9/11 has won American Idol. 9/11 is the second coming of Elvis, and the 9/11 is the delicious End of The World.

In other words, 9/11 is a drag queen standing on the dark off-ramp, and his fiery pose mutates into something completely new every few seconds. The politicians all line up for a chance to make a media bite with him, but he gets away and cuts a new swath of amazing death. He is the Bimbo of Horror.

It’s really unbelievable how much we love 9/11 – It’s gone on so long. It’s been six years ago now – but it’s obvious that 9/11 is not satisfied with our slavishness. There is a fervent American hope that 9/11 will happen again, reappear, turn all our heads at once, we’ll shout the Allelujah Chorus of pissing-in-our-pants fear. When a water main blows up a New York Street, or a Minneapolis bridge comes down – we rush forward with our bouquet of flowers, our love ballad, our hours and hours of coverage. Ray Kelley from the New York Police Department tosses and turns, dreaming that the explosive super-star will return to The Apple on his watch. 9/11 – what a woman!  read more »

Location

Albany's Times-Union has a really good article on how Verizon is trying to get away with defrauding the state of million dollars in emergency government subsidies it should not have collected from the government after 9/11.

The article outlines it's 'double-dipping' accounting:

Auditors found that Verizon failed to tell the federal government just how much a private insurance settlement paid the company for its emergency 9/11 repairs.

Claims already covered by insurance and non-emergency repairs that didn't qualify for full reimbursement weren't all that state auditors questioned. They also disallowed almost $21 million in expensed straight time pay for employees and about $35 million for other costs that did not meet audit evidence standards.

In all, Verizon claimed more than $230 million more than the plan allowed and, as a result, collected almost $39 million more than it was entitled for emergency repairs, auditors concluded.

The auditors' report also said Verizon delayed or tried to obstruct the audit team's effort to document Verizon's claims. "As the audit progressed, we encountered serious difficulties in obtaining information from Verizon on such key items as labor and insurance proceeds. During the course of the audit, the latter issue developed into the single most significant topic," the auditors wrote in their report.

It would take over a year for the auditors to obtain documentation of Verizon's $825 million insurance settlement for all its 9/11 damages, according to the audit report.

Schumer, who worked to bring federal aid to New York City after 9/11, had no immediate comment on the audit.

The audit report comes at a time when Verizon Chief Executive Ivan G. Seidenberg is being scrutinized by shareholder activists focusing on excessive payments to executives.

I guess Verizon needs all that extra money to pay it's lobbyists so they can give it back to their favorite porkers on Capitol Hill.

A quick look throughout both FollowTheMoney.org and OpenSecrets.org gives us a clue as to how Verizon spent some of that money in Washington and Albany.  read more »