Just saw the news story that Rep. Jack Murtha has died.

A spokesman says Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a retired Marine Corps officer who became an outspoken critic of the Iraq war, has died. He was 77.

He had been suffering complications from gallbladder surgery.

In addition to his opposition to the Iraq war, Murtha is known for his involvement in Abscam and the volume of pork brought to his little corner of PA.

I can’t think of any political area where I would agree with him. Still, I pray for comfort for his family and friends.

I’ve been following this story for just over an hour now. Rush Limbaugh was taken to a hospital in Hawaii.

Conservative radio talk host Rush Limbaugh was rushed to a Honolulu hospital on Wednesday afternoon with chest pains, sources told KITV.

Paramedics responded to the call at 2:41 p.m. at the Kahala Hotel and Resort.

Limbaugh suffered from chest pains, sources said. Paramedics treated him and took him to Queen’s Medical Center in serious condition.

That’s about all the information that’s available so far. I am trying to follow this online, television, and twitter. What is disgusting are the hateful words already being reported from some on the left. How pathetic are people who take glee in the problems of those they disagree with.

Our prayers are with Rush tonight. God bless and keep you.

Not much available, but I just read that Tiger Woods was seriously injured in a car crash as I was scanning the news during lunch.

Professional golfer Tiger Woods was seriously injured in a car accident early this morning, the Florida Highway Patrol just reported.

Woods, 33, pulled out of his driveway in the Isleworth community about 2:25 a.m. when he struck a fire hydrant, and then drove into a tree at his neighbor’s property, FHP reported.

Woods was transported to Health Central Hospital in Ocoee in serious condition, FHP said. No other information about his condition has been released.

UPDATE: Reports are now saying that he has been treated and released. It would be good news to find out that the “seriously injured” originally reported was an over statement of the facts.

Besides, he has always had trouble with his drives being off line. Too soon?

Please go visit Wyatt. I know he will appreciate your prayers and encouraging words.

Yes, I’m old enough to remember Laugh-In when it originally aired. One of the staples of that cast, Henry Gibson, has died.

Henry Gibson, the veteran comic character actor best known for his role reciting offbeat poetry on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” has died. He was 73.

Gibson’s son, James, said Gibson died Monday at his home in Malibu after a brief battle with cancer.

After serving in the Air Force and studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Gibson — born James Bateman in Germantown, Pa., in 1935 — created his Henry Gibson comic persona, a pun on playwright Henrik Ibsen’s name, while working as a theater actor in New York. For three seasons on “Laugh-In,” he delivered satirical poems while gripping a giant flower.

His bit is at the beginning of this clip.

No agreement with her politics, but I loved the music. Mary Travers has died at 72.

Mary Travers, one-third of the hugely popular 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, has died.

The band’s publicist, Heather Lylis, says Travers died at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut on Wednesday. She was 72 and had battled leukemia for several years.

Travers joined forces with Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey in the early 1960s.

I’m not going to delve into her politics here, let’s just listen to what is arguably one of the trios most well known songs.

James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles made some video tapes.

They went to Baltimore and showed ACORN workers who were totally at ease and very helpful to who they thought were pimps and prostitutes looking for some community help setting up an illegal business and tax fraud.

We were assured that

the employees “did not meet ACORN’s standards of professionalism.”

These were the only two bad apples in the whole ACORN universe.

Uh, no.

In an amazing coincidence there were two more ACORN employees, in D.C. this time, who also were willing to help set up a local “Underage Salvadorian Ho’s R Us” franchise.

In spite of the undoubtedly rare circumstance of finding this second set of employees who did not meet ACORN’s amazingly high standards of professionalism, the reactionary Census Bureau severed their ties with the group.

Shocked by the activity of the poor misunderstood ACORN enablers workers, Baltimore City State’s Attorney Patricia Jessamy is looking into prosecuting — O’Keefe and Giles.

Bertha Lewis, ACORN’s Chief Organizer, issued a statement that explained it all.

We are their Willy Horton for 2009. We are the boogeyman for the right-wing and its echo chambers. If ACORN did not exist, the right-wing would have needed to create us in order to achieve their agenda, their missions, their ideal, retrograde America. This recent scam, which was attempted in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia to name a few places, had failed for months before the results we’ve all recently seen. I am appalled and angry; I cannot and I will not defend the actions of the workers depicted in the video, who have since been terminated. But it is clear that the videos are doctored, edited, and in no way the result of the fabricated story being portrayed by conservative activist “filmmaker” O’Keefe and his partner in crime.

O’Keefe has demanded an apology.

They obviously found the only four people in ACORN who would do such undefensable things. As Ms. Lewis explained to all of us, they tried this in a number of other cities and were rebuffed. Cities like New York. This would never happen in a city like New York.

Not so fast, Sparky.

ACORN Video: Prostitution Scandal in New York, NY

It is well past the time that this group should be investigated and held to account. They are frauds and should never receive another dime from the U.S. Treasury. If the Community Organizer in Chief doesn’t denounce them, now, we need to know why.

I just wonder if there is a strike four, five, or six out there.

I look at this picture, and my first thought is that he looks like one of my uncles. He could easily pass for one of my mom’s brothers. His name is Norbert P. Szurkowski, and he was 31 on September 11th, 2001. Eight years ago he was working in the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald hanging wall paper.

A tribute that appeared in the New York Times on December 30, 2001 said,

Norbert Szurkowski, the son of a bicycle racer, was on his first visit to New York when he met Ursula Lesniak. It was 1992 and she was a student at Fort Hamilton High School in Brooklyn. “We just enjoyed seeing each other,” she said. Three years to the day after they met, Mr. Szurkowski — always attentive to such details as proper timing — proposed.

The City Hall wedding two weeks later was a prelude to the festivities in their native country, Poland: three days of visiting and feasting with relatives.

Back home in Bensonhurst, Mr. Szurkowski walked right up and faced his future without the slightest doubt that he would do well. This past year was bearing out his confidence. His wife was graduating from nursing school and pregnant with their second child, and he was about to be promoted to full-fledged mechanic. “This was the year,” Mrs. Szurkowski said, “that we were supposed to get everything back.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Szurkowski, 31, was earning extra money by wallpapering the Cantor Fitzgerald offices. The best part about it was the hours — by shortly after 9 a.m., he was usually out and on his way home. (Source)

Another story, originally on Newsday, but now only found on a Digg archive, said,

The young newlyweds settled in Szurkowski’s house in Bensonhurst, where they began working toward his dream. “Basically, what he wanted was to have a family, to live a normal life,” his wife said. “He just wanted to buy a house, move to New Jersey, go on family vacations, make sure our kids grow up as they’re supposed to.”

By last year, it all seemed to be running on track. Szurkowski, 31, finished his apprenticeship at a wallpapering company; his wife graduated from nursing school. They were enjoying their 3-year-old, Alexandra, and Ursula was pregnant again.

Szurkowski loved his job and spent his free time playing tennis or riding his bike. Alexandra was becoming bilingual, speaking Polish at home and English outside. On camping trips upstate with other Polish families, the men would fish and the women cooked what they caught over an open fire.

“He was happy with what he had,” his wife said. “He just wanted to keep everything the way it was, and make sure it didn’t get any worse.”

But everything got worse on Sept.11. Szurkowski was touching up a wallpapering job at Cantor Fitzgerald, on the 104th floor of Tower One, when the plane hit.

Ursula is scheduled to deliver her baby, already named Claudia, by Caesarean section in May.

Alexandra should be 11 now. Claudia, who has never met her father, seven.

We remember these people, Norbert and the thousands of others, who lost their lives eight years ago today.

As I’ve said before, in the days and weeks following 9/11 most of us vowed, if only to ourselves, to always remember that day. The 2,996 Project is dedicated to that task. We hope that you will take time today to read the tributes and information that bloggers, writers, and others from all over, who are each taking the time to remember those who died as individuals. Individuals who deserve our remembrance.

In 2006 I wrote a tribute to another person who died in the same building, Neil Dollard. The two men were from vastly different backgrounds, with vastly different lives. It’s possible that they had the type of nodding relationship that we have with people we don’t know, but who work near us. Whatever the reality, they both were killed that horrible day. To them, and all the others, we pledge to remember.

NOTE: I am reposting this tribute from 9/11/2006 and re-opening the comments. You can also read this years remembrance of Norbert P. Szurkowski. Other tributes can be found at the 2,996 Project.

Today, on the 5th anniversary of the tragedy of September 11th, 2001, 2,996 bloggers are remembering the victims who died that day. Instead of focusing on the perpetrators we are remembering the individuals who lost their lives that day. The list of those being remembered with links to the blogs writing about them can be found here. Please take time to read as many of these tributes as you can.

This post will remain on top all day with any new posts below.

Neil Dollard

Writing this post has been very difficult. Oh, the information is there, but there is the sense that you can hardly do justice honoring someone you never met. Still, learning from the words that others have written, I do hope that I can give you some idea about who Neil Dollard was.

Reading through dozens of memorial sites, news sources and other online tributes written in the past five years several items stand out.

First the facts. Neil Dollard was 28 years old on September 11th, 2001. He was a bond broker for Cantor Fitzgerald, working in WTC 1, and lived in Hoboken, NJ. But those are just facts.

One thing that struck me immediately was the importance that family and friends had in Neil Dollard’s life. His frequent phone calls to those he cared about is something mentioned in nearly every tribute. Calls to his parents, his other family, his girlfriend Kristen, his co-workers, and his friends were every day occurrences. Often for no reason other than to just say hello.

It is also said that he loved to give gifts and seldom went anywhere empty handed.

He loved good food, loved to cook, loved to eat at great restaurants. And he spent time in the gym.

He took pride in the nice suits that are the uniform of an up and coming bond broker, but his trademark was his baseball cap.

He loved Kristin and Kristin loved him. Here is what she had to say two years following his death:

I lost Neil on that horrible day, he was my boyfriend. We lived together and planned to one day get married. He was my best friend and no one can ever replace him. He was genuine and generous. His heart was bigger than life itself. I miss him SO MUCH! Everyday I sit and think what our children would have looked like and what their names would have been and would I ever learn to cook as good as he did. I have to go on with my life but it’s difficult, when the one thing that you lived for is gone. I’m very angry that he was taken away from me for no reason, I never said goodbye!! They say that when you die, your soul and energy are still around, I hope that he can feel how strong my love for him is. I know he is around when I get upset, because as soon as I think about him I stop crying, as if he is rubbing my back and telling me to calm down. I love you Neil!!!!!! I’ll never forget you and the great life that we had together. Kristin

One of the most complete looks at Mr. Dollard’s life is this one:

Staten Island Advance (9/25/2001)
Jill Gardiner Advance staff writer

Neil Dollard was preparing to make a sautéed spinach dish and a homemade tomato sauce the night before the World Trade Center attack.

“He called my aunt and told her to save the tomatoes,” said Megan Fajardo, Neil’s sister. “He was planning on picking them up on Saturday.”

[...]

A bond broker for Cantor Fitzgerald, the firm that occupied some of the highest floors in the building and lost hundreds of its employees, Mr. Dollard was working on the 104th floor of Tower 1 when the first plane hit.

His girl friend, Kristin Ledzion, spoke to him briefly when she called to wake him up before work that morning and he had talked to his family, most of whom were vacationing in Italy, the night before.

He and Ms. Ledzion were scheduled to join them at their home on the Italian Riviera the following week.

“He called on Monday night,” said Mrs. Fajardo. “He was in a good mood. Everyone spoke to him. We were talking about the trip and about how excited he was to come.”

At 28, Mr. Dollard was full of life.

He had a passion for dining in fine Manhattan restaurants and entertaining friends at his home. He was a gourmet cook who liked to try new recipes, and was beginning an impressive wine collection.

To balance his love for food, the 6-foot-1-inch Mr. Dollard spent much of his leisure time exercising at a gym near his home. His build was broad and he always looked healthy.

[...]

Though he hadn’t told anyone, he seemed to be preparing to surprise his girl friend with a kitten. His family found cat food and a book on raising cats in his home.

“He was a very loving son who was very involved in the lives of his family,” said his mother. “He was a fun-loving young man who also had a serious side.” Mr. Dollard survived the 1993 Trade Center bombing, when he walked down all 104 flights, helping a woman who was wearing a cast on her leg.

[...]

Though his family didn’t speak to him after he arrived at work that fateful Tuesday morning, one of his co-workers called home and said he was in the stairwell evacuating the building with Mr. Dollard. There was no other information on his whereabouts.

[...]

In addition to his sister, Megan, and his mother, Helen, Mr. Dollard is survived by his father, Robert; a brother, Peter; two more sisters, Susan Dollard and Anne Zucchi; a half-brother, Michael Dollard, and two half-sisters, Diana and Mary Dollard.

Neil Dollard was taken from his family, friends and co-workers much to soon. He is missed and deserves to be remembered by us all.

2996 Project Posts from my blogroll:
Sister Toldjah — Peter Edward Mardikian
Blue Star Chronicles — Lt. Michael Warchola
Captain’s Quarters — Ysidro Hidalgo-Tejada
Babalu Blog — George C. Merino
Pirate’s Cove — Brooke Alexandra Jackman
Blue Crab Boulevard — Cynthia Giugliano
Right Truth — Lee Adler
The Strata-Sphere — Paul Laszczynski
Michelle Malkin — Giovanna Porras

Joe Wilson is the Representative from South Carolina’s 2nd Congressional district. He has been in that seat since the death of Floyd Spence. Working to elect Floyd Spence was my first active involvement in politics. Later, as a County Party Chairman and State Committeeman, I met and got to know Joe, if only a little.

My impression is that Joe Wilson is a passionate conservative politician, and typically very measured and aware of what he says. On occasion, the passionate side overcomes the measured. I believe that is what happened last night.

“I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the president’s remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health-care bill,” Wilson said in a statement. “While I disagree with the president’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable.”

Wilson shouted “you lie” at a point in the speech when Obama said his plan to extend insurance coverage “would not apply to those who are here illegally.”

Last night on Twitter, this was getting more attention than the President’s speech. My question, in the poll over on the right, is, “What do you think about Rep. Joe Wilson’s Outburst?”

Vote, and leave any additional thoughts here in the comments.

Ronald Reagan from 1961 speaking about socialized medicine. It’s audio only, but well worth the listen.

John Hawkins reached out to Right of Center bloggers for their choices of the most respected people on the right.

All bloggers were allowed to make anywhere from 1-10 unranked selections and were allowed to choose anybody on the Right or generally perceived to be on the right that they liked: Republican, Conservative, Libertarian, politician, preacher, blogger, columnist, radio host, you name it!

I didn’t take the time to respond as I was working through the computer issues here at home. I don’t see anyone on the list that I couldn’t have put there, and the order wouldn’t have changed much with my contribution. Fred Thompson and Bobby Jindal would have moved up a spot from their seven person tie for 16th, and Ed Morrissey would have jumped up one position as well.

The top five would have remained the same, but each would have one more tally.

Take a look at the list and let me know who you would have had on your list.