According to some French actress who won an Oscar, the 9/11 attacks were just the United States wanting to destroy a couple of big buildings that were simply too expensive:

Referring to the two passenger jets being flown into the Twin Towers, [Marion] Cotillard said:

“We see other towers of the same kind being hit by planes. Are they burned? They [sic] was a tower, I believe it was in Spain, which burnt for 24 hours. It never collapsed. None of these towers collapsed. And there [in New York], in a few minutes, the whole thing collapsed.”

She added that the towers, planned in the early Sixties, were an outdated “money-sucker” that would have cost more to modernise than to rebuild altogether, which is why they were destroyed.

She said: “It was a money-sucker because they were finished, it seems to me, by 1973, and to re-cable all that, to bring up-to-date all the technology and everything, it was a lot more expensive, that work, than destroying them.”

She also doesn’t believe a man walked on the moon, although I include that more as a sad attempt at comic relief:

She said: “Did a man really walk on the Moon? I saw plenty of documentaries on it, and I really wondered. And in any case I don’t believe all they tell me, that’s for sure.”

Okay, Marion.  I get that we shouldn’t swallow every line of bull that comes down the pike and that you’re a quirky revolutionary thinker who thinks on a level above the rest of us peons (heretofore to be known as “Citizens Of The Real World”), so here’s a cookie.

I suppose the almost 3000 people killed that day were just “collateral damage”.  The attacks on the Pentagon and the downed plane in Pennsylvania, reportedly on its way to another attack site, were both red herrings designed to take the focus off the demolition of the Twin Towers.  The widespread panic, air pollution, injuries, and aftershocks in New York were just because the planes didn’t hit the buildings at the optimum angle for a clean implosion.  The firefighters and first responders who were injured and killed attempting to rescue those trapped in the buildings should have stayed out of a demo site.  All the people, including children, on the four airplanes involved were expendable and needed to be on the planes to give the impression that these were just routine flights.  I suppose one could say that the towers collapsed in “minutes”, because Tower 2 stood for 56 minutes before falling and Tower 1 stood for 102 minutes.  Nearby buildings that were damaged in the attacks, such as the other WTC buildings and St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church?  Well, maybe they needed to be torn down too, and it was just gravy that they happened to be damaged.

I’m not gullible.  I know that there are many things about the attacks that horrible day which have yet to be explained, and there are many things we will never know.  I understand that we shouldn’t believe everything we hear, and not all is as it seems when it comes to politics and those involved in making it digestible.  Many, many mistakes were made both during and after the attacks, mistakes with long-term ramifications.  But for some actress to tell us that the planes full of innocent passengers flew into the towers because the buildings were outdated and needed to be torn down is at best stupid, and at worst…stupid.  She, of course, knows how the buildings properly should have burnt and fallen because she recieved her engineering degree at acting school…the same school that graduated Sean Penn with a degree in economics and Angelina Jolie with a diploma in world affairs.

Her insinuation that the towers were a “money-sucker” and it would be cheaper to fly planes into them in a form of demolition-via-aircraft are ironically laughable in the knowledge that the economy of Lower Manhattan was devastated after the planes flew into the buildings.  This doesn’t even include the effect the attacks had on the economy of New York as a whole, not to mention New Jersey and Washington.  She also hasn’t taken into account that the attacks and the ensuing aftermath have already cost New York almost $95 billion dollars, the Pentagon around $500 million dollars, and the incalculable cost it has taken on the lives and psyches both of those who lost loved ones and those who survived.

All that to tear down two buildings in a cost-effective manner.

The actress later insisted that it was all a misunderstanding, and that her remarks should in no way affect her acting career, in particular the new movie she’s making with Johnny Depp:

Her Paris-based lawyer Vincent Tolesano said: “Marion never intended to contest nor question the attacks of September 11, 2001, and regrets the way old remarks have been taken out of context.”

The apology coincided with Cotillard preparing to fly to Chicago next week to start filming Public Enemies with Johnny Depp - a movie that was set to become the first big money spinner for the previously unknown actresses .

In fact Cotillard, a green activist for Greenpeace, had used an interview with the French channel Paris Première to make her views abundantly clear.

Speaking on the cinema discussion programme Paris Dernière in February 2007, Cotillard had said: “I think we’re lied to about a number of things”, even claiming the Americans had destroyed the Twin Towers themselves because the were an outdated “money sucker”.

Expanding her conspiracy theory, Cotillard said it would been “a lot more expensive” to rebuild the towers “which is why they were destroyed”, with the loss of thousands of American lives.

Never intended to question the attacks?  Remarks taken out of context?  It’s amazing how people can backpedal when millions of dollars are at stake.  Lives, however, apparently are expendable.  If you don’t like it here, then go make your little movies somewhere else.

Her ignorant words and arrogant attitude are an insult to all those who perished, survived, and overcame those horrific attacks.  Yet another reason why actors shouldn’t be involved in politics…they need to stick to what they know best, which is pretending to be something they are not and living in alternate realities.

Oh wait.

Wait, people don’t do videotape any more, do they?  Well, anyway, you get the idea.

I feel absolutely dirty even posting this link.  I seriously need a shower or something.  My OCD is kicking in and I must go wash my hands.  So while I do that, you go check out the chat between Perez Hilton and the guy whom he promised to help if he’d just send Perez some nakie stuff of himself.

I absolutely must warn you.  The language is NSFW, there are some definite NSFW photos, and I know more about little Perez than I ever wanted to know (although I’m sure he, like most other males, exaggerate).  Do not say you haven’t been warned.  Although…I’m not sure who comes across (no pun intended) as the more pathetic, JJ or Perez.

Never put anything in writing, video, or photos what you don’t want to come back to haunt you.

I’m so ending this article.

So maybe you’re having a Super Bowl party, and one of your guests gets just a little too, shall we say, happy after imbibing of your refreshments, and then they proceed to regurgitate all over your new flat screen. Or maybe you’ve been invited to a party by a friend, and you go with someone who is your ride, and you can’t leave even after the drunken host starts hitting on you, and then, in the boring third quarter, attempts to get you alone by locking you in the guest bathroom and trying to get his own backfield in motion.

But I guarantee you aren’t going to have as bad a time as this guy:

It was bad enough for screenwriter and New England Patriots fan Scott Rosenberg when his model/actress girlfriend Bridget Moynahan left him for the quarterback of his favorite football team. Now, with the Pats in the Super Bowl and Giants fans expecting to taunt Tom Brady with masks that have his ex-girlfriend Bridget’s face on them, Rosenberg (the writer of such films as High Fidelity, Con Air and Gone in 60 Seconds) is feeling even more pain.

“I don’t think the masks will upset Brady at all,” he told PageSix.com last night at the Maxim Super Bowl party held at Rande Gerber’s new Scottsdale restaurant, The Stone Rose Lounge. “The only person the masks will bother is me. Me in a sea of Bridget masks. That’s how the story ends.”

Think about that when your neighbor spills his Bud in your queso dip.

I didn’t realize her name wasn’t Miley until about a week ago.  It’s actually Destiny Hope, or it was, until she decided she didn’t appreciate the name her parents gave her and changed it:

She plays Hannah Montana, and was born Destiny Hope Cyrus, but now she’s officially Miley Ray Cyrus.

Given the nickname “Smiley” when she was growing up, Entertainment Tonight reports that the 15-year-old has legally changed her name to Miley to reflect that. She chose to adopt Ray as her middle name in honor of her father, Billy Ray Cyrus.

Oh.  Well, okay, it makes sense then.  It isn’t like famous people change their names all the time without going to the trouble of making it all legal and stuff, but whatever floats her little boat.

I predict a flood of little girls named “Miley” in the next year or so.

In other Miley news (have I ever done any Miley news?  I don’t think so, probably because I don’t care), she had a bit of a mini-scandal when racy photos of Destiniley in a bikini and in her undies were leaked onto the internets:

The music industry’s good girl, Miley Cyrus, is juggling more than a booming music and film career these days. After photos of the 15-year-old leaked online showing her posing in front of a camera in her underwear, those behind the star’s “clean image” are fearing the effect it may have on the teen sensation’s reputation. […]

As for the recent batch of pictures making it’s way over the Internet, the insider says, “Miley was just having fun and goofing around in all these pictures, like any normal teen. They were never supposed to be made public, and Miley feels very betrayed that someone close to her leaked them.”

Billy Ray, a word of advice:  You need to keep a better eye on your daughter and her friends.

You see, the entire purpose of taking photos in your smalls (in this case, apparently at a slumber party) is for one reason…to show them to someone else.  You don’t take photos like that, look at them and say, “Wow, I look hawt!” and then delete them.  Or you don’t wake up one morning and just decide on the spur of the moment to take photos of yourself in your unders for no reason whatsoever.  Every action has a reason.  And the declaration that Milestiny feels “betrayed” that “someone close to her leaked them,” just shows that she did show them to someone other than herself, send them to someone (not necessarily a male, possibly a girlfriend), or allow someone else to have a copy.

Regardless, it seems that Destiley didn’t learn anything from another Disney starlet, Vanessa Hudgens…never take photos of yourself.  And especially never give them to anybody.  They will be leaked.  Um…HELLO?

And don’t give me this baloney about how she’s so “grounded” and so “smart” and how she’s not your “typical” teen star.  I don’t care how intelligent she is or how much daddy Billy Ray tries to protect her, there are certain elements of being a teenage star that you cannot escape from.  Showbiz is knee-deep in former teen stars who hit their twenties as emotionally retarded adults, no matter how good the intentions of the parents and handlers.  This level of superstardom cannot be good for a developing psyche.  Plus, you really can’t win…employ a hands-off attitude and you’ve got a wild child on your hands, but protect them too much and they rebel when they hit adulthood.

I mean, I don’t mean to sound horrible and all that, but let’s face it…the odds are stacked against any young person who hits the kind of big-time this young girl has.  I certainly hope she can overcome, but I’m a realist, and I’m not holding my breath.  If she proves me wrong, then great.

Plus, if I hear that stupid “Best Of Both Worlds” song at Wal-Mart ONE. MORE. TIME, I’m going to go postal on one of their televisions.  I’m not kidding.

She’s fifteen?  Great.  Just can’t wait to see her when she’s twenty.  Maybe she’ll change her name to Britney.