*drattit.

September 12, 1683 was, according to Bill Quick, the beginning of the end of the Ottoman Empire (at the hands of POLES!!!)

I got up in time yesterday to see the moment of silence. I remember last year... Rich was out walking the dog when I heard the news. I tuned in just after the South Tower crashed. We were going out to the house, where I was working on a book inventory. We turned around en route to come back home to fly the flag. At the house, I kept going to the front room to watch what was going on, on the TV which only got CBS. I had a radio going in the back room. Rich was working in the garage and also kept coming in to see, again, the appalling sights.

Today I heard from the realtor. I'll sign my stuff on Tuesday, even though the sale doesn't actually close till the 20th. I gave the new owners permission to go in and get bids on the work, so they can have it all ready for students in October.

I watched TV all day yesterday. Bush spoke at the Pentagon and used the word "admirination." God, I love this guy! He keeps trying to wrestle English to the ground and pin it down, and English keeps defeating him. He was so great at Shanksville, never said a word, just laid the wreath and then talked to the families. Clinton would have spoken, at great length, mostly about how it affected HIM. I also enjoyed the end, there, when he was holding up one little boy and didn't notice the brother tapping him in the rear. When he walked off someone told him about the other little boy, and he came back, bestowed a hug and stood with both for a picture. What a charmer!

(I do wish he could say "nuclear," though)

He did the same at Ground Zero. I missed his evening speech (taped it) because we went to Church. This being a second Wednesday, there was already a pro-life Mass planned, so the service was a bit confused, but I knew why I was there.

I spent a lot of the day avoiding Hillary. When she came on (except when she was reading names), I would change channels. To my surprise, though, I spent most of the day on CBS. I note that Jennings (on ABC) still can't wear a patriotic lapel pin. God forbid we should be patriotic.

Also yesterday I bought some DVDs as my patriotic "buy something" gesture. Today I took Casey to the library. I read a lot of books, even one to a former classmate of Casey's. I also decided to start a book which would go for weeks... and picked JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH. Uh-oh! In the first chapters a funny little man entices James with his "bag of something wonderful." Casey and I had a little talk about the difference between fiction and real life, and in real life James should have run away and shouted for help.

9-1-1 won the NY Lottery yesterday, and the S&P futures closed at 911. I imagine this sort of thing happens fairly often, but Jonah Goldberg quotes Chesterton: "Coincidences are spiritual puns."

More 9/11 links: Most of these added links come from Instantman's 56 (!) posts on 9/11:
Bigwig connects the cartoons du jour.

Saudi gifts.
Scourge of Richard Cohen.
NZBear The Turning Point.
Children's art
John Paczkowski .

Beetle Bailey! Go there now!

Jeff Jarvis and also the Former Pacifist entry
Dean Esmay has a further list of worthy sites
John Hawkins, Palestinians.
9-11

What's going on in England
and at sea

Pejman has quotes and then his 9/11 story below it.
Happy Fun Pundit,
Megan McArdle.
Rand on UCSC's commemoration.

Lileks, what he'd tell his lastyear self.

9-11 poem,

and denBeste, as usual, gets it entirely right.

Today's Lileks.Look at the graphic!

I curse the terrorists for their horrible triumphs, but those bastards cannot even begin to count the ways in which they failed.

319 years later, the Islamists are losing again.

ObGoe: This is your Captain speaking.