Pat gets a no-prize for bringing us this NY TImes report on new developments with the 9/11 commission. One of their "leading theories" about what went so badly wrong at ground zero was that a piece of radio equipment, called a "repeater", was malfunctioning somehow. Now the person in charge has come forward and stated that the system worked.

Personally, I stopped taking the commission seriously after they found fault with the emergency response in New York. This was an event that was quite simply unprecedented, and the fact that the emergency systems worked at all was in my opinion the real achievement. Nothing, nobody, and nowhere were the people, mechanisms, places, and procedures designed to deal with two widebodys slamming into the tallest buildings in Manhatten.

The commission should be used as a foward-looking mechanism... what can we do to respond better, train better, and have better equipment? That all they're really doing is digging around hunting for people to blame is predictable, but that they pointed the finger of blame at people who gave up their lives to rescue others is inexcusable.