"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
From Josh Groban to Strong Bad: She’s a chip off the old block when it comes to ecclectic tastes in listening. (Yeh, Meg, I put the Groban album pic there just for you. heh)…A left averse to making common cause with competent, self- determining individuals — people who guide their lives on the basis of received values, everyday moral understandings, traditional wisdom, and plain common sense — is a faction that deserves the marginalization it has pursued with such tenacity for so many years.ÂAll of which is why I have come to believe, and gladly join with others who have discovered for themselves, that the single most important thing a genuinely liberal person can do now is walk away from the house the left has built. The renewal of any tradition that deserves the name “progressive” becomes more likely with each step in a better direction.
With box-office attendance sliding, so far, for the third consecutive year, many in the industry are starting to ask whether the slump is just part of a cyclical swing driven mostly by a crop of weak movies or whether it reflects a much bigger change in the way Americans look to be entertained – a change that will pose serious new challenges to Hollywood.ÂStudios have made more on DVD sales and licensing products than on theatrical releases for some time. Now, technologies like TiVo and video-on-demand are keeping even more people at home, as are advanced home entertainment centers, with their high-definition television images on large flat screens and multichannel sound systems.“It is much more chilling if there is a cultural shift in people staying away from movies,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the Exhibitor Relations Company, a box-office tracking firm. “Quality is a fixable problem.”
I was thinking. Umpires are a necessary part of baseball, and their duties are well defined. They decide whether each unswung upon pitch is a ball, or a strike. The umpire’s authority is absolute in this area. Four balls and the batter walks to first base. Not 3 balls, not 5 balls; four.  Three strikes, and the batter is out. Not 2 strikes, not 4; three. So, umpires have the power to enforce baseball’s rules, but not change them. Ever.ÂJudges are umpires. Too many of them have decided that they can change the rules willy-nilly, and when they do that, they disturb the balance and harmony of the game…
Matilda. 
Die Hard II—and for those who know me, no surprise. Silly plot. So-so acting. Nice filming (though continuity is… not good). but what sells it to me is Finlandia played when the planes are landing. heh I love that scene… cos Finlandia was perfect for it. And cos Finlandia was THE piece of music that
Bean What can I say? Rowan Atkinson is the physical comedy champ of this millennium. He saves an otherwise flat and nondescript movie from oblivion through his genius. 
