Tributes To 9/11

Today is the 15 anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, when 19 terrorists from al-Qaeda hijacked four airplanes and flew two of them into the World Trade Center in New York City and one into the Pentagon.  The fourth, due to resistance by passengers and the crew, crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

At the time, I worked about a mile from the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.  I did not learn what was going on until after both WTC towers had been hit (thanks to a co-worker having a portable battery-powered TV, with a screen about three inches wide).  I was thus spared the uncertainty after the first plane hit, when people wondered if a horrible accident had occurred, only to realize when the second plane hit that we were indeed under attack.  While we could see smoke rising from the Pentagon, there was some confusion due to reports of a nearby gas station being on fire, and a fire occurring on the Mall in Washington, DC.  Both of those reports turned out wrong.  One co-worker thought that he had seen a plane flying strangely low as he drove into work, and thus may have seen the plane which hit the Pentagon.  Eventually, there were reports about a plane crashing in Pennsylvania, and questions about other planes still being in flight, which could possibly be used in more kamikaze-style attacks.  Eventually, the media sorted out the details.  Nineteen people hijacked four planes with the intention of crashing them into the World Trade Center (which had been bombed eight years earlier), the Pentagon, and one other target, possibly the White House.

Here are some tributes and reflections on 9/11/2001:

From Newsmax, the United States remembers the victims.

From CNN, Hillary Clinton, at the time New York's junior Senator, calls the scene in New York the closest thing to hell that she had ever seen.

From the Rockford Register Star, the 9/11 anniversary is a "valuable reminder of the cost of freedom".

From SlipTalk, 22 facts about 9/11.

From the New York Post, "the wounds that healed and the threat the continues".

From HealthZette, a man who spent weeks at Ground Zero says, "Prepare for the worst."

From Breitbart's Big Government, "a visual remembrance" of 9/11.

From Fox News, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson says that the United States is safer than we were on 9/11, but are "challenged" by lone wolf attacks.

From The Clarion Project, is al-Qaeda's 20-year plan "coming to fruition"?

From Marathon Pundit, a brief tribute, with a picture of a 9/11 memorial.

And from Holger Awakens, we will never forget, including a video.

33-Year-Old Murder Case Finally Solved?

In 1983, a 92-year-old veteran of  World War I living in Buffalo, New York was strangled to death with his own neckties, but noone was charged with the murder.  Thanks to DNA analysis, the case may finally have been solved.  From The Buffalo News:

Thirty-three years after Edmund C. Schreiber, a slightly built, World War I veteran, was found strangled with eight of his own neckties in his Hastings Avenue home, technology caught up with police work. And that police work led to the arrest Wednesday of a Buffalo woman on murder charges. 

Saundra Adams, now 50, who had been a neighbor of Schreiber's in 1983, was arraigned Wednesday in Erie County Court on charges of second degree murder in the long unsolved killing.

Investigators believe Adams acted with someone else in the attack on Schreiber, who was 92 years old when he was killed. Schreiber, born in 1891, was orphaned as a child, served in WWI and was awarded a Purple Heart. He and his wife raised their family in the house on Hastings, where they lived for more than 50 years. Schreiber’s wife died about five years before he was killed.

Read the full story.

Wednesday Links

With the latest Hump Day upon us, here are some things in the news:

France builds a wall and Britain pays for it.

Police in one German city prepare to deal with crime by migrants.

Air China's magazine is not politically correct about London.

A car with gas cylinders is found next to Notre Dame cathedral.

How the U.S. government failed to defend its computers.

Some sad news about LSU's mascot Mike VI.

The Democrats generally support LGBT people, but not always.  (H/T LSU Jeff for the Tweet)

The drug war in Mexico has created a boom in the private security industry.

ISIS stones a man for adultery and forces civilians to participate.

In Algeria, a three-year sentence for insulting Islam is upheld on appeal.

A top Saudi imam calls for killing Shiites, Jews and Christians.

The Kurdish president arrives in Paris.

A look at Hillary Clinton's campaign strategy.

Hillary gets what I'll call a coffee endorsement.

One conservative writer remembers Phyllis Schlafly.

Ooops!

A Hungarian professor recommends a very harsh policy toward Muslims.

In Nevada, an escaped suspect is recaptured.

Car loan debt tops $1 trillion.

And finally, this phenomenon in Russia might give a new meaning to the song Red River Valley.

Truck Hauling Bacon Burns On Interstate Highway

Yesterday evening on Interstate 68 near Cumberland, Maryland, a tractor-trailer carrying a load of pork including bacon caught fire, which burned for several hours.  The fire is believed to have started in the trailer's breaks.  No one was injured, but a fire hose was damaged "beyond repair" by bacon grease.

Read more at the Cumberland Times-News, CBS Baltimore and Fox45.

Phyllis Schlafly 1924-2016

Conservative icon and Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly has died at her home in St. Louis, Missouri at the age of 92.  According to a family member, she had been ill with cancer.  She was an author, an activist, a constitutional lawyer, and an unsuccessful candidate for Congress.  She has been credited (or blamed, depending on your political views) with defeating the constitutional Equal Rights Amendment.

Phyllis McAlpin Stewart was born on August 15, 1924 in St. Louis to John Bruce Stewart and the former Odile Dodge.  She earned her B.A. in 1944 from Washington University in St. Louis, her M.A. in 1945 from Radcliffe College, and her law degree from Washington University's law school in 1978.  She married John Fred Schlaffly Jr. in 1949, with whom she had six children.  She ran for a seat in the House of Representatives in 1952 and in 1970, both in Illinois, losing both elections.  (I remember a speech in which she said something to the effect of "To those of you who voted for me, I thank you, and for those of you who didn't, my husband thanks you.")  Between 1964 and 2014, she wrote 23 books on a variety of subjects.

Mrs. Schlaffly was predeceased by her husband in 1993, and is survived by her six children.

Read more at The Hill, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Fox News and the New York Post.

Sarkozy Could Be Tried For Campaign Finance Crimes

Prosecutors in France have recommended that former French president Nicolas Sarkozy stand trial for illegally financing his 2012 campaign for re-election, which he lost to François Hollande.  Sarkozy hopes to run again in 2017, but a trial would greatly thwart his efforts.  One accusation he faces is that he allegedly received a large amount of money from the late Libyan leader Muhammar Gaddafi.  Another is that during the course of the 2012 campaign, the public relations firm Bygmalion billed his party instead of his campaign apparatus.

Read more at RFI, France24, BBC News and the Daily Mail.

Angela Merkel's Party Loses Regional Election

This story was put into the chatroom of the BlogTalkRadio show of the English Defence League.

In her own home region of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) lost in the regional election to the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.  The AfD has been described as "right-wing", "populist", "nationalist" and "anti-immigrant".  The CDU came in third, with the Social Democrats (SPD) coming in second.

I take the term "anti-immigrant" with a grain of salt.  These days, if you're against having your country take in unlimited numbers of poorly vetted and medically un-screened immigrants and refugees from parts of the world in which the culture is very different from your own, and show any concern at all for how these immigrants and refugees might affect the well-being of your own people, you're "anti-immigrant".

But enough of my two cents.  Read more at The Globe And Mail, Sky News, Reuters, the Sunday Express and Deutsche Welle.

St. Francis Was Anti-Islam

St. Francis of Assisi is known for being charitable to the poor, as the pope who took his name might like to remind us.  But as Raymond Ibrahim explains in American Thinker, St. Francis was known for something else.

When Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio became the new Catholic pope in 2013, he chose the name of Francis to indicate that his pontificate would be one of mercy and compassion for the poor and needy.  Such is the reputation of his eponym, Saint Francis of Assisi: "the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and protects creation," said Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, as to why he chose that name.

St. Francis (1182-1226) is indeed known for all those qualities.  But he was known for something else his modern-day namesake fails to live up to: unapologetically confronting Islam.

I've been to Assisi twice, and visited the church built in honor of St. Francis.  But during those visits, I did not learn that he himself had done some travelling.  Back to American Thinker:

In 1212, during the Fifth Crusade, Francis and a fellow monk traveled to the Middle East and sought audience with Sultan al-Kamil - despite al-Kamil's vow that "anyone who brought him the head of a Christian should be awarded with a Byzantine gold piece" (p. 57).  

The "p. 57" refers to the page in the book St. Francis of Assisi and the Conversion of Muslims, by Frank M. Rega, which Ibrahim reviews in his article.  That's right, St. Francis went to the Middle East during one of the Crusades.  Read the full article at the first link above.  This story comes via The Religion Of Peace.

Gunman Shoots Corrections Officers In Jail Lobby

This morning, two Fresno County corrections officers were shot and wounded in the lobby of the jail where they work.  One suspect is in custody.  The conditions of the two victims have not been released.

Read more at The Fresno Bee, KFSN and CBS SFBayArea.

Links To Start September

A new month is upon us, and after a long wait, so is NCAA football.  Here are some other things going on out there:

A visit to a Kurdish stronghold in Turkey.

An already convicted sex offender is charged with a 1991 murder.

Jet Blue flies to Cuba.

Speaking of flying, how to stop airport panics.

Colin Kaepernick says he'll do it again.

The Chicago Cubs reach two historical milestones.

Rosetta picks up some comet dust.

As the saying goes, plus ça change....

In Syria, ISIS bans soccer referees.

An Australian gets six years for his role in sending seven men to Syria.  (via here)

In Paris, police find an illegal Koranic school.

In India, illiteracy varies between religious groups.

In Yemen, an airstrike kills 16 members of a Shiite imam's extended family.

Child brides are on the increase, among migrants entering Germany.

Iran got some "secret exemptions" from their nuclear deal.

In his speech about immigration, Donald Trump made a "hard to spot" change.

Hillary Clinton quickly reacted to Trump's speech.  (H/T LSU Jeff for Tweeting this)

The Clinton Foundation allegedly bought IT equipment with your tax dollars.

SpaceX's latest test on their Falcon rocket fails spectacularly.
UPDATE:  Video of the failed test may be seen here.

And to finish, Lego does Rogue One.