>>>Hi Mike.
>>>
>>>>I am surprised as well. Kevin has been irritating the heck out of me lately but I don't know what he did that was over the line. In general I am not in favor of people being banned, not when a twit filter exists for those so inclined.
>>>
>>>I agree. Kevin has been pretty annoying for a while now, but one can always choose not to read or respond. I was really surprised at his ban and can't think of a good reason for it.
>>>
>>>Doug
>>
>>
Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres. >
>For the benefit of the unwashed among us who don't speak French, what does that mean, monsieur?
It's a quote from Voltaire's
Candide and makes reference to the British Navy having courtmartialled and executed Adm Byng for a less than zealous attack on the French positions on Minorca at the beginning of the Seven Years War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byng"In this country, it is a good idea to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others."
In its shorthand form "pour encourager les autres" it is now often used to imply a perhaps overly harsh punishment to serve as an object lesson to 'encourage' better behavior in the survivors.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
