONTLINE cameraman, "Is this Abu Ghraib?" The answer brought a shudder.

Abu Ghraib has always been a terrifying place to Iraqis -- Saddam Hussein used it as his primary torture chamber -- but in 2004, when graphic photographs of American soldiers abusing prisoners surfaced, Abu Ghraib took on deeper meaning.

"The details of what happened in those cellblocks between the American soldiers and Iraqi detainees are well known," says producer/director Michael Kirk, "but how and why it happened is what took us into the heart of Abu Ghraib that night."


Barbara Bush succumbs to Temptation

by kishik

Thu Oct 06, 2005 at 09:08:11 AM PDT

"There is always a temptation, in the middle of a long struggle, to seek the quiet life, escape the duties and problems of the world, and hope the enemy grows weary."

"We're not leaving Iraq. We will succeed in Iraq."

by kishik

Tue Oct 04, 2005 at 12:52:20 PM PDT

President Bush, October 4, 2005 Press Conference:

"And we've got to win in Iraq. And we will win in Iraq."

"This is -- Iraq's a part of a global war on terror. We're facing people who have got a vision of the world which is opposite of ours. I know I've said that endlessly, and I will continue to say it, because I know it's true.

"And they have designs. They like the idea of being able to find safe haven in a country like Afghanistan so they can plot attacks.

"They like the idea of killing innocent people to shake our will. That's what they're trying to do.

"We're not leaving Iraq. We will succeed in Iraq."

Time to Refocus: On Sheehan

by kishik

Mon Sep 26, 2005 at 12:47:33 PM PDT

       
It's time to remember why Cindy Sheehan has been exercising her civil right to free speech.

Taped Conversations Released to NPR of Pre-planning and After Requests for Help: Katrina

by kishik

Fri Sep 23, 2005 at 05:10:24 AM PDT

I heard this on NPR this morning

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4859329

"Morning Edition, September 23, 2005 · In the days before Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, officials in local, state and federal governments held a series of telephone conference calls aimed at coordinating their responses to the storm. The sessions were recorded by Walter Maestri, emergency manager for Jefferson Parish, who shared them with NPR."


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