Wilson Fu

Too bad he went and got himself shot:

It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.

Alexander Hamilton, Speech on 21 June 1788 urging ratification of the Constitution in New York. US (Scottish-born) lawyer & politician (1755 – 1804)

As they say (smart aren’t they?): “Democracy is three wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner.”

Always interesting to see someone make an observation on a subject for which the actually have creditials, in such a way that you know they are completely correct.  This guy potentially puts some ego aside in this, from Wizbang linked through a bunch of others:

Update VI: Israellycool is liveblogging the day’s events, and he has some very interesting updates. He links to Big Pharoah whose father offered his insights:

My dad was a general in the Egyptian army. His comments are always so informative especially if they were related to a war that broke out. He had this to say about Lebanon:

This idiot Nasrallah. He is so funny. He keeps on issuing threats, he has no idea what he is talking about. What Israel is doing to him now is just gentle padding on the shoulders. Abou Shakha dah didn’t see what we saw. Israel fought on 3 fronts in 1967 and it was hell. I was there, I saw it all. He has no tanks, no boats, he has nothing except a few toys he got from Iran and it seems abu shakha dah don’t know that Israel confronted 3 of the most powerful armies in the region at the same time. If Israel wanted to brutally crush him it can do so in 1 hour.

*Abu Shakha dah literally means “this guy with the piss”. We use this slang term to refer to a grown up whose capabilities is of a baby who wets himself.

The Israelis took on three armies in ’67, not a bunch of wackos with small arms and missiles.  The IDF is being very careful not to whack a bunch of civilians in this, but they will get the job done.  With Hezbollah actually hitting Haifa they are not going to be holding back.  Reports are that they are cutting Hezbollah’s escape routes first before attacking the units in southern Lebanon.

Illana Mercer gets points for referencing The Prisoner in her article today:

Remember the cult, 1967 British television series, “The Prisoner” (“I am not a number – I am a free man!”)? Whenever “Number 6” (the individual) attempted to escape from “The Village” (the collective), a giant balloon called “Rover” gave chase and subdued him. Little Sam’s metaphoric “Rover,” you can be sure, is his mother’s suffocating monster womb.

As Monty Burns would say, “Excellent!”

Heh:

Living Alone Raises Risk of Heart Attack

Well, duh, very few dead people actually have heart attacks.  Some don’t even have hearts anymore! 😉

I remember finding an analogies test book that GRAND FU BAH had from his school days.  Like the line “Going to war without the French is like going hunting without your accordian,” comes another crusher:

America without Mexicans illegals would be like pizza without the broken glass.

Thank you Murray….

THE KAT and I sat down and watched this one last night, at my request.  I had several good reports on the movie, but due to old bias against Brad Pitt, and current bias against Angelina Jolie, I was not all that hopeful.  That may have clouded my whole perception of the film, but I would like to have at least the time spent watching the first half of the movie back.  Somewhat remiscent of Prizzi’s Honor and even Spykids the story line was obvious, two assassins meet, get married, and lead double lives.

Given the previous treatment I was surprised at the lack of real character development.  They are both cold assassin types with few quirks and basic cover story occupations.  A lot of time is spend building up the point that the marriage is or has failed, only to get to the point where they finally start shooting at each other.  I was pretty bored with the whole thing until they started shooting at each other around the house.

I would have paced the whole thing differently.  I would have pulled a Tarentino on this one and split up the timeline.  I would have started with them talking to the therapist together, gone to the desert shooting, back to the therapist separately, discover that they were both gunning for each other, then proceed to interleave past scenes with the running battles with their employers.  Just a thought.

If you are a fan of the stars you will probably like it more than I did.  It has more potential than actuality IMO.

I received a SanDisk Sansa e260 for Father’s Day.  Dumped almost the whole CD collection on the thing (hey, it’s not a big collection).  I have been enjoying commercial free music since then.  I think it has saved my sanity.  Now when I hear or see commercials, which is not often, I note how grating they really are.  I do not miss them.

Maybe the libertarians have something with a fee based system for common goods.  Right now I am very happy to pay for the goods to be commercial free.

Burt Prelutsky has a great point:

Now that the ACLU has managed to get some loony judge to grant an injunction against executions on the grounds that lethal injections might be painful, I am reminded that when the plugs were pulled on Terri Schiavo, we were assured by all the liberal experts that starvation was totally painless. That being the case, why don’t we just stop feeding these convicted killers?

Ouch!  That one even hurt me, so much on the mark.  Morons, here is your petard.  Now we will hoist you up.  Burt has some other good thoughts in this particular collection.

One fireplace demolished, with some help from the new Makita reciprocating saw, the upstairs closet has shelves, but no bi-fold door (yet), many other smaller tasks done, an irritating wireless USB connector that will not connect, fireworks destroyed in puffs of smoke and a flash of light, fluorescent lights replaced, all accomplished since the last post.  Removing the fireplace turned into such a chore on Saturday that by Sunday I was ill.  But a hot bath and a rest did get that fixed and the rest of the day wound out all right.

Even shoehorned (does anyone know what a shoehorn is these days?) in a few more Firefly episodes.  War Stories demonstrates why Fireflywas the greatest sci-fi show since Babylon 5 and Star Trek: The Original (Only) Series, no matter what the drama, there was always some humor to be found in the show.  Hard to think that you could laugh while watching two guys get tortured with electric shocks, but Mal and Wash arguing and seeming to be irritated that their argument was being interrupted by the torture did turn out to be oddly funny.  Just a dang good show.  Go watch it.

Anyway, back at the paying job.  Much bureaucracy battling, e-mailing, and phone message leaving, all in a day’s work of keeping various managers from plowing under various geeks or nerds while moving to the ultimate goal of something.  That something differs from person to person, and in the grand order of things is probably not the something with which any one of them should have been concerned.  But heck, it wouldn’t be much of a life if you didn’t get blindsided and knocked flat, at least occasionally.