The creation of a sick fantasy. Inhabitant of senile and impotent brains. Companion and comforter of rancid spirits born to slavery. A pill for constipated minds. Marxism for the faint of heart.

an epic poem written by the 1st century roman poet virgil, it describes the flight of trojan refugees following the destruction of their home city in the conclusion of the trojan war. the central character, a young royal named aeneas, leads his people west, hoping to find a place of sanctuary, finally finding it in alba longa.

the strong implication of the story is that aeneas and his band of trojan refugees will eventually be responsible for founding the city of rome, thus giving romans a more impressive and mythical pedigree (the story even attempts to explain the long rivalry between romans and carthaginians by having aeneas get up to hanky panky with a carthaginian woman with the somewhat stupid name of dido).

do you believe this story? you probably shouldn't.

(n.) remedy, poison, and scapegoat -- a trifecta.
remedy because it can heal, in the right circumstances and the right amounts.
poison because it can cause damage, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, on the wrong person, in the wrong form.
scapegoat because the act of summoning all evils and fallings-short of, say, a community onto one person & then casting them out/ sacrificing them can lead to a clean slate and healing, or it can lead to things being swept under the rug and continued festering.

being reactive (aka, living within past assumptions; aka, blind to your current circumstances) can lead you astray. you may apply some substance, activity or method and expect to heal, but instead, it only causes damage. ready-made "cure-alls" and "easy fixes" fall into this category.

(also: paradox)
(also: damage)
(also: healing)
(also: pay attention)

phrase used to get you to stop repeating the joke

In American military matters, that exposed part of the army that is nearest to Congress.
(also: Congress)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(n.) an unexpectedly successful colony of the americas originally established as a free range insane asylum. currently a popular destination for sun and sand, until people actually go there and see how little of both there actually is

A mostly empty frozen waste Land with a few dozen people scattered around the southern edges.

(also: australia)

a holiday when you try to find a date for the day, or a 'valentine', and if you can't find one, you lose

the word clown is believed to come from the low german cloyne, which refers to a boorish person of unrefined manners; it is possible, although less likely, that this may derive even further from the latin term colonus, meaning one who is a colonist (implicitly a rural and provincial type).

such biting contempt for the intelligence of the lower classes is surprisingly common in the english language; the word "boor" probably derives from the same source as the dutch "boer" (farmer), the term "villain" similarly may derive from a term for a rural laborer (i.e., one who worked the fields on a villa), and so on. even in modern england, the term "common," as in "commoner," can be seen as a mild insult casting aspersions on one's taste.

that's really it. sorry, i made this page by accident. mixed up the terms etymology and taxonomy. interesting, tho.

n. [1.] The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious. [2.] The kind of ignorance affected by (and affecting) civilized races, as distinguished from Ignorance, the sort of learning incurred by savages. See NONSENSE.


(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

fleshy beings made of meat that somehow conquered and tame a planet full of creatures that eat things made of meat. Also their meat is called Long Pork.

(v.) acting out of a belief that being good in one situation then allows you to be a dick in another.

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/why-good-deeds-can-cause-moral-backsliding.html

A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin, to enable the Executive to determine whether the murder may not have been done by the prosecuting attorney. Any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation.

---

Altgeld upon his incandescent bed
Lay, an attendant demon at his head.

"O cruel cook, pray grant me some relief —
Some respite from the roast, however brief."

"Remember how on earth I pardoned all
Your friends in Illinois when held in thrall."

"Unhappy soul! for that alone you squirm
O'er fire unquenched, a never-dying worm.

"Yet, for I pity your uneasy state,
Your doom I'll mollify and pains abate.

"Naught, for a season, shall your comfort mar,
Not even the memory of who you are."

Throughout eternal space dread silence fell;
Heaven trembled as Compassion entered Hell.

"As long, sweet demon, let my respite be
As, governing down here, I'd respite thee."

"As long, poor soul, as any of the pack
You thrust from jail consumed in getting back."

A genial chill affected Altgeld's hide
While they were turning him on t'other side.
—Joel Spate Woop
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

swiss psychiatrist of the early 20th century. for some reason, he drew an awful lot of pictures of my parents fighting.

(n.) the romanticized image of a homeless vagabond, often depicted as a lovably unshaven traincar-hopping bum clad in battered clothing, whose meager belongings are carried over the shoulder on a bindle.

this depiction is, admittedly, slightly at odds with the type of homeless person one tends to meet in practice.

(1561 – 1626) Creator of the scientific method and key figure in Scientific Revolution of the Enlightenment.
(also: 100 most influential people in the world)
(also: francis bacon quotes)

A miscreant who would forestall the future by discrediting the past and abolishing the present.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(n.) an attempt to locate and kill an animal, usually to eat. much of human history has been our attempt to get the upper hand against those damn animals

(v.) to do the thing i just said

n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

a component of the social fabric of pre-meiji japan, samurai were warrior nobles sworn to the service of lords and emperors. in times of war they were highly trained combat elites in swordsmanship, horsemanship, archery and tactics; in peacetime they were expected to take on administrative duties or enjoy their own cultural pursuits such as calligraphy, poetry, and hanging out with geishas (not prostitutes... okay, mostly)

for the purposes of foolish ignorant pig westerners, samurai are just guys with ponytails and white robes who go around making "ho! ha! hokkaido!" noises.