This Date in History......Sept.11th,2001 will always be remembered!

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As everyone is aware of this date since the twin towers were demolished.  I am filled with both

anger that it happen and sadness. The other emotions that come to mind is the courage of all

those that fought to save everyone and the dedication of the support workers.

Let's never forget......

As I read this headline in USA TODAY

Moment of silence marks key moments of 9/11

 

Ignoring the rain and dreary skies, tearful families carrying photos of lost loved ones have gathered at a plaza near Ground Zero today to observe the eighth anniversary of the World Trade Center attack.

Bagpipers lend a somber mood to the morning.

The crowds have fallen silent at 8:46 a.m. ET to mark the moment when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center.

Thousands are also expected at the Pentagon and at the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93 in a Shanksville, Pa., field.

President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama also bowed their heads and paused to mark the moment.

Update at 8:49 a.m. ET: Bells toll in lower Manhattan as the crowds stand in silence.

Update at 8:51 a.m. ET:  Vice President Biden, with his wife, Jill, are attending the Manhattan ceremonies and have laid flowers in a reflecting pool at Ground Zero just before the ceremony.

The ceremony is taking place at the edge of the World Trade Center site and overlooks ongoing construction. A giant crane hovers over a park where the victims’ names are being read.

Update at 8:54 a.m. ET: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the city will “safeguard the memory of those who died” by rekindling a spirit of volunteerism.

Volunteers who cleaned debris or worked near Ground Zero along with family members have begun to read more than 2,700 names of victims who died at the Trade Center.

Update at 9:04 a.m. ET: Bells have also fallen silent at 9:03 a.m. ET to mark when the second plane hit the towers.

Update at 9:09 am. ET: The Associated Press says the smaller-than-usual crowd in New York numbers in the hundreds in the rainy, windy weather. Many family members came holding photographs of their loved ones who died.

Update at 9:21 a.m. ET: USA TODAY's David Jackson reports that President Obama, first lady Michelle Obama, and some 200 members of the White House staff stood in silence on the south driveway of the White House to remember the victims of 9/11. A bell tolled three times as the Obamas stood with their heads bowed. They then put their hands on their hearts as a military trumpeter played Taps.
 

Update at 9:35 a.m. ET: Former president George W. Bush issued this statement:

Eight years ago, our nation and our freedom came under attack.  On this solemn anniversary, Laura and I hold the victims and their families in our thoughts and prayers. We honor those who volunteer to keep us safe and extend the reach of freedom – including members of the armed forces, law enforcement officers, and intelligence and homeland security professionals. Their courage, service, and sacrifice is a fitting tribute to all those who gave their lives on September 11, 2001.  On this day, let us renew our determination to prevent evil from returning to our shores.

Update at 9:37 a.m. ET: USA TODAY's Rick Hampson in New York says wind and rain have kept crowd sizes down on the streets around the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan, but relatives of those killed on 9/11 turned out in numbers. Wearing rain jackets and transparent plastic ponchos and holding golf umbrellas against the elements, they are gathered at a park near the Trade Center site as the names of the fallen were read.

In an interview, Jay Winuk, whose brother Glenn died when the Trade Center’s South Tower collapsed, praised the day’s declaration as a National Day of Service and Remembrance: “It’s a way to honor those who died, and to preserve the day’s meaning.’’ In addition to remembering the attacks themselves, he said, “future generations must learn of the compassionate response. When the chips were as down as they could possibly be, people stepped forward to help.’’

Winuk was one of three family members who made brief speeches during the ceremony. In his remarks, he called his late brother “my hero,’’ because when others ran from danger, “he ran toward those in peril’’ as an EMT and volunteer fire fighter. Glenn Winuk died after leaving his law office in lower Manhattan to try to help emergency responders at the Trade Center.

Update at 9:38 a.m. ET: President Obama is speaking at ceremonies at the Pentagon.

Update at 9:43 a.m. ET: Obama says at "this scared hour, once more we pause, once more we pray, as a nation, as a people." To the families of the victims, Obama says, "on this day and all that follow, you may take solace in the memory of those you love and that you have the unending support of the American people."

President Obama urged the nation today "to renew our resolve" against the terrorists who perpetrated the "barbaric act" of eight years ago.
"We remember with reverence the lives we lost," Obama said during the memorial ceremony at the Pentagon. Their sacrifice "still shines brightly in the darkness -- it calls on all of us to be firm, strong, and united."
 
Update at 9:55 a.m. ET: Obama says “in pursuit of al-Qaeda and its extremist allies we will never falter.”

(Photo of family member at reflecting pool at Ground Zero by Chang W. Lee, Reuters)

Posted by Doug Stanglin at 08:48 AM/ET, September 11, 2009

We all should remember this incident and how we can help our fellow man rise above this sort

of thing..

Also remember the courageous firefighters and police that help those in need...May the relatives

of those that died have peace ...

Yours truly,

Brian"mediamerlin"Woodbridge

Investigate ACORN, Now!

Article provided by FoxNews

If a new videotape is genuine, then it shows extremely serious criminal activity perpetrated by some ACORN individuals. Law enforcement needs to investigate this matter and Congress needs to de-fund ACORN and exclude it from all government programs until  investigation is complete.

A new video recording and transcript have surfaced that raise deeply troubling questions about the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). Law enforcement authorities must investigate this matter immediately, and Congress needs to de-fund ACORN and exclude it from all government programs until this investigation is complete.
On September 10, the news Web site Big Government broke a story that could be a turning point for ACORN. A video recording has surfaced in which two people go undercover, posing as a prostitute and a "friend" looking for housing.
The people they go to see identify themselves in the recording as being affiliated with ACORN in Baltimore. These undercover persons slowly reveal that they're involved in prostitution and are seeking ACORN's help in obtaining a house in which to put thirteen underage El Salvadoran girls, and turn the house into a brothel. Shockingly, the individuals who say they are from ACORN go on to explain how to go about doing these things, even advising the "prostitute" that she could claim three of these girls as "family members" on her taxes to claim a deduction.
Over the past few years, individuals associated with ACORN have been charged or convicted of commiting various voter-fraud crimes. If this tape is authentic, then depending on the applicable law in Maryland, these ACORN individuals could be charged with conspiracy counts for tax evasion, housing fraud, and even exploiting underage children.
The ACORN high command always denies any knowledge of wrongdoing; it's always some "rogue element" (though there seem to be a lot of rogues in ACORN). But crimes of this nature are so serious that an investigation is needed to find out who knew what about this situation.
First, there needs to be an investigation by the local prosecutor and the Maryland attorney general. Although the underage prostitutes in this situation did not exist, the video shows the housing workers appearing to be quite nonchalant, considering the information (and telling the undercover reporters that they do not "judge" them and that the nineteen-year-old who claimed to be a prostitute should feel good about making something out of herself), so much so that you have to wonder what other situations they've been involved with in the past.
Second, there needs to be a federal criminal investigation. The tape shows people who are willing to work with this undercover couple in a possible (depending on the applicable law in that jurisdiction) conspiracy to commit tax fraud, to defraud federal housing programs, and possibly violate the Mann Act in transporting minors across state lines for sexual purposes.
Finally, there should be a congressional investigation. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers had earlier expressed an interest in holding hearings about ACORN. It would seem that the time has come to hold those hearings.
This is needed both because of the role ACORN currently plays with the federal government, and also with the future role that they are being considered for.
Right now ACORN is heavily involved in voter-registration programs, especially in inner cities. ACORN is also involved in federal programs to find housing for low-income people and receives federal taxpayer money for this public service.
(As an aside, they were also, perhaps, the foremost actors in coercing banks to make housing loans under the Community Reinvestment Act to people who could not qualify for those loans. The cascading defaults on those mortgages are what burst the housing bubble, dragging down the financial stocks and causing the stock market crash.)
But, most importantly, heavy lobbying is going on in Washington to give ACORN a leading role in the 2010 national census. ACORN workers would be going door-to-door, collecting information on people within their homes and reporting the number of people in each home.
Those numbers are used to redraw every congressional and state legislative race across the country. If certain heavily Democratic urban areas were over-counted because of fraudulent numbers, it would eliminate some Republican elected seats and replace them with Democratic seats.
ACORN's current role is unacceptable if they are involved in any of the things shown by this video recording --to say nothing of expanding their role to entrust the census to them!
And this is just one incident in Baltimore. Are there other incidents that have been unfolding across the country? Does ACORN's senior leadership have knowledge of any such incidents?
Again, we need investigations.
ACORN has gotten away with too much for too long. If this tape is genuine, then it shows extremely serious criminal activity perpetrated by some ACORN individuals. It's time to get to the bottom of this.
Ken Klukowski is a fellow and senior legal analyst with the American Civil Rights Union. Ken Blackwell served as the Ohio Secretary of State and Co-Chairman of the Year 2000 Census Monitoring Board.
To view the videotape of the incident in Baltimore on the big government.com Web site and for more on this story, click here.

When I read about things like this I always wonder if some shouldn't have
the power to do things.

Yours truly,


Brian "mediamerlin" Woodbridge

'Death Star' Galaxy Black Hole Fires at Neighboring Galaxy

A black hole jet at the center of a galaxy strikes the edge of another galaxy.
Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/ CfA/D.Evans et al.; Optical/UV: NASA/ STScI; Radio: NSF/VLA/CfA/D.Evans et al., STFC/JBO/MERLIN
                                                                      ^
Pictured at right-------------------------------I


Today's excerpt found here; WWW.NASA.GOV

WASHINGTON - A powerful jet from a super massive black hole is blasting a nearby galaxy, according to new findings from NASA observatories. This never-before witnessed galactic violence may have a profound effect on planets in the jet's path and trigger a burst of star formation in its destructive wake.

Known as 3C321, the system contains two galaxies in orbit around each other. Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory show both galaxies contain super massive black holes at their centers, but the larger galaxy has a jet emanating from the vicinity of its black hole. The smaller galaxy apparently has swung into the path of this jet.

This "death star" galaxy was discovered through the combined efforts of both space and ground-based telescopes. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, and Spitzer Space Telescope were part of the effort. The Very Large Array telescope, Socorro, N.M., and the Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN) telescopes in the United Kingdom also were needed for the finding.

"We've seen many jets produced by black holes, but this is the first time we've seen one punch into another galaxy like we're seeing here," said Dan Evans, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and leader of the study. "This jet could be causing all sorts of problems for the smaller galaxy it is pummeling."

Jets from super massive black holes produce high amounts of radiation, especially high-energy X-rays and gamma-rays, which can be lethal in large quantities. The combined effects of this radiation and particles traveling at almost the speed of light could severely damage the atmospheres of planets lying in the path of the jet. For example, protective layers of ozone in the upper atmosphere of planets could be destroyed.

Jets produced by super massive black holes transport enormous amounts of energy far from black holes and enable them to affect matter on scales vastly larger than the size of the black hole. Learning more about jets is a key goal for astrophysical research.

"We see jets all over the universe, but we're still struggling to understand some of their basic properties," said co-investigator Martin Hardcastle of the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. "This system of 3C321 gives us a chance to learn how they're affected when they slam into something like a galaxy and what they do after that."

The effect of the jet on the companion galaxy is likely to be substantial, because the galaxies in 3C321 are extremely close at a distance of only about 20,000 light years apart. They lie approximately the same distance as Earth is from the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

A bright spot in the Very Large Array and MERLIN images shows where the jet has struck the side of the galaxy, dissipating some of the jet's energy. The collision disrupted and deflected the jet.

Another unique aspect of the discovery in 3C321 is how relatively short-lived this event is on a cosmic time scale. Features seen in the Very Large Array and Chandra images indicate that the jet began impacting the galaxy about one million years ago, a small fraction of the system's lifetime. This means such an alignment is quite rare in the nearby universe, making 3C321 an important opportunity to study such a phenomenon.

It is possible the event is not all bad news for the galaxy being struck by the jet. The massive influx of energy and radiation from the jet could induce the formation of large numbers of stars and planets after its initial wake of destruction is complete.

The results from Evans and his colleagues will appear in The Astrophysical Journal. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for the agency's Science Mission Directorate. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Mass.

Additional information and images are available at:





http://www.nasa.gov/chandra/
and
http://chandra.harvard.edu

Media contacts: Grey Hautaluoma 202-358-0668
Headquarters, Washington
grey.hautaluoma-1@nasa.gov

Jennifer Morcone 256-544-7199
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
Jennifer.J.Morcone@nasa.gov

Megan Watzke 617-496-7998
Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Mass.
m.watzke@cfa.harvard.edu

Since I love everything about the space program I found this story very interesting.

It is quite interesting that they chose the name of Star Wars 'Death Star' as the ominous

name of the black hole.

Yours truly,

Brian"mediamerlin"Woodbridge

Ginormous Rats, Grunting Fish and Fanged Frogs Found in Remote Rainforest

Today's trends didn't have that many things that interests me, except when I noticed the rainforest link.

Some remote areas of our earth have creatures like this :::



Excerpt found here----ECOWORLDLY

Written by Jace Shoemaker-Galloway

Published on September 7th, 2009

Posted in About Animals, About Environment, About Science, In Global

A team of biologists and filmmakers have discovered new species of rats, spiders, fish and frogs on a recent expedition deep inside the jungle of Papua New Guinea.  The team discovered many exotic creatures, including a ginormous rat, while filming the BBC’s Lost Land of the Volcano. 
According to the press release from the BBC’s Natural History Unit, the rat, the size of a cat, is one of the world’s largest rats.  First spotted on film, the team set out to take a closer look and trapped a live rat. 
Measuring almost 3 feet in length from the tip of its nose to end of its tail, the rodent weighed in at over 3 pounds!  The silvery-grey Bosavi Woolly Rat was discovered in the crater of an extinct volcano, Mount Bosavi.    The area is so remote, it is often described as a “lost world.”  Nearly 40 undiscovered species were discovered in the location.   Besides the rat, the Fanged Frog of Bosavi, a grunting fish appropriately named the Henamo Grunter and a bear-like marsupial Bosavi Silky Cuscus, were also discovered during the two-week expedition inside the crater.   Several of the species appear to be unafraid of humans. 
The series airs on television beginning September 8, 2009.   To get a sneak peek of the rat in action, visit the BBC.  Photos of some of the species are available on the Belfast Telegraph website.

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Tags: BBC’s Natural History Unit, Bosavi Silky Cuscus, Bosavi Woolly Rat, fanged frogs, Henamo Grunter, huge rats, Lost Land of the Volcano, lost world, Mount Bosavi, new species, Papua New Guinea, rainforest, rats the size of cats

Now that is one of the largest rats that I have seen a picture of....one questions comes to mind;
How many other weird and unusual species are their on this planet yet to be discovered?

hmmmmmm
Yours truly,
Brian"mediamerlin"Woodbridge

Why no one labors on Labor Day aka history of Labor Day

Articles contents care of :
THE EXAMINER

Pullman strikers outside Arcade Building, 1894

Do you know the origin of the celebration we hold on the first Monday in the month of September? Many Americans pair Labor Day and the end of summer together, however that’s not how it started.
The first labor festival occurred in Toronto. American labor leader Peter J. McGuire witnessed it, and returned to New York City and organized a labor celebration on September 5, 1882.
However, the impetus behind sanctioning Labor Day as a Federal holiday was the Pullman Strike. Approximately 3,000 employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company began a wildcat strike in 1894. Their wages had been cut five times, 30-70 percent, within six months. George Pullman literally owned the land, homes and stores in the town named for him. The workers’ earnings went back to Pullman through rent and goods. Though their wages were cut, living costs remained the same.
The American Railway Union (ARU) joined the wildcatters, enmeshing 250,000 workers and 27 states. President Grover Cleveland feared the nation would come to a halt. He stepped in and people died. Cleveland ordered U.S. Marshals and about 12,000 United States Army troops to end the strike, killing 13 and wounding 57 men.
In an act of reconciliation, Cleveland rushed a law through Congress making Labor Day a national holiday, six days after the end of the strike.
In 1896, Cleveland lost his bid at the Democratic National Convention for reelection.
In 1897, George M. Pullman, who began as a manufacturer of coffins as a young man, died. He was buried in Graceland Cemetery in a lead-lined coffin.
In 1898, through the efforts of an investigation regarding the causes of the Pullman Strike, the Pullman Company divested itself of the town and Chicago annexed the 4,000 acres of land on the west shore of Lake Calumet -- formerly known as Pullman, Illinois.

Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself. Have a safe, happy weekend.

Wow considering I grew up in Mississauga it is nice to hear that the first Labor Day
in Canada occurred in Toronto in the year September 5,1882. It is sad how the national holiday
began in the States though.

Have a happy and prosperous Labor day today.

Yours truly,
Brian "mediamerlin" Woodbridge