Funny

I watched both of those film clips, and I didn't see anything funny about either one of them, unless by "funny" you mean "strange". That mobster guy was asking if the other guy thought he was "funny ha-ha or funny like a clown", which is essentially the same thing. What he should have said was "funny in the head", which would have been closer to the truth, but not exactly. When we say that somebody is funny in the head, we usually mean that he's a few bricks short of a load, but basically harmless. That mobster guy was certainly not harmless. People like that ought to be locked up, which is why I still maintain that it was a bad decision to close most of mental institutions in this country. Of course they can't catch them all, but it would be nice to have a place to put the ones that they do catch.

I don't know what to think about that "coin toss" scene. The guy behind he counter seemed all right, although he was clearly over his head with that strange customer. The customer was certainly strange, and there seemed to be something menacing about him, but he may have just been fucking with the store owner's mind. That's usually harmless if the person being fucked with can take it, and especially if he routinely does that to others. The store owner didn't seem to meet either of those qualifications, although I suppose you'd have to watch the whole movie to be certain of that. Be that as it may, I didn't see anything funny about that scene either.

I'm probably the only one left who still calls it "Red China", but that's never stopped me before. It's hard to tell because those Orientals are inscrutable but, last I heard, the people of Taiwan had abandoned the prospect of ever retaking the mainland. (Formosa is what the Japanese used to call the place, so I doubt that any of the Taiwanese use that name.) I used to have an internet acquaintance who lived in Taiwan, and he claimed that Taiwan was an independent sovereign state. I have since read that Red China claims that Taiwan is part of Red China, but they haven't ever tried to enforce it, and that Taiwan has never formally declared its independence. This appears to be an old Chinese ritual called "saving face". If either side were to press its claim, only one side could win but, this way, both sides can claim victory without making the other side admit defeat.....Or something like that.

As for Red China, last I head, they were still calling themselves socialists, at least on paper. What they really practice is what I call "state capitalism". On the surface it looks like regular old fashioned capitalism, but the state owns a controlling interest in all the major corporations. Again, last I heard, the state also owns all the real estate, and everybody who lives or does business on it is a renter. Every once in awhile they talk about changing that but, to my knowledge, they haven't yet. I remember one time, some years ago, one of their politicians was quoted as saying that it was "necessary to allow private property in order to preserve socialism". Like I said.....Inscrutable!