SITEMETER says over 100,000 pageviews today, beating the previous record by over 22,000. If you want more details, you can click on the counters at the bottom of the page. Thanks for coming by. Good night, and confusion to our enemies — though were they less confused, they likely wouldn’t be our enemies.

MY BROTHER REPORTS that at his school they had a procession with a flag from every country with victims on 9/11. There were 94.

HERE’S THE TEXT OF BUSH’S SPEECH. Excerpt:

This nation has defeated tyrants and liberated death camps, raised this lamp of liberty to every captive land. We have no intention of ignoring or appeasing history’s latest gang of fanatics trying to murder their way to power. They are discovering, as others before them, the resolve of a great country and a great democracy. In the ruins of two towers, under a flag unfurled at the Pentagon, at the funerals of the lost, we have made a sacred promise, to ourselves and to the world: We will not relent until justice is done and our nation is secure. What our enemies have begun, we will finish.

I believe there is a reason that history has matched this nation with this time. America strives to be tolerant and just. We respect the faith of Islam, even as we fight those whose actions defile that faith. We fight, not to impose our will, but to defend ourselves and extend the blessings of freedom.

Enough remembrance. On with the war. Sooner, I suspect, rather than later.

UPDATE: Mickey Kaus gloats that the word “homeland” did not appear in Bush’s speech.

KRISTEN RECOUNTS her 9/11 experience. Orchid has some thoughts, too. Jay Manifold applies management theory to changes in attitudes since the attacks. And Nick Denton makes me blush.

UPDATE: Damian Penny writes that Salon’s article on forbidden 9/11 thoughts is vile, and makes him pray for their early bankruptcy.

And here’s the speech that Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t allowed to give at Concordia University in Montreal.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Scott Rosenberg responds to Damian Penny’s criticism, saying that it’s the role of journalism to puncture orthodoxies, and that that was the function of this “irreverent” piece.

JAMES LINDGREN EMAILS:

With all the talk of appeasement these days, it’s instructive to read the 2d book in William Manchester’s Winston Churchill biographies, the description of Churchill’s struggles in the 1930s while in exile from power. The extent of British appeasement was breathtaking.

1. Even AFTER war was declared against Germany in 1939, the British government still worried about putting someone in the British government or posting diplomats abroad who would get Hitler angry. I’m not kidding. Obviously, there are somewhat less outrageous parallels to today, when some people still don’t understand that we are waging a war against terrorism and thus worry that we might make an Iraqi dictator angry.

2. Areas invaded by Hitler were frequently blamed by British government officials as if they had provoked the attacks.

3. The British appeasers were always looking for root causes (the onerous treaty ending World War I was the chief excuse, but there were many), though I don’t remember if they used the phrase “root causes.”

4. One strong feature of the times was how desperately the government, the Parliament, and the press WANTED to be deceived. They would believe the most ridiculous things (including Hitler’s repeated promises that each of his many acquisitions was his last), if it meant that England should do almost nothing.

5. What also comes through is Churchill’s courage and clear-headedness in the face of seemingly more sophisticated thinkers (with supposedly better judgment), who thought Churchill’s view of the world simplistic.

These are just a small number of the dozens of parallels. Times and situations in the 1930s were very different from today (not the least of which is that George W. Bush is definitely not Winston Churchill), but the reasoning patterns by which commentators approach these challenges are remarkably similar.

The book is:

The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone, 1932-40 by William Manchester

Some things don’t change. There are always people looking for excuses not to do what needs to be done.

READ THE COMMENTS HERE, of which there are now hundreds.

ON YAHOO’S 9/11 MEMORIAL SITE there are currently 1,130 commemorative tiles from Iran.

TOLKIEN QUOTES: Reader Michael Drout sends this:

This one, from The Return of the King, is what I sent to several of my

students last year who wanted to turn to literature:

“Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.”

A fairly good answer to those who suggest that we have to solve every other problem (i.e, Israel / Palestinians, poverty in the third world, racism, etc.) before we can tackle terrorists.

As for other relevant Tolkien, today, in response to the Samizdata posting from England, I used another appropriate quote in the comments:

‘Between us there can be no word of giving or taking, nor of reward; for we are brethren…. and never has any league of peoples been more blessed, so that neither has ever failed the other, nor shall fail.”

Bigwig adds another, which he says should apply to “all who take up arms against the West:”

All were slain save those who fled to die, or to drown in the red foam of the River. Few ever came eastward to Morgul or to Mordor; and to the land of the Haradrim came only a tale from far off: a rumour of the wrath and terror of Gondor.

Any others?

UPDATE: But of course. Reader Christopher Brandt sends this:

One of my favorites, and I think especially applicable now

>From The Two Towers (Book III)

{Eomer speaks to Aragorn} ‘… How shall a man judge what to do in such times?’

‘As he ever has judged,’ said Aragorn. ‘Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.’

And reader Mark Ayres sends this non-fictional item:

Surely you can not leave out this one. It’s not from his fiction, but from a letter rebuffing a German publisher in 1938:

As a fervent Catholic, a veteran of the Somme, and a genuine scholar of Nordic cultures, Tolkien was not blind to these events. In 1938, Tolkien denounced the Nazis’ “wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine.” When German publishers Rütten and Loening wished to translate The Hobbit from English, they wrote him, inquiring whether his name was of “Aryan” origin. Tolkien’s reply dripped scorn:

I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is, Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.

I think I have seen it phrased differently before; it seems I remembered it being directed at Goebbels (better yet!). This is where I googled it just

now: link.

This version matches my memory, as I’ve seen this quoted before. Very impressive stuff. Sadly, few authors in the 20th century possessed Tolkien’s moral clarity, whether in their works, or in life.

THE LAST UPDATE ON THIS: Reader Don McGregor writes:

Tolkien goes on in that letter to add:

“My great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany; the main part of my descent is therefore purely English… I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to be come the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name no longer be a source of pride.”

Truly, a glorious letter. (Collected letters, Houghton Mifflin, pp 37-8.)

Very nice.

DIANE E. said she wasn’t going to write anything today, but she lied. She’s written two words.

THIS SOUNDS DEEPLY SUSPICIOUS to me.

IRAN HAS BLOODILY SUPPRESSED PROTESTERS — the official story is that it was about arrests of alcohol dealers, but I’m not so sure.

HENRY HANKS says I was wrong to praise ABC, and that Fox has had the best coverage today. He blogs a couple of examples.

They’re good ones. I missed ’em, but I only watched a couple of hours of the coverage. It’s Nickelodeon as I laptop-blog in the bedroom while my daughter nods off in our bed. (If it weren’t for the laptop and the wireless network, I couldn’t post nearly this much. You can decide if that’s a bug or a feature. . . . But it was the tipjar donations that paid for the laptop, so you guys are getting what you paid for, anyway.)

UPDATE: This is post #56 for today, not counting updates. And just over 92,000 pageviews according to Sitemeter. I’m using that for comparison because the previous pageview record (back when that was all I was counting) was something around 77,600. Hope the server doesn’t melt.

MIKE HENDRIX has a heartfelt observation, which is part of a long and passionate post with some great pictures. So here’s the excerpt, but don’t let that stop you from reading the whole thing:

That’s why: politics ain’t people. People are bigger than that, more complex, more unpredictable, more difficult to categorize and comprehend. To try to gain an encompassing understanding of the human soul via the small window of politics is to pinch off your own vision, sort of like looking at one corner of the Grand Canyon through a pair of inverted binoculars and then walking away confident that you saw the whole thing.

The truth is, the free people of the world still do have more in common than our respective governments can sometimes imagine. Our brothers, sisters, and cousins in Europe and Canada are still just that, even though we may disagree on plenty of specific issues. It might be just maudlin naivete for me to say so, but I think that the sympathy expressed for us worldwide in the days following September 11 was genuine, and I think much of it is still there. So many of these people have felt the horror of global terror in their own cities, up close and personal; they’ve lost friends and loved ones to the evil acts of the Red Brigades, Action Directe, the IRA, the ELA, and of course the various Islamist groups too. So how could these people fail to sympathize with us after 9/11? Is it even possible that such heartfelt sentiment could be just an aberration, a shallow and fleeting moment that in the end will be forgotten and mean less than nothing?

I hope not.

GEITNER SIMMONS HAS SOME GOOD THOUGHTS, and a cautionary observation:

A degree of caution is warranted, in other words, as American bestrides the globe. We are right to assert our interests. But we should guard against hubris, be realistic about our capabilities, and realize the risks of unintended consequences.

True enough — but read the whole post for the context.

BIGWIG REVIEWS AND LINKS the 9/11 comic strips and editorial cartoons.

LYNN SISLO quotes Tolkien, and very aptly.

I have another relevant Tolkien quote, from Eowyn: “It takes but one to make a war, not two, and those who do not take up swords can still die upon them.”

FLIT REPORTS that Netanyahu’s speech in Toronto was not marred by a Palestinian-inspired riot. Apparently, unlike the Montreal police, the Toronto law enforcement people were up to the job. Or willing to do the job. Whatever.

JESSE WALKER says that the war on terror isn’t really going that well. He scores some points, especially on homeland security. But I’m not sure that whether we are “safer” is really the measure of progress. Being safer is an endpoint, but progress toward that endpoint doesn’t necessarily produce a smoothly incremental increase in safety. Quite the contrary: the most dangerous time is probably when we’re clearly winning, and they’re utterly desperate.

UPDATE: Andrew Dalton has a slightly different take.

ED DRISCOLL REPORTS on how Moody’s used the Internet and conference-call technology to decentralize itself overnight on 9/11.

LOTS OF GOOD OBSERVATIONS from Dr. Manhattan, who had a child born on September 9, 2001.

“WAKE UP AND SMELL THE BURNING BODIES, FOLKS” — Eugene Volokh is deeply disappointed by the usual suspects’ reaction to the anniversary. He should be. It’s a blot on UCLA’s otherwise excellent reputation.

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH has a selection of excellent quotations and images on his page today. Here is one, from Lois McMaster Bujold: “The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do so for them.”

TONY PIERCE SHARES A DRAFT of President Bush’s forthcoming speech. I think it’s a winner.

A FAKE HATE CRIME in Utah. Not the first such. I wonder if it’s counted in CAIR’s statistics?

UPDATE: Read this post by Suman Palit.

RON CAMPBELL REPORTS FROM JAPAN:

I think most Japanese are happy that 1) it wasn’t them that this happened to and 2) their constitution makes it convenient for them as they don’t really have the option of getting involved in a war beyond their borders. There is a vocal minority opposed to the US’s prosecution of those directly and indirectly responsible but it is a minority. And it’s restricted to where you’d expect, college campuses and artsy coffee houses. The average Japanese gets the justified anger and understands how America plays out its role of enraged righteous avenger of justice. You piss off the Americans, they will lay waste to your land, people and government in a way that your mind can’t begin to comprehend but they’ll feel real bad about having to do it, They’ll make it up to you by funding your complete reconstruction and societal make-over, rehabilitating you back into the world community and positioning you to become an economic superpower assuming you follow their 12 step program for recovering nations. Sort of a Tony Robbins with teeth… or something.

Or something.