this corrupt, idiotic excuse for a republic

* rimone reviews another 911 movie:

"then we hear a man’s voice from an increasingly dark, smoke-filled office on an upper storey where people were beginning to cough and choke and some were already prone on the floor. this one dude in particular had been trying to look out the smudged blackened windows and then we suddenly hear him go ‘Why would anyone throw a suit out the window?’ then he realised what he was seeing, the first jumper, The Falling Man. more panic. more horror.
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then after some bullshit interview with Tom Keane, Chairman of the 9/11 Commission (who lied his ass off), it was thankfully over. i threw an empty bottle of Absinthe at the TV when Keane was on. just sayin’."

* via berube:

"In THE ENEMY AT HOME, bestselling author Dinesh D’Souza makes the startling claim that the 9/11 attacks and other terrorist acts around the world can be directly traced to the ideas and attitudes perpetrated by America’s cultural left.

D’Souza shows that liberals—people like Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Barney Frank, Bill Moyers, and Michael Moore—are responsible for fostering a culture that angers and repulses not just Muslim countries but also traditional and religious societies around the world. Their outspoken opposition to American foreign policy—including the way the Bush administration is conducting the war on terror—contributes to the growing hostility, encouraging people both at home and abroad to blame America for the problems of the world. He argues that it is not our exercise of freedom that enrages our enemies, but our abuse of that freedom—from the sexual liberty of women to the support of gay marriage, birth control, and no-fault divorce, to the aggressive exportation of our vulgar, licentious popular culture.

The cultural wars at home and the global war on terror are usually viewed as separate problems. In this groundbreaking book, D’Souza shows that they are one and the same. It is only by curtailing the left’s attacks on religion, family, and traditional values that we can persuade moderate Muslims and others around the world to cooperate with us and begin to shun the extremists in their own countries."

* guardian:

"An all-out power struggle between the chancellor and the prime minister, culminating with allegations of blackmail by Tony Blair and a ferocious shouting match between the two men, appeared last night to have forced Mr Blair to publicly declare as early as today that he will not be prime minister this time next year."

* billmon:

"Kidding aside, though, it's stories like these that make me wonder: How much longer can this corrupt, idiotic excuse for a republic keep stumbling along on sheer inertia?"

* if you want to see genius in action, head over to emptywheel's place. she's somehow reading SSCI2 and Hubris simultaneously and posting on the fly.