immoral vs illegal

orikami
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)

sycophant

the devils dictionary
One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn and be kicked. He is sometimes an editor.

As the lean leech, its victim found, is pleased
To fix itself upon a part diseased
Till, its black hide distended with bad blood,
It drops to die of surfeit in the mud,
So the base sycophant with joy descries
His neighbor's weak spot and his mouth applies,
Gorges and prospers like the leech, although,
Unlike that reptile, he will not let go.
Gelasma, if it paid you to devote
Your talent to the service of a goat,
Showing by forceful logic that its beard
Is more than Aaron's fit to be revered;
If to the task of honoring its smell
Profit had prompted you, and love as well,
The world would benefit at last by you
And wealthy malefactors weep anew —
Your favor for a moment's space denied
And to the nobler object turned aside.
Is't not enough that thrifty millionaires
Who loot in freight and spoliate in fares,
Or, cursed with consciences that bid them fly
To safer villainies of darker dye,
Forswearing robbery and fain, instead,
To steal (they call it "cornering") our bread
May see you groveling their boots to lick
And begging for the favor of a kick?
Still must you follow to the bitter end
Your sycophantic disposition's trend,
And in your eagerness to please the rich
Hunt hungry sinners to their final ditch?
In Morgan's praise you smite the sounding wire,
And sing hosannas to great Havemeyer!
What's Satan done that him you should eschew?
He too is reeking rich — deducting you.

groundbreaking

mirat
(adjective):
A term used liberally by self-important individuals to describe the most mundane of accomplishments, as if they single-handedly discovered a cure for boredom or invented a revolutionary way to tie shoelaces. It's like witnessing someone pat themselves on the back for successfully opening a jar of pickles or managing to walk and chew gum simultaneously. Groundbreaking moments in the realm of exaggeration often involve feats of mind-boggling mediocrity, leaving the rest of us scratching our heads and wondering if we missed the memo on what constitutes actual progress.

superhero teacher

sese
(noun phrase) The caped crusader of education, equipped with an arsenal of dry-erase markers and a utility belt stocked with endless supplies of patience. They possess the extraordinary ability to keep a straight face while defusing classroom chaos and turning learning into a thrilling adventure. With their superhuman multitasking skills, they grade papers at the speed of light and deliver knowledge with the power of a thousand encyclopedias.


(also: my dog ate my homework)

weathervane

trustycoffeemug
(n.) that wire chicken you sometimes see perched on top of buildings, pointing in the direction of the wind.

also called a weathercock. under no circumstances should you compress both of these words together to create a vaneycock.

football

trustycoffeemug
(british) a sport originally played in britain in the middle ages. it is played by two opposing teams who stand on opposite ends of a lawn and try to kick a ball into the opposing side's net. conceptually a fairly mind-numbing pastime, most people watch it in hopes of seeing the game degenerate into violence.

"classic" brutish british football is played according to strict association rules developed over centuries, and is thus called soccer (mostly by americans). however, several "unofficial" variations of the sport exist, including those that evolved into rugby, american football (see below) and probably some other, even worse ones.

nba

nba database
(also: National Basketball Association)



Eastern Conference

Atlantic

Boston Celtics
Brooklyn Nets
New York Knicks
Philadelphia 76ers
Toronto Raptors

Central

Chicago Bulls
Cleveland Cavaliers
Detroit Pistons
Indiana Pacers
Milwaukee Bucks

Southeast

Atlanta Hawks
Charlotte Bobcats
Miami Heat
Orlando Magic
Washington Wizards


Western Conference


Northwest
Denver Nuggets
Minnesota Timberwolves
Oklahoma City Thunder
Portland Trail Blazers
Utah Jazz

Pacific

Golden State Warriors
Los Angeles Clippers
Los Angeles Lakers
Phoenix Suns
Sacramento Kings

Southwest

Dallas Mavericks
Houston Rockets
Memphis Grizzlies
New Orleans Hornets
San Antonio Spurs

multitude

the devils dictionary
n. A crowd; the source of political wisdom and virtue. In a republic, the object of the statesman's adoration. "In a multitude of consellors there is wisdom," saith the proverb. If many men of equal individual wisdom are wiser than any one of them, it must be that they acquire the excess of wisdom by the mere act of getting together. Whence comes it? Obviously from nowhere — as well say that a range of mountains is higher than the single mountains composing it. A multitude is as wise as its wisest member if it obey him; if not, it is no wiser than its most foolish.

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

new york

douglas adams
(n.) a city
In the winter time the temperature falls well below the legal minimum, or rather it would do if anybody had the common sense to set a legal minimum. The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79.

In the summer it's too darn hot. It's one thing to be the sort of life form that thrives on heat and finds, as the Frastrans do, that the temperature range between 40,000 and 40,004 is very equable, but it's quite another to be the sort of animal that has to wrap itself up in lots of other animals at one point in your planet's orbit, and then find, half an orbit later, that your skin's bubbling.

Spring is over-rated. A lot of the inhabitants of New York will honk on mightily about the pleasures of spring, but if they actually knew the first thing about the pleasures of spring they would know of at least five thousand nine hundred and eighty three better places to spend it than New York, and that's just on the same latitude.

Fall, though, is the worst. Few things are worse than fall in New York. Some of the things that live in the lower intestines of rats would disagree, but most of the things that live in the lower intestines of rats are highly disagreeable anyway, so their opinion can and should be discounted. When it's fall in New York, the air smells as if someone's been frying goats in it, and if you are keen to breathe, the best plan is to open a window and stick your head in a building.

(also: new orleans)

florida

trustycoffeemug
(n.) an unexpectedly successful colony of the americas originally established as a free range insane asylum. at one point was marketed as a luxury vacation destination until the tourism board realized they weren't fooling anyone.

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