n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to light lovers — particularly to those who love not wisely but other men's wives. Lead is also of great service as a counterpoise to an argument of such weight that it turns the scale of debate the wrong way. An interesting fact in the chemistry of international controversy is that at the point of contact of two patriotisms lead is precipitated in great quantities.
Hail, holy Lead! — of human feuds the great
And universal arbiter; endowed
With penetration to pierce any cloud
Fogging the field of controversial hate,
And with a swift, inevitable, straight,
Searching precision find the unavowed
But vital point. Thy judgment, when allowed
By the chirurgeon, settles the debate.
O useful metal! — were it not for thee
We'd grapple one another's ears alway:
But when we hear thee buzzing like a bee
We, like old Muhlenberg, "care not to stay."
And when the quick have run away like pullets
Jack Satan smelts the dead to make new bullets.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
I'm sorry
(n.) the ability to compel one to obey commands
the general food chain of authority begins with god, standing above popes, emperors, royalty and presidents, who in turn stand above important officials, who are above unimportant officials, and thence scary looking men in suits, scary looking men in military uniform, mayors, bureaucrats, police officers, school principals, and, at the bottom tier, landlords, employers, and the clergy.
and then there's you maggots
the general food chain of authority begins with god, standing above popes, emperors, royalty and presidents, who in turn stand above important officials, who are above unimportant officials, and thence scary looking men in suits, scary looking men in military uniform, mayors, bureaucrats, police officers, school principals, and, at the bottom tier, landlords, employers, and the clergy.
and then there's you maggots
A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be to where it is futile to go.
All roads, howsoe'er they diverge, lead to Rome,
Whence, thank the good Lord, at least one leads back home.
—Borey the Bald
(also: airbus)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
All roads, howsoe'er they diverge, lead to Rome,
Whence, thank the good Lord, at least one leads back home.
—Borey the Bald
(also: airbus)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
Relative elevation in the scale of human worth.
He held at court a rank so high
That other noblemen asked why.
"Because," 'twas answered, "others lack
His skill to scratch the royal back."
—Aramis Jukes
(also: governing people)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
He held at court a rank so high
That other noblemen asked why.
"Because," 'twas answered, "others lack
His skill to scratch the royal back."
—Aramis Jukes
(also: governing people)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
Time travel is increasingly regarded as a menace. History is being polluted.
One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem involved in becoming your own father or mother that a broadminded and well-adjusted family can't cope with. There is also no problem about changing the course of history- the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.
The major problem is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you for instance how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be described differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is further complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations whilst you are actually travelling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own father or mother.
Most readers get as far as the Future Semi-Conditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up: and in fact in later editions of the book all the pages beyond this point have been left blank to save on printing costs.
Note: The term "Future Perfect" has been abandoned since it was discovered not to be.
The Encyclopedia Galactica has much to say on the theory and practice of time travel, most of which is incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't spent at least four lifetimes studying advanced hypermathematics, and since it was impossible to do this before time travel was invented, there is a certain amount of confusion as to how the idea was arrived at in the first place. One rationalization of this problem states that time travel was, by its very nature, discovered simultaneously at all periods of history, but this is clearly bunk.
The trouble is that a lot of history is now quite clearly bunk as well.
Here is an example. It may not seem to be an important one to some people, but to others it is crucial. It is certainly significant in that it was the single event which caused the Campaign for Real Time to be set up in the first place (or is it last? It depends which way round you see history as happening, and this too is now an increasingly vexed question).
There is, or was, a poet. His name was Lallafa, and he wrote what are widely regarded throughout the Galaxy as being the finest poems in existence, the Songs of the Long Land.
They are/were unspeakably wonderful. That is to say, you couldn't speak very much of them at once without being so overcome with emotion, truth and a sense of wholeness and oneness of things that you wouldn't pretty soon need a brisk walk round the block, possibly pausing at a bar on the way back for a quick glass of perspective and soda. They were that good.
Lallafa had lived in the forests of the Long Lands of Effa. He lived there, and he wrote his poems there. He wrote them on pages made of dried habra leaves, without the benefit of education or correcting fluid. He wrote about the light in the forest and what he thought about that. He wrote about the darkness in the forest, and what he thought about that. He wrote about the girl who had left him and precisely what he thought about that.
Long after his death his poems were found and wondered over. News of them spread like morning sunlight. For centuries they illuminated and watered the lives of many people whose lives might otherwise have been darker and drier.
Then, shortly after the invention of time travel, some major correcting fluid manufacturers wondered whether his poems might have been better still if he had had access to some high-quality correcting fluid, and whether he might be persuaded to say a few words on that effect.
They travelled the time waves, they found him, they explained the situation- with some difficulty- to him, and did indeed persuade him. In fact they persuaded him to such an effect that he became extremely rich at their hands, and the girl about whom he was otherwise destined to write which such precision never got around to leaving him, and in fact they moved out of the forest to a rather nice pad in town and he frequently commuted to the future to do chat shows, on which he sparkled wittily.
He never got around to writing the poems, of course, which was a problem, but an easily solved one. The manufacturers of correcting fluid simply packed him off for a week somewhere with a copy of a later edition of his book and a stack of dried habra leaves to copy them out on to, making the odd deliberate mistake and correction on the way.
Many people now say that the poems are suddenly worthless. Others argue that they are exactly the same as they always were, so what's changed? The first people say that that isn't the point. They aren't quite sure what the point is, but they are quite sure that that isn't it. They set up the Campaign for Real Time to try to stop this sort of thing going on. Their case was considerably strengthened by the fact that a week after they had set themselves up, news broke that not only had the great Cathedral of Chalesm been pulled down in order to build a new ion refinery, but that the construction of the refinery had taken so long, and had had to extend so far back into the past in order to allow ion production to start on time, that the Cathedral of Chalesm had now never been built in the first place. Picture postcards of the cathedral suddenly became immensely valuable.
So a lot of history is now gone for ever.
One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem involved in becoming your own father or mother that a broadminded and well-adjusted family can't cope with. There is also no problem about changing the course of history- the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.
The major problem is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you for instance how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be described differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is further complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations whilst you are actually travelling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own father or mother.
Most readers get as far as the Future Semi-Conditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up: and in fact in later editions of the book all the pages beyond this point have been left blank to save on printing costs.
Note: The term "Future Perfect" has been abandoned since it was discovered not to be.
The Encyclopedia Galactica has much to say on the theory and practice of time travel, most of which is incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't spent at least four lifetimes studying advanced hypermathematics, and since it was impossible to do this before time travel was invented, there is a certain amount of confusion as to how the idea was arrived at in the first place. One rationalization of this problem states that time travel was, by its very nature, discovered simultaneously at all periods of history, but this is clearly bunk.
The trouble is that a lot of history is now quite clearly bunk as well.
Here is an example. It may not seem to be an important one to some people, but to others it is crucial. It is certainly significant in that it was the single event which caused the Campaign for Real Time to be set up in the first place (or is it last? It depends which way round you see history as happening, and this too is now an increasingly vexed question).
There is, or was, a poet. His name was Lallafa, and he wrote what are widely regarded throughout the Galaxy as being the finest poems in existence, the Songs of the Long Land.
They are/were unspeakably wonderful. That is to say, you couldn't speak very much of them at once without being so overcome with emotion, truth and a sense of wholeness and oneness of things that you wouldn't pretty soon need a brisk walk round the block, possibly pausing at a bar on the way back for a quick glass of perspective and soda. They were that good.
Lallafa had lived in the forests of the Long Lands of Effa. He lived there, and he wrote his poems there. He wrote them on pages made of dried habra leaves, without the benefit of education or correcting fluid. He wrote about the light in the forest and what he thought about that. He wrote about the darkness in the forest, and what he thought about that. He wrote about the girl who had left him and precisely what he thought about that.
Long after his death his poems were found and wondered over. News of them spread like morning sunlight. For centuries they illuminated and watered the lives of many people whose lives might otherwise have been darker and drier.
Then, shortly after the invention of time travel, some major correcting fluid manufacturers wondered whether his poems might have been better still if he had had access to some high-quality correcting fluid, and whether he might be persuaded to say a few words on that effect.
They travelled the time waves, they found him, they explained the situation- with some difficulty- to him, and did indeed persuade him. In fact they persuaded him to such an effect that he became extremely rich at their hands, and the girl about whom he was otherwise destined to write which such precision never got around to leaving him, and in fact they moved out of the forest to a rather nice pad in town and he frequently commuted to the future to do chat shows, on which he sparkled wittily.
He never got around to writing the poems, of course, which was a problem, but an easily solved one. The manufacturers of correcting fluid simply packed him off for a week somewhere with a copy of a later edition of his book and a stack of dried habra leaves to copy them out on to, making the odd deliberate mistake and correction on the way.
Many people now say that the poems are suddenly worthless. Others argue that they are exactly the same as they always were, so what's changed? The first people say that that isn't the point. They aren't quite sure what the point is, but they are quite sure that that isn't it. They set up the Campaign for Real Time to try to stop this sort of thing going on. Their case was considerably strengthened by the fact that a week after they had set themselves up, news broke that not only had the great Cathedral of Chalesm been pulled down in order to build a new ion refinery, but that the construction of the refinery had taken so long, and had had to extend so far back into the past in order to allow ion production to start on time, that the Cathedral of Chalesm had now never been built in the first place. Picture postcards of the cathedral suddenly became immensely valuable.
So a lot of history is now gone for ever.
(1162 – 1227) – Military and political leader of the Mongols.
(also: 100 most influential people in the world)
(also: genghis kahn quotes)
(also: 100 most influential people in the world)
(also: genghis kahn quotes)
(n.) an online fashion shop platform, or short for depopulation. take your pick.
they're pretty much all like this
a competitive recreational activity. exists for the detriment of schoolchildren so they may build character, as well as for the benefit of the gambling community.
"real" sports: football, hockey, tennis, basketball, baseball, pugilism, allegedly lacrosse and polo in places where rich people are found
"not real" sports (that is, possibly made up on the spot as an elaborate prank): curling, cricket
"real" sports: football, hockey, tennis, basketball, baseball, pugilism, allegedly lacrosse and polo in places where rich people are found
"not real" sports (that is, possibly made up on the spot as an elaborate prank): curling, cricket
The finished product of which we are the raw material. The contents of the Taj Mahal, the Tombeau Napoleon and the Grantarium. Worms'-meat is usually outlasted by the structure that houses it, but "this too must pass away." Probably the silliest work in which a human being can engage is construction of a tomb for himself. The solemn purpose cannot dignify, but only accentuates by contrast the foreknown futility.
Ambitious fool! so mad to be a show!
How profitless the labor you bestow
Upon a dwelling whose magnificence
The tenant neither can admire nor know.
Build deep, build high, build massive as you can,
The wanton grass-roots will defeat the plan
By shouldering asunder all the stones
In what to you would be a moment's span.
Time to the dead so all unreckoned flies
That when your marble is all dust, arise,
If wakened, stretch your limbs and yawn —
You'll think you scarcely can have closed your eyes.
What though of all man's works your tomb alone
Should stand till Time himself be overthrown?
Would it advantage you to dwell therein
Forever as a stain upon a stone?
—Joel Huck
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
Ambitious fool! so mad to be a show!
How profitless the labor you bestow
Upon a dwelling whose magnificence
The tenant neither can admire nor know.
Build deep, build high, build massive as you can,
The wanton grass-roots will defeat the plan
By shouldering asunder all the stones
In what to you would be a moment's span.
Time to the dead so all unreckoned flies
That when your marble is all dust, arise,
If wakened, stretch your limbs and yawn —
You'll think you scarcely can have closed your eyes.
What though of all man's works your tomb alone
Should stand till Time himself be overthrown?
Would it advantage you to dwell therein
Forever as a stain upon a stone?
—Joel Huck
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)
A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.
(adjective): A word used to express insincerity or sarcasm when something is actually terrible. A go-to for office small talk and passive-aggressive compliments.
(n.) chaining yourself to an anchor and throwing yourself out to sea... except the anchor is a thick collection of personal beliefs that things are not good now and cannot change (or be changed), e.g. for the better; and the sea is life.
these anchors are sticky and hard to break, I know. so fight (or dance! sometimes you gotta switch the MO) with everything you have, to crash your previous relating to the world: life owes me, people don't love me, they don't respect me, and so on.
start building up whatever emotional need you have -- from within. people don't love you? ok, love yourself. love yourself like your life depends on it. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15704926-love-yourself-like-your-life-depends-on-it life owes you? give your care, your attention, some skill, and make a habit of it in some definite (if small) way; and breathe; and you will know your rewards.
"make like a tree and have a long, stable life benefitting those around you."
(also: black-pilled)
(also: learned helplessness)
(also: doom and gloom)
(also: doomer)
(also: gold-pilled)
(also: stoicism)
(also: serenity prayer)
(also: solarpunk)
(also: long view)
these anchors are sticky and hard to break, I know. so fight (or dance! sometimes you gotta switch the MO) with everything you have, to crash your previous relating to the world: life owes me, people don't love me, they don't respect me, and so on.
start building up whatever emotional need you have -- from within. people don't love you? ok, love yourself. love yourself like your life depends on it. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15704926-love-yourself-like-your-life-depends-on-it life owes you? give your care, your attention, some skill, and make a habit of it in some definite (if small) way; and breathe; and you will know your rewards.
"make like a tree and have a long, stable life benefitting those around you."
(also: black-pilled)
(also: learned helplessness)
(also: doom and gloom)
(also: doomer)
(also: gold-pilled)
(also: stoicism)
(also: serenity prayer)
(also: solarpunk)
(also: long view)
a rite in which a newborn baby pledges lifelong belief in Jesus Christ
The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame's eternal dumping ground. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock.
the status of a man who, out of nothing more than the goodness of his heart, acts with politeness and kindness towards those whom he wants to have sex with
A powerful group of mysterious forces that exist which every country use economic-based magic in a vain attempt to control. It is said that he who gain true control of the Market will achieve godhood but because it has never been done it is hard to say if it is fact or fiction.
sign-up or face the consequences!
“"observers" must obey the call.”
join