Am I the only one getting a big kick out of the mid-page text ads for services and products keyed to the subject of the text?

Right there is your cui bono answer. By now, there is a huge, unregulated and deep-into-the-trough "security" industry.

All that rather than admit that 9-11 was a Bush screw-up, not some new super-enemy.

I wonder how long "Homeland Security" (jeez, what a monicker) will survive Bush? It's useless and corrupt from stem to stern.

And I'll bet the established agencies (FBI-CIA) hate the hell out of those people.

"Are you just gonna sit there and throw Cheetos at 'em?"

Hardly. I am no Britney Spears, who, along with Madonna, was self-righteously promised beheading by the leader of the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committee "for spreading their Satanic culture against Islam." I prefer fava beans, with a splash of a big Amarone, as my personal fortification. Probably not quite Satanic enough to deserve a beheading, alas.

And while Hume's Ghost can afford ruthless mockery (believe me, I think Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson et. al. are vile and menacing blowhards just as much as you probably do), actual living people who've tried it against Islamism tend to get unpleasant things like "death fatwas" on their heads. I imagine writers from Taslima Nasreen in India to Salman Rushdie in Britain, from hapless cartoonists in Denmark to police-protected human rights activists and politicians in the Netherlands, and finally to teenage girls slowly bleeding to death in the back seat of a Texas taxi, know very well how distinct ideas can be, and the price you can pay for them.

n/t

Atrios has a link that explains the FISA debate in the clearest terms yet.

You see it's all about love.

http://www.markfiore.com/node/958

Ruthless mockery indeed.

So, is your solution, Kasimira? You argue that the Mark Steyns have correctly identified the problem, although it would appear you are willing to posit there are problems with their solutions. Precisely, what is it you propose we should do?

Great work, Reilly.

Not so great work, Kasimira Malkin. Has it ever occurred to you that any group can be similarly smeared, and just as irrationally, by the behaviors of an extreme few?

Your faux bonafides, tossed gratuitously in amongst your more intrinsic anti-Muslim talking points, fail to cut the mustard, fava beans or no.

Try again, please.

I've drank lots of raw latte-milk.

You are thanked for your well written direct letters?

Yes.

If we caring citizens write letters about topics that touch us deeply... Maybe... males can shave whiskers?

Or, perhaps...o,

'our' language usually becomes spare and direct....[?]... or we/me feel like I/me/you want to just spit?

Skip. OT?

O, GOPS?

O, I stoop!

Do people apologize and shave the head and repent? Can I rent a skateboard and flee the dang GOP?

I apologize.

I snore and ponder how many hairs,

do officially constitute a GOP beard?

I will volunteer to pluck out my beard.

I will be bald. I will get a neocon comb-over-hair-dew-bald-ho-ho?

I will do anything to help petition a End to the goofy Bushy Tale ERA!

I will even volunteer to become a gynecologist who contracted poison ivy.

I will shut up! I will shake every GOP'S greasy slime paw and break fingers?

I will change my name to pumpkin, cupcake, or stupid looking hairy mustache?

Let's be nice.

Glenn posted:

Over the past couple decades, prior to the Bush Era, the people who needed the sort of psychological fulfillment that comes from prancing around as Hofstadterian faux-warriors waging Civilization Wars obtained their fulfillment from playing board and video games or, at worst, dressing up on the weekend in camouflage costumes and -- rather than playing golf or going fishing -- marched around in militia formations, primed to defend the nation from Janet Reno and her squadrons of hovering U.N. black helicopters. It was equally pathetic, but at least the damage was minimal.

Back then I was very critical of Reno, and the Waco obscenity in particular. But my saying so, for those who knew I identified as a libertarian, invariably brought accusations that I spent my weekends in camouflage, face painted accordingly, playing war games in a Michigan woods.

In reality, I wore Nine West heels and Jones of New York suits, and wouldn't have been caught dead romping with the militia loons. I agree with Glenn's point, but it was and is possible to have objected to some of Reno's policies without being a nut.

But I suppose the question should be asked, exactly who empowered these types after 9/11, these people poring through our emails, listening in on cell phone calls, investigating and compiling dossiers on Americans suspected as terrorists?

The answer is everyone who out of fear of another 9/11-style attack gave our government this power. This includes Republicans, Democrats, as well as many of you who are so self-congratulatory about your opposition to the war in Iraq.

one will have to ask which was the more evil, the enemy we feared or what we allowed that fear to transform us into? Truthfully, was McCarthy any worse than the Red Menace which he purported to hate so much and attempted to root out of American society? How is it we can scream with righteous indignation at the treatment of those captured by the AQI and at the same time freely incorporate torture with almost identical manner and reasoning as Nazi Germany did?

Ironically, as you pointed out, those proposing that we devolve into that which we despise themselves face absolutely no chance, unlike our troops on the ground, of ever having to deal with the repercussions of the actions they are advocating.

Excellent editorial Glenn.

". . . in the sea of the people." I didn't come up with that, Mao did. It doesn't take too many "extremists" to shut down the writers, the artists, and the activists. As Grayson Perry, an provocative, award-winning ceramic artist in Britain, pointed out: “I’ve censored myself. The reason I haven’t gone all out attacking Islamism in my art is because I feel real fear that someone will slit my throat.” One imagines that Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard -- the latest to get death plots, death fatwas, death this and that -- wishes he'd done the same as Mr. Perry.

"Your faux bonafides. . . "

Sounds like someone is quite familiar with the techniques of taqqiya and kitman. However, I assure you that I have no sanction, religious or otherwise, to lie about what I believe.

And can we please put a moratorium on the usage of "faux"? There's a perfectly good word in English for the concept, and using it tends to make you sound faintly ridiculous. As one suburban mom said to the other, as she admired the texture of the table at her chain bistro, "Faux marbre?" "No," replied her friend, "Fauxmica."