FLYWHEEL HYBRID UPDATE: Flywheel hybrid test vehicle nets 22.4% improvement in fuel economy. “The FHSPV vehicle recovers energy via its rear differential and continuously variable transmission and routes that juice into a flywheel. When the driver reapplies the accelerator pedal, the CVT transfers energy back to the wheels. The flywheel and its associated drive system are installed adjacent to the rear axle, in a space normally occupied by the spare tire. The whole system reportedly weighs in at less than 176 pounds.”

BOOST YOUR WI-FI SIGNAL using only a beer can.

UPDATE: An endorsement from reader Geoff Lackey, who writes: “I just tried it with a lowly Coke can, and damned if it didn’t work. Imagine the results a beer can will bring.”

FROM THE ANCHORESS, a 9/11 anniversary link roundup.

BARRY RUBIN: Ten Years After September 11: Who’s Really Winning the War On Terrorism?

MARK TAPSCOTT: The Obama Energy Crisis As You’ve Never Before Seen It. “It’s been eclipsed somewhat in recent months by the continued stagnation of the economy and the increasingly loud Republican presidential nomination battle, but the energy crisis caused by President Obama’s Permatorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is just as serious as it ever was. And it’s going to get worse if something isn’t done soon to lift the bureaucratic strangulation being applied to the oil and natural gas industries by Obama’s Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.” You’d think by now that people would understand the importance of getting oil from someplace other than the Middle East.

AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Military History.

SO HOW TO NOTE THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11? In the past I’ve given shooting lessons to a Marine, I’ve taken the day off from blogging, and I’ve even gone to a Tea Party.

This year, as in most past years, I’ll just keep on blogging as usual. And here’s a link to my original 9/11 coverage — just scroll on up.

Here’s a picture by my cousin-in-law Brad Rubenstein, from his apartment that day. You might also want to read this piece by James Lileks.

And here’s a passage from Lee Harris’s Civilization And Its Enemies.

Forgetfulness occurs when those who have been long inured to civilized order can no longer remember a time in which they had to wonder whether their crops would grow to maturity without being stolen or their children sold into slavery by a victorious foe.
…
They forget that in time of danger, in the face of the Enemy, they must trust and confide in each other, or perish.

They forget, in short, that there has ever been a category of human experience called the Enemy. And that, before 9/11, was what had happened to us. The very concept of the Enemy had been banished from our moral and political vocabulary. An enemy was just a friend we hadn’t done enough for — yet. Or perhaps there had been a misunderstanding, or an oversight on our part — something that we could correct. And this means that that our first task is that we must try to grasp what the concept of the Enemy really means.

The Enemy is someone who is willing to die in order to kill you. And while it is true that the Enemy always hates us for a reason — it is his reason, and not ours.

I’ve mentioned it before, but it bears repeating today.

You should also watch this memorial, made shortly after the attacks. It’s still quite powerful.

UPDATE: Reader Jim Vinoski recommends this 9/11 column from John Derbyshire. “This is civilization versus barbarism.”

BRUCE BAWER: 9/11 AND THE PASTNESS OF THE PAST. “Nothing is over about 9/11, but the national consciousness pretends it is so.”

DONALD SENSING: A 9/11 Memorial Video Reflection.

RON RADOSH: How Time and Newsweek Memorialize 9/11, or the Sad Demise of one that was once was a Decent Magazine.

ROGER KIMBALL: “The Foreseeable Future”: Thoughts on the Continuing Significance of 9/11.

READER KEN POTTER OBSERVES HIS DAD, GEORGE L. POTTER’S BIRTHDAY BY ASKING ME TO LINK TO HIS DAD’S NEW BOOK: In Search of the Yellow Dog: A Randall Oliver Mystery. Happy birthday! Having a birthday on September 11th has got to be disturbing in some ways, and I hope this makes it a bit better.

MEMORY: 9/11 Inspired Local Man To Join U.S. Marines.

PEGGY NOONAN: We’ll Never Get Over It, Nor Should We.

MARK STEYN: From “Let’s Roll!” to “Let’s Roll Over.”

PHYLLIS CHESLER: What To Say To The Totalitarian Left On 9/11/11.

With particular reference to hatemongering Canadian academic Sunera Thobani.

RATS ON THE WESTSIDE, BEDBUGS UPTOWN: Woman Attacked By Rat On New York Subway.

Perhaps Mayor Bloomberg might focus on the rats and bedbugs and other sanitation issues before attending to things like sodium or gun sales in other states. Go ahead, bite the Big Apple. Don’t mind the maggots!

STACY MCCAIN: On September 10th.

Hey, I covered that drug story. It was kinda buried later, though . . .

CRUSHING CIVIL RIGHTS in California.

HEH: “Obama Lied, Solyndra Died.” “One of the lead private investors in Solyndra was George Kaiser, the Oklahoma billionaire who served as an Obama ‘bundler,’ raising big bucks for Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. ABC cruelly reminds readers that investors including Kaiser’s company — which led a $75 million round of financing for Solyndra earlier this year — stand in line before the federal government and other creditors to recoup losses. As I say, Solyndra is a model alright.”

COWARDS TRY TO SILENCE THE PUBLIC: Horn-honkers cited at Kelly Thomas protest. “Drivers honking their horns near a ‘Justice for Kelly Thomas’ protest in Fullerton on Saturday were cited by police officers on suspicion of illegally using that vehicle feature, the Fullerton Police Department has confirmed. Thomas was a 37-year-old homeless man fatally injured after a confrontation with six Fullerton police officers. The incident is still under investigation.” Think they’d be issuing tickets if it were a support-the-police protest? I don’t. Miserable putzes.

Nobody respects you guys when you act this way. You merely take a crap on your badge and uniform. And when budget cuts come up — and they will — a lot of people who might have stood up for you will decide not to bother. Just so you know.

UPDATE: A reader who requests anonymity says that I’m wrong:

The protestors for Kelly Thomas have been numerous, loud and disruptive. The protest starts at 9:00 AM and goes until 3:00 PM every Saturday now since August – and the horns and the bullhorns and the occasional vvuzelas – are sounded almost non-stop. This is done in an area of businesses. There are also homes only a less than two blocks away. People in vehicles, often the same vehicles circling back through, do not simply honk their horn, they lay on the horn for a quarter of a mile or more. It gets old really, really quickly.

I would suggest looking at the comments on the OCRegister site, such as this one:

watchman336

1:53 PM on September 11, 2011

I’ve read several posts below and as usual most are not able to stay on topic. For many, any retaliatory, illegal action is excusable. So the same thing that many are accusing these cops of, is the same way that many accusing posters have themselves been acting. It is a form of emotional insanity.

If I lived within earshot of FPD and heard CONTINUOUS horns, I would have called the PD and complained, as many residents have done. Protest if you must, but don’t ruin everyone else’s day by being inconsiderate and obnoxious.

or this one:

nueeardente

12:05 PM on September 11, 2011

The investigation is still on going. In time after the facts are ascertained people will be charged accordingly. It will go to court. It’s going to take time. Actually justice rather than the mobs perception of it, is not instant.

The FPD has bent over backwards to allow the irrational to stand out there and rant. every weekend. No justice, no peace, really? Guess someone was channeling Maxine Waters. The protests continued their merry way all day. They didn’t try to silence the bullhorn. Simply a few cars operated by morons who had no sense of respect for all the businesses and homes around the police station.

Sorry they aren’t just going to hand them over to you. Lynch mobs are so passe.

Further the guy they ought to be hounding is the DA though he doesn’t deserve it either, as hes doing his job.

The tragedy of this is the polarization that is occurring. At city hall meetings anyone who stands up and suggests that the FBI, etc., be allowed to complete their investigation is shouted down and booed by the protestors. Reminds me a great deal of the “civil discourse” in the political realm we see from too many liberals and their allies.

Okay, maybe I went off half-cocked here, against the background of so much “war against photography” stuff and misbehavior/side-taking by the police in Madison, Wisconsin. Or maybe not, but I should have allowed for the possibility. My mistake.

WITH GOOD REASON: New York Times: Democrats Fret Aloud About Obama’s Re-Election. They’re worried that he’ll lose, but what they’re really worried about is that he’ll drag them all down with him.

MEMO TO THE FOLKS AT THE WEATHER CHANNEL: “Decimated” isn’t a synonym for “devastated.”

UPDATE: Wow, a lot of people feel strongly about this. I got quite a few emails like this one from reader J.P. McDevitt: “GOD BLESS YOU, SIR, for pointing out an error in definition that is being more and more commonly used by our culture — and which is an ignorant misconception that freakin’ drives me NUTS!”

JACK LAIL: 9/11 Attacks Gave Rise To InstaPundit Blog. Would things have turned out similarly if there had been no attacks? It’s hard to tell. InstaPundit was barely a month old when the attacks happened. Traffic was on the rise, but what would have happened next? Would I have felt the same urge to keep it up? We’ll never know, I guess.