(1971-1984)

the second most famous indian person named gandhi to be assassinated. india's first female prime minister, famous for getting the country mixed up in a war with pakistan and for testing huge-ass nuclear weapons in the indian desert. one suspects she was in margaret thatcher's book club

eventually killed by her own sikh bodyguards in 1984, which got the rest of india very upset with the sikhs. and so the wheel of human intrigue turns onward.

(noun): The state of mind where you're not sure if you're one step away from a breakdown, or if everyone else is just really bad at dealing with life.

Generating disagreeable emotions or sensations, as the advance of an army against its enemy.
"Were the enemy's tactics offensive?" the king asked. "I should say so!" replied the unsuccessful general. "The blackguard wouldn't come out of his works!"

A mystic beverage secretly used by our most popular novelists and poets to regulate the imagination and narcotize the conscience. It is said to be rich in both obtundite and lethargine, and is brewed in a midnight fog by a fat witch of the Dismal Swamp.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

A pathetic way to ask for likes.

n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of an English nobleman.

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

n. A dagger which in mediæval warfare was used by the foot soldier to remind an unhorsed knight that he was mortal.
(also: weapon)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

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.) rejoice! the debts, and the anxieties over those same debts, won't be attacking your dreams tonight.

practiced in the Jewish tradition every 50 or so years, freeing all slaves and releasing all debts.
practiced in ancient Babylonia and Syria (or so I've skim-read a few minutes ago).

(also: tabula rasa)

the unpredictable, perplexing and endlessly fascinating beings around us (also: alien)


(eref: #8438)

The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong. It is held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed to the mischance of falling into adversity, and is most acceptably expounded with the grin that apes a smile. Being a blind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof — an intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.

(v.) to leave a place (physical, emotional, or so on) that had trapped you.
(n.) the place beyond the boundaries of the trap, whether you see from a distance or once you have succeeded.

Expression. The artful response to someone's attempt at assistance that's akin to receiving a single raisin as payment for winning a chocolate factory.

(also: shame on you)

(n.) when the flesh is (sometimes inconveniently) willing, though the spirit may or may not be

A very popular chat app thats known for neckbeards, gamers, traps and pedophiles.

(n.) speaking back and forth to other people.

Despite the frustratingly complex rules involved, it's not usually considered a sport, possibly because nobody bothers remembering how to score.

holiday on June 6th, on which every good Christian does whatever it is you do to celebrate Saint Norbert of Xanten, archbishop of Magdeburg.

(n.) the catalyst who transforms a solo nut into a leader
Derek Sivers is too good not to share:

(also: leader)
(also: second follower)

people who overthink life

(also: philosophy)
(also: philanthropist)

Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree

(also: everything)