2008-01-20 quibble The most popular career of a Greek of ability at the time was politics; hence the sophists largely concentrated on teaching rhetoric. The...
defraying In a strictly business evaluation, Biosphere 2 has to be judged a failure of management. There was never any consideration that the project could be...
2008-03-08 detritus The house dust mite, is a cosmopolitan guest in human habitation. Dust mites feed on organic detritus such as flakes of shed human skin and...
acrimonious Disemboweling is evidently the theme du jour. As the political wars rage in this amazingly acrimonious primary season, the skin has been ripped off...
Prior to winning the Nobel Prize, her work was largely unknown outside the German-speaking world and was said to resemble that of acclaimed Austrian playwright...
2008-05-12 foist The highlighting faces are my own choices, because I felt it was important for me to foist my personal style choices on the general public. ...
2008-05-18 albatross Is Hillary Clinton the saviour of feminism? Or its albatross, dragging feminism backwards under a weary weight of old-guard victimology...
adjudicate In the bet Winer asserts, “In a Google search of five keywords or phrases representing the top five news stories of 02007, weblogs will rank...
capsize Trimarans are popular with many sailors for their stability; however, if capsized (for example by a rogue wave), they are virtually impossible to...
2008-05-26 kerfuffle We have recently resolved Bet 117 on Long Bets about the adjusted cost of energy. It was an interesting case where we had very specific ...
2008-05-27 estrangement In 1997, she ended her estrangement with the entire Jackson family and returned home to Hayvenhurst. That year, she divorced Gordon. ...
catatonic Alice's parents are killed in a fire. Driven catatonic and having attempted suicide (note her bandaged wrists), she is institutionalised in Rutledge...
scrappers Those who think she will withdraw gracefully in a few weeks are living in cloud cuckoo land. The Clintons are ruthless scrappers who will lock their...
batten Hillary has tried to have it both ways: to batten on her husband's nostalgic popularity while simultaneously claiming to be a victim of sexism. ...
hoary Charges of sexism have become Hillary's rote strategy for evading scrutiny. But by entangling the noble movement of modern feminism with her own knotty...
scion Herb Stempel (born December 19, 1926) is an American teacher who was famous for his celebrity as a television game show contestant — and for helping to...
scion Herb Stempel (born December 19, 1926) is an American teacher who was famous for his celebrity as a television game show contestant — and for helping to...
strong-armed Stempel told the U.S. House Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight what he told Stone. Particularly jarring was Stempel's revelation that, on the...
poontang “But you know, when he's got a bunch of half-naked poontang walking the floor of his lake house, he just likes to pay us a visit and make sure we...
What is true of Christianity is equally true of Buddhism. The Buddha was amiable and enlightened; on his deathbed he laughed at his disciples for supposing...
usurious I began selling things for friends, taking a nearly usurious 60 percent cut of the action for auctioning off their old stereo equipment, beaded...
croon Glenn Gould usually hummed while he played, and his recording engineers varied in how successfully they were able to exclude his voice from recordings......
moll She was Carlotta Monti in the biopic W.C. Fields and Me (1976) and one of her most famous movie roles came as Miss Eve Teschmacher, moll of criminal...
corral Are you into metaphysics? Do you believe in astrology? Astral projection? ESP? Tarot cards? What's that you say? You think it's all a bunch of crap?...
progeny Certain properties in popular culture fasten their fangs on our pants leg and never let go, no matter how we kick and yell. The story of Anna...
dialectical As the Decade of the Penis finishes up, one is left wondering only what might come next. As the literary critic and prominent Kinsey Report↗...
droll I couldn't begin to imagine how the arid world of over-lit computer labs and humming server rooms could have produced someone so much droller and more...
apprise Yet when apprised of Whitestone's remark about ASL↗ being limiting, Doshi says (via computer E-mail), “I truly disagree with that.” MJ Bienvenu,...
