Free Republic

Nobody does political cynicism like the Italians. As a country it hasn't been crucial since the fifth century AD, but it knows more about how politics works – and more importantly how it doesn't work – than any other nation on the planet. After refining Greek democracy into a workable system for a growing empire, Rome set about discovering all the ways government could corrupt itself, then descended into over a millennia of decline and division. The moment – brief, hopeful and doomed – when Italy struggled to reemerge as a national entity again is the setting for this week's...

With tomorrow being the inauguration of the disastrous 2nd Obama Administration(a/k/a the 3rd Jimmy Carter Administration that never was), what could be more appropriate for today's MFASA pick than a disaster film released the same year as the inauguration of the Carter presidency? A plague infected terrorist stows away on a passenger train which gets rerouted to a quarantine camp that will have to cross a rickety bridge with a good chance of not being able to sustain the train's weight. Come to think of it, the innocent train passengers probably have more reason to be optimistic about their fate...