A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors. In order to effect this purpose it is necessary to supply a contrast in the person of one who is called the defendant, the prisoner or the accused. If the contrast is made sufficiently clear this person is made to undergo such an affliction as will give the virtuous gentlemen a comfortable sense of their immunity, added to that of their worth. In our day the accused is usually a human being, or a socialist, but in mediæval times, animals, fishes, reptiles and insects were brought to trial. A beast that had taken human life, or practiced sorcery, was duly arrested, tried and, if condemned, put to death by the public executioner. Insects ravaging grain fields, orchards or vineyards were cited to appeal by counsel before a civil tribunal, and after testimony, argument and condemnation, if they continued in contumaciam the matter was taken to a high ecclesiastical court, where they were solemnly excommunicated and anathematized. In a street of Toledo, some pigs that had wickedly run between the viceroy's legs, upsetting him, were arrested on a warrant, tried and punished. In Naples an ass was condemned to be burned at the stake, but the sentence appears not to have been executed. D'Addosio relates from the court records many trials of pigs, bulls, horses, cocks, dogs, goats, etc., greatly, it is believed, to the betterment of their conduct and morals. In 1451 a suit was brought against the leeches infesting some ponds about Berne, and the Bishop of Lausanne, instructed by the faculty of Heidelberg University, directed that some of "the aquatic worms" be brought before the local magistracy. This was done and the leeches, both present and absent, were ordered to leave the places that they had infested within three days on pain of incurring "the malediction of God." In the voluminous records of this cause célèbre nothing is found to show whether the offenders braved the punishment, or departed forthwith out of that inhospitable jurisdiction.
(also: judge)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

n. One who is compelled by the evidence to believe in free will, and whose will is therefore free to reject that doctrine.

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(v.) to be nice with an ulterior motive

phrase used when saying something to indicate that I am saying the thing. If you get offended when people say things like that, now is the time to be offended.

here's my hot take*: what's moral isn't always legal, what's legal isn't always moral.

legality and morality have a venn-diagram relationship, you know. they might mostly overlap, but dear god, please don't confuse one for the other. society's good at a lot of things, but accounting for nuanced situations through legal code.. is, uh, not one of them.
be your own pillar of strength and morality. be accountable to yourself. you know when you are crossing those lines, and you know it will backfire -- not necessarily because someone comes to punish you directly, but because what comes up must go down. and you need to know that when you transgress, you can make amends and redeem yourself. not because some legal system tells you 'pay $10000 or a year in prison or whatever, and it will make the situation better', but because you have learned and you have changed.

* /s, it's not even that hot.. but people act like what's legal is moral & vice versa with such conviction sometimes.

(also: normal vs moral)

The grunt of the human hog (Pignoramus intolerabilis) with an audible memory. The speech of one who utters with his tongue what he thinks with his ear, and feels the pride of a creator in accomplishing the feat of a parrot. A means (under Providence) of setting up as a wit without a capital of sense.

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

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.

ability to realize your (lucid) ideas. Also a ratio of ideas you realized to all of your ideas.

a category of economic systems where the working class controls the means of production for society

The part of Africa where the natives got screwed by the Dutch, and then the British screwed both the natives and the Dutch, and then the Dutch and the British teamed up to really brutally screw the natives for decades.

Today the system of screwing ('apartheid') is dismantled and its aftereffects slowly being undone, but there's no help to be had for those crazy accents.

(5 – AD 67) – Christian missionary and one of the main writers of the New Testament.
(also: 100 most influential people in the world)
(also: st. paul quotes)

the place people are talking about when they say america, other american places apparently not counting

(n.) A Scandinavian country bordered by Sweden, Russia and Norway. Entirely populated by lakes, these bodies of water were the bane of the Soviet Union.

A nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The garment is tubular and unprovided with hinges at the points of flexion. Supposed to have been invented by a humorist. Called "trousers" by the enlightened and "pants" by the unworthy.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(n.) the organ contained within the head of a life form; all that separates a thinking, living being and a pile of rotting meat

in ancient egypt: a poo-bah, a big shot. the king (not elvis... except in semipopular musical stageplay "joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat")

a direct translation to english apparently would be "great house"

n. A person engaged in reigning. Formerly the monarch ruled, as the derivation of the word attests, and as many subjects have had occasion to learn. In Russia and the Orient the monarch has still a considerable influence in public affairs and in the disposition of the human head, ((also: vladimir putin)) but in western Europe political administration is mostly entrusted to his ministers, he being somewhat preoccupied with reflections relating to the status of his own head.

(also: governing people)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

describing the middle class who ascended to prominence and superceded the landed aristocracy in the seventeenth century. they successfully embarrassed their social betters by proving there was a path to success beyond an inborn divine mandate, while selling out the lower class by perpetuating the cycle of labor exploitation.

also their taste in decor leans incontestably toward the brummagem.

adj. Belonging to me if I can hold or seize it.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)