Never Forget

Twenty-one years ago today. 

New York City:

Photo by Dr. Emil Chynn

Many more photos of Ground Zero HERE.

The Pentagon:

Photo from the Department of Defense

What did America learn that day?

What did the world learn that day?

Has the West learned the right lessons?

Have we moved on so far that we have forgotten those attacks?

History doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes (attributed to Mark Twain).

Please take a few moments to reflect on the terrorist attacks of 9/11: to honor those who lost their lives and to remember the many more who lost their beloveds:

Musical Interlude: Blogoversary!

Note: I also team blog at DEPLORABLE Bloggers Alliance (previously called Infidel Bloggers Alliance), founded by Pastorius, and used to post at NorthernVirginiastan.

So, here's the story of Always On Watch....

Seventeen years as of April 28!  I came to the blogosphere in frustration because of the whitewash of Islam — despite the Islamic terror attacks of 9/11.  To this day, if I have to recommend one book to read on the topic of Islam, I still recommend Serge Trifkovic's The Sword of Islam (2002), a book written from the historical perspective.  It is the book that awakened me in December 2002.

Now, of course, I have often moved on to topics besides that of Islam.  Why?  Because of something Friedrich Nietzsche wrote and because I really didn't have more to say on the topic of the threat of Islam to Western Civilization.  Look at the evidence and come to your own conclusion.  But don't look too long into the abyss.

HERE is my first post (April 28, 2005) at my first Always On Watch blog, using a Blogger template before Warren customized a template for me.  

After my first Always On Watch blog, because of troll wars I next moved to Always On Watch 2 (July 24, 2006-November 29, 2010); Always On Watch 2 uses Warren's customized template as does Always On Watch: Semper Vigilans, the blog you are reading right now.  Team member Silverfiddle often posts here, too, and keeps this blog running when Warren and I are too busy to do so.  Grateful for you, Silverfiddle!

It is through the blogosphere that I met and made the closest friends I now have, too many to name. I must, however, now mention Mustang, my first cyberfriend.  At the time of our  meeting here on the web, we were both new to the blogosphere and had to stumble our way through HTML, Java Script, and the like.  

Many of my cyberfriends became "real life" friends and helped me in different ways during the horrible 11.5 years after Mr. AOW's stroke in 2009 — especially Patricia, former blogger The Merry Widow, who came from Florida to Northern Virginia to stay with us several times to lend a hand.  At one point, she stayed with us for eleven months.  Eleven months!  I needed her help through kidney surgeries and complications thereafter.  She literally saved my life and saved Mr. AOW from confinement in a nursing home.  TMW passed away suddenly on March 29, 2020.  I miss her every day.

And, of course, it is through the blogosphere that I met my beloved Warren — and even the best man at our wedding The Beak!  And The Beak is the one who introduced Warren and me at The Electronic Bar.

Because of my original intent with my blogging, the following has been suggested as my theme song:

Maybe the song below should have been my theme song, although it keeps disappearing from YouTube:

About Islam...Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the critically-important topic, even to this day: Is Islam a Religion of Peace? Worth your time.

Recommended Reading

*****
See Texas Synagogue Terrorist Came Out of UK Islamist No-Go Zone by Daniel Greenfield.

Excerpt:

...The hostage crisis at Congregation Beth Israel, a Reform Temple in Texas, ended with Faisal Akram of Blackburn, another post-industrial English town where Muslims make up a third of the population and Pakistanis account for over 10 percent, dead, and his Jewish hostages set free.

[...] 

The town has produced no shortage of Jihadists, including the youngest terrorist in the UK, as well as a number of Jihadis who traveled to join ISIS, an associate of shoe bomber Richard Reid, and a terrorist who played a key role in an Al Qaeda plot that targeted New York and D.C.

Blackburn is one of the most segregated towns in the country and has been described as a “no-go zone”. The area that produced the Temple Terrorist has the highest Muslim population outside of London where some claim that flying the English flag has been effectively outlawed....

Read the entire essay HERE.  Sounds to me as if Blackburn is growing terrorists in its segregated garden. 

And one more thing....Why did our FBI almost immediately state that they were still looking for a motive in the January 15, 2021 attack on the synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, and, apparently deliberately in a knee-jerk reaction, avoid mentioning terrorism and the Anti-Semitic targeting of Jews worshiping in a synagogue on their Sabbath?  In part, because of THIS:

...Early in the Obama administration, it scrubbed all counterterror training materials that made any mention of Islamic texts and teachings, and severed ties with all the independent contractors (including me) who were teaching agents about the beliefs and goals of jihad terrorists. Islamic anti-Semitism is yet another forbidden area for today’s FBI; they can’t investigate anything that might appear to be “Islamophobic.” So Matt DeSarno is operating out of the willful ignorance the FBI chose as policy years ago. This time, the agency’s woke idiocy is actively misleading the American people about what happened in Colleyville.

"Wokeness," particularly at the government-policy level, is deadly denial.

Additional reading (a satiric essay by Tammy Swofford): The FBI Develops Symptoms of Stroke When Discussing the Attack on a Synagogue.

Recommended Reading

See How Islam Is Different from Other Religions by Shadi Hamdi, from the June 13, 2016 issue of Time Magazine. The essay is copied and pasted in its entirely below the fold in case you do not have a subscription to the magazine.

Breaking My Silence

I'm not yet ready to return to full-time blogging. This nasty cough still grinds on (What a virus!), and my workload isn't quite under control.  I should assign less work to my students, I suppose.

The above said, with the United States now embarking upon a non-war (What is this thing, exactly?), here's something to discuss for the next few days (not my "typical blogging style"):


The ugly truth is this, and all the wishing otherwise will not change the truth....

The problem is Islam.