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If Trump had more than half a brain he would not run at all, damn he will get hammered and the Trump name will be tarnished for decades to come, might as well call himself Mudd https://www.phrases.org.uk/mea.... Not that he killed a US president but the Don Don the orange orangutan has most definitely tarnished that position and the rest of the US administration, by filling it with neocon psychopaths. Only an idiot with a truly bloated ego would run with that track record, yeah, the only reason Trump won, was because he was running against that only real deplorables, the Klinton Krime Klan and he promised to lock the bitch up and failed (yeah, we know it was all bullshit, all along, try it again, make yourself look the fool).

The republicans should probably run with Chuck Grassley, won't win but wont look bad either, sort of a safe political loss and blame Trump, really just pile it on. The Democrats, pretty clear Tulsi and Bernie, 2020, who takes the lead kind of arbitrary and it would work well if they ran together and let the public decide who takes the lead, who is President and who is Vice President, would be an extremely popular move (well that's enough regime change, ;D).

While the above is likely correct, it is not answering the qusetion regarding criminal liability. Sometimes the Law can be an Ass.

Nobody reads individual sentences from other books and then takes them (often out of context) as individual snacks of wisdom and truth.

Uh, yes they do. All they time. What is the modern news cycle but a collection of individual sentences (often out of context) from longer speeches or documents, then repackaged as eye catching headlines?

If you want to get more literary, I invite you to read the words of Shakespeare and find out just how many of his individual sentences have passed into common wisdom and truth .

Frog-drowner is documented here, along with gullywasher and frog-strangler

https://www.phrases.org.uk/bul...

more drama from #crazytown. - Wake me up when The Donald sets the Whitehouse on fire in a raving dementia paranoia attack.

Not going to happen: for starters, The Donald doesn't play the lyre! http://www.phrases.org.uk/mean...

Whiny MGTOW's are checking out for sure, but honestly, everyone else is glad about that.

Then be glad. This isn't about whining, and if you and whoever everyone else is is happy, then life is good.

I also like how you invent bits of feminist ideology to be angry at.

The courts, the laws, and society are not feminist ideology. They might have been shaped a bit by feminists, but society as a whole has merely made the rational decision for men to avoid relationships with women. The numbers aren't lies. But the ladies and their supporters should be happy about that.

That there are men who are butthurt by their experiences, and them choosing to complain is merely warning for men who have not ben caught in the utility web. Yeah. We hear about sitting with your legs too far apart on public transit is a male enabling rape culture, so if a guy is upset that his wife left him with the children and ende up with the house, the car, and he pays a thou or more a month until the kids are in their early 20's, and he gets to see them once a week and every other holiday - well I'm going to allow him to complain. That's a tangible complaint, not some weird complaint about how men sit that has now been made a crime.

And it's all a product of the "thou doth protest too much" effect. Males have been whined at about how awful they are since birth, and women taught how awful all men are. So at this point, the endless male shaming has little effect. It's just one more thing young males are bitched at about, so another data point supporting the rational decision to seek their enjoyment of life elsewhere than in the company of those who don't like them. And given that "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle http://www.phrases.org.uk/mean... a phrase adopted by Gloria Steinham but coined by Irina Dunn, it is pretty much a victory, because women simply do not need men at all.

Funny, but outsourcing their HR might not have been a bad idea, along the lines of a man who is his own lawyer...

Actually I believe he was a CEO of a manufacturing company...let me check. OK, I was probably wrong:
'There's no such thing as bad publicity' is often associated with Phineas T. Barnum, the 19th century American showman and circus owner. Barnum was a ... http://www.phrases.org.uk/mean...

If they take away our porn, it's "Katy, bar the door!".

It's a saying from Dr. John Bridges in 1587. But the gist of it is consistent with the teachings of Proverbs, which primarily advocates for scrupulous and discerning use of both words and money.

are soon parted

I went and found this:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/mean...

I am, by no means, an authority on the subject. I didn't even read all of the page. It just seems to be the better of the few - others listed it and had some usage. That one gets into where it comes from - or where they claim it comes from. Buggered if I know, buggered if I am an authority.

It's up to you, I suppose, as to what you believe. Horses do things like take you home when you're drunk. I figured it came from there and things like that - things learned in experience. I'd never heard it used as a pejorative. My linguistic capacity is mere grunts and occasional pointing. Any of my utterances making sense is entirely incidental and orthogonal to intent. You'd probably get better etymology information from a trained monkey than you will from me.

But, that's how I understand it and how I've seen it used. The validity of that use is subject to debate, a debate for which I am unqualified, and I can only share how I've witnessed the usage and interpreted said usage. ;-)

Since this is an American issue, so far I think the saying "Hoisted with one's own petard" applies here. Unfortunately sometimes American issues become world wide problems.

A rolling stone gathers no moss.

Alternately it will create a legion of future business people who think that they can code and say "just put a button there to do xyz, it's easy, I can do it in my sleep" without really understanding the system or architecture and hence not realizing that the "button" requires days of rework or hacking the current code into an abhorrent mess.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

You were right, however:
I can't consider Wikipedia a better source than the history text I read in college.

(Actually, I'm always rather dubious about any "fact" that I find on Wikipedia. Many of them I have known-for-sure weren't facts at all. OTOH, most were indeed correct. But don't use it as a reference site for anything where anyone disagrees with it.)

OTOH: (from http://www.phrases.org.uk/mean...)

As to the origin of the expression, two notable contemporaries of Marie-Antoinette - Louis XVIII and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, attribute the phrase to a source other than her. In Louis XVIII's memoir Relation d'un voyage a Bruxelles et d Coblentz, 1791, he states that the phrase 'Que ne mangent-ils de la croÃte de pÃté?' (Why don't they eat pastry?) was used by Marie-ThérÃse (1638-83), the wife of Louis XIV. That account was published almost a century after Marie-ThérÃse's death though, so it must be treated with some caution.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's 12-volume autobiographical work Confessions, was written in 1770. In Book 6, which was written around 1767, he recalls:

        At length I recollected the thoughtless saying of a great princess, who, on being informed that the country people had no bread, replied, "Then let them eat pastry!"

So I guess my history book was wrong. And apparently nobody knowns who originally said it, either.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/mean...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...

In reality three words would suffice when it comes to translating any policitian's words on covert monitoring:

'bridge for sale'

Really?. Oh well, at least you didn't fall for the sig.

I think this is true, however how do you get one? Most dictators are not benevolent. Lots of times they start out benevolent and end up not.

Have you ever seen the image of a woman who is past the point of pulling her hair out from her children's incessant "mommy I want that", "mommy he touched me!", "mommy that's not fair", etc. etc. etc.?

Now imagine you are that benevolent dictator (Mommy) and you have several million subjects (children). Kinda makes your skin crawl...

Add to that the adage Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and it's not so hard to see why good men go bad.

Slushdot's fortune cookies need a thorough overhaul.

Just as a for-instance, I keep seeing "There's no such thing as a free lunch" attributed to Milton Friedman. Phrase finder attributes the original statement to journalist Paul Mellon, in a January, 1942 editorial response to a speech by then-vice-President Henry Wallace. It notes that the phrase is associated with Friedman only because he appropriated it as the title of his 1975 book - but he would have been in grade school when Mellon's editorial was first published.

That's far from the only sin of mis-attribution (or, much worse, non-attribution) in the fortune database. I'm CONSTANTLY seeing quotes from Bill Griffith's fabulous Zippy the Pinhead strips (mostly Zippy's own non-sequiturs) show up without attribution to either Griffith (their actual author) or Zippy (his mouthpiece). The same is true of many great Steven Wright lines - and there have to be plenty of others whose authors I don't recognize.

Full disclosure: I'm a writer. Proper attribution is important to me. I'm known for the extent to which I research my work - which makes proper attribution all the more important from my perspective.

To summarize, "History is bunk".

Usually spoken by someone who believes themselves immune to Santayana's Law: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

You should probably use more salt when you swallow commentary on Slashdot. There are some questions that the two parties will largely agree on based on broad social consensus*, but contrary to many reports on Slashdot, they tend to pursue different goals in many policy areas.

You may find some insights by reading here from time to time.

* Allowing the country to be invaded is bad. Social welfare programs should continue to exist.

I'm more surprised by the fact that having sex is illegal? And the military police has jurisdiction over this crime? wtf

The US military has never liked incidents that cause trouble with its foreign hosts.

Conditions were harsh in Britain in the early 1940s and there was also an undercurrent of unease that was conveyed by the phrase, especially amongst British men, who resented the attraction of GIs, with their ready supply of nylons and cigarettes, amongst British women. The artist Beryl Cook, who was a young woman at the time confirmed this in an interview to the BBC in the late 1970s. I can't find the transcript of the interview, but from memory it was words to the effect of, ''food was scarce, but we supplemented our income by a little impromptu whoring with the GIs - we all did it''. Many of these liaisons were love matches rather than merely commercial transactions though, as the thousands of marriages between US servicemen and British women (the GI brides) is evidence of.

Oversexed, overpaid and over here

Fueling the fires while stationed in as volatile and deeply conservative a country as Afghanistan is of no help to anyone.

Also were she to abdicate the next in line would be her nephew, David Armstrong-Jones.

Either I completely missed an attempt at the horse joke meme there or you're just full of pony

No kidding. Until somewhat recently (in a historical sense), salt was incredibly expensive.

You know, until that happened, you'd just be a tin-foil hat wearer, without a shred of credibility to you. Actually, you still are. But thanks to the colossal mistake of a couple of people in the IRS and Obama's total and complete inability to deal with a scandal, that singular act has managed to make the tinfoil hat crowd look more credible than the government.

Well, you know what, okay. Out of the thousands of times Obama and the "rabid liberals" have gotten it right, after six years of constant, sustained, unending attempts by the Republicans to find something, anything, to sink Obama even if it means repeatedly punching themselves in the face (Comeon guys, with all the major issues out there, your party platform for the previous four years has been trying to ensure Obama didn't get re-elected. Petty much?)... I suppose yes, with that much scrutiny eventually something had to pan out.

So take this one, singular victory. Have it, it's yours. You can feel righteous for a bit now -- you have a right to be upset

Well, that's mighty white of you. You are indeed a generous spirit.

True Scandal - A tea-party group ... gets attention from the IRS—and the FBI, OSHA, and the ATF.
The IRS Fiasco Is Only The Tip Of The Iceberg
A Frequent Visitor to the White House

...Douglas Shulman, Commissioner from 2008 to 2012, during the Obama administration, visited the White House 118 times just in 2010 and 2011. His successor, Steven Miller, also visited “numerous” times.

Lawmakers say IRS targeted dozens more conservative groups than initially believed

The IRS targeting of conservative groups is far broader than first reported, with nearly 500 organizations singled out for additional scrutiny, according to two lawmakers briefed by the agency

IRS Admits Targeting “Tea Party” Groups
The New Nixon This time, the press cheered as the IRS investigated the president's opponents.
Tea party groups call IRS process 'nightmare'
IRS approved liberal groups while Tea Party in limbo
Curious IRS Timing - Did the tax agency also target groups that support Israel?
Obamacare + IRS = gangster government
7 Questions That The IRS Inappropriately Asked Of Tea Party Groups
The IRS’s Tea-Party Targeting - An apology, but no explanation
Did The IRS Try To Swing Election To Obama?

Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert

What the first four words of your .sig should be.

See well-reputed 3rd-party reference.

To amend my prior answer with an actual reference -- see http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/beg-the-question.html

On the subject of the reliability of said source:

While no reference work is able to claim its content is 100% definitive, every effort has been made to include here only information that is verifiable as correct. The content is researched to published book standards. The sources used in the research are twofold, either primary sources or trusted references. The primary sources include newspaper cuttings, books, films, photographic archives etc. The trusted reference sources are those that themselves derive from primary sources and have sufficient reputation to be considered reliable. These include, The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, The Historial Dictionary of American Slang, First Edition, The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 5th Edition, Partridge's A Dictionary of Slang, 8th Edition. In addition to these are numerous reference works and databases which, although not in themselves definitive, provide a rich source of stimulation; for example, Cotgrave's A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, Hotten's Slang Dictionary and many others.

Unions tend to be more prevalent in fields where automation will flourish. Physical labor, assembly line work, machinists, etc

Unions are prevalent in fields that require less specialized skills (not lack of) meaning there is a broader cross-section of people qualified to do a given task. Because of this owners (This isn't confined just to corporations) tend to feel they can pit potential candidates against each other for the job with it going to the individual willing to do it for the least amount. When unions first came about in the US this practice was rampant and stifling enough people they rose up against it. As with most good intentions many Unions eventually became the master and just as evil as the overlords they were created to overthrow. "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely" - Lord Acton

When I cannot turn on a light switch because it will lead to the unemployment of the "electrical engineer" something has gone terribly wrong.

Witty soap. It's hard to read it hearing some of the idioms we now use daily as if it was for the first time. A lot of phrases in his work are Shakespeare originals, but sound very cliche because that's what they've become since. Even the concept of a "Wild goose chase" is his own.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/give-a-man-a-fish.html

It has made him paranoid of your average person.

If you're not paranoid of the average person, you either live in a bubble or haven't been paying attention to the rest of the world.

The average person will gladly lie, cheat, and steal (or worse), and is only stopped by immediate negative consequences for those actions. The average person should not be trusted - they'd take everything you had if they reasonably believed they could get away with it forever.

This applies equally well to Law Enforcement Officers, the Aristocracy and Politicians. Combine with Acton's Law [1], and you get ripe conditions for mass abuse of power, and selling out the public as a whole.

LEO's need to be held to a higher standard. The problem is ultimately the issue of who funds them - the 1%, by cutting the funding of such organizations, hold them hostage to their whims. When was the last time you heard of a CEO getting a traffic ticket?

[1] http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/absolute-power-corrupts-absolutely.html

Ahem.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/card-sharp.html

In fact, the term "halo effect" was coined in this context to describe people who became Apple fans because of buying iPhones, making them more likely to buy Apple computers.

There's a problem with how you define one or more of the following:
fact
halo effect
was
coined

Do you, by any chance, work for Apple? (If not, keep in mind that you might be very positively received as an Apple job applicant.)

you'll be head and shoulders above most of the industry in one foul swoop.

<pedantic>Do you mean one fell swoop?</pedantic>

Why would anyone steal what was free? Crime comes from lack of needed goods.

There are many causes of crime. However "lack of needed goods" is on the bottom of the list. On top of the list you will see thrill, feeling of power, desire to become the top dog, intent to have (or not to have) a specific sexual partner, to gain respect among other gang members, and so on. Rarely a thief steals a loaf of bread; they usually aim for TVs and computers, and other high value stuff.

If you had no need for a job, you'd have plenty of time to learn the guitar, make that movie and write that book, and you wouldn't have any reason to need a salary for it.

There are plenty (20-30% by some estimates) people in the USA that have no need for a job. However "idle hands are the devil's workshop" and you don't even need to venture outside of a large city to find proof of that; experimentally even, if you are brave enough.

It's either a common enough mistake, or an ironic/comedic twist. Either way, it's in common usage but rarely if ever formally taught like Hancock is (as an anecdote to entertain the history class).

http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/10/messages/147.html

What's interesting to me about the corpus of "real sounding" names is that they're mostly drawn from the bible. The name my parents put on my birth certificate is "Matthew." For as long as I can remember, however, people have called me Moxie Marlinspike. There's obviously a story there, but it's actually not that interesting. In the end, it's just what stuck. I don't switch back to Matthew, however, because it's a biblical name. I'm not that inspired by the stories from the bible, so it feels counter-intuitive for me to literally identify with them. So while many people find my name "strange," what's more bemusing to me is that many of those same people *also* don't find the stories of the bible to be the major inspiration of their lives, and yet continue to be walking endorsements for them with every handshake.

Really? Maybe they're just names. I find anti-religious zealots as distasteful as the religious ones, and if the Bible is the sole reason you have stayed away from the name "Matthew", I've got to say that's pretty stupid, through and through. Unless of course you're careful to also not to ever employ any expressions that originate from the Bible.

"Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely". It doesn't matter if it's corporate or government power; both types of power need to be limited, this helps limit the corruption.

Although free market systems can help limit some corporate corruption, the robber barons of the American 19th century demonstrated that the free market alone isn't enough. Today, corporate power is typically limited by government power. Although unions are just as susceptible to corruption as any other, a labor union is a good example of government power being used to limit corporate power/corruption.

In the American Bill of Rights, government power is limited by the people. The people have freedom of speech/press, the right to assemble and so on; this allows them to learn about and communicate about the corruption that will inevitably enter into their government. Today, we call this transparency. Furthermore, the people have the right to bear arms (weather you argue that right is limited to militias or open to all individuals). This gives Americans the power to force physical change if their government becomes so corrupted other methods of change (voting, et.al.) become impossible.

For Direct Current (DC): P=I*V=I^2*R=V^2/R. P is power, I is current, V is voltage, and R is resistance.

And since power corrupts, and corruption leads to sin [citation needed], and the wages of sin is death, I think the conclusion is that DC can kill you.

Moot

Alas, poor Syousef! I knew him, AC.

To quote or not to quote, that is the question.
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of being corrected by AC
Or to lay seige against a sea of quotes and thus opposed to use them.

I'll try a different quote....Twain this time...

Rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/368850.html

*facepalm* The phrase you're looking for is 'Scot-free'.

Thank you, although it might have been useful if you had provided a reference. I did a search and found that the hyphen is often not used, but yes I should have only put one letter 't'. It seems that 'Scot' is Scandinavian word for tax or payment..

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/all-intents-and-purposes.html

http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/intensive.html

and of course, Wikipedia:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/for_all_intents_and_purposes

In the spirit of fair play, I did due diligence of searching for opposing opinions that would support your view, but came up empty handed.

::Digitac

[I don't] suffer fools gladly is a crude way of pointing out that you're an arrogant douchebag.

Probably why St. Paul used it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffer_fools_gladly

dander is redneck slang for anger.

There's a good explanation of its origins here: http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/5/messages/289.html

I've lived and traveled throughout the United States of America, and I'm pretty sure that no American would write that way. You wouldn't hear such phrases used in places like California, New York, Colorado, Washington, Maine, or in the mid-western states.

I find it interesting that I could read that summary with no problems even when I'm not a native English speaker. Perhaps you should read a bit more, because I have read people from those "places" use those phrases. By the way, an interesting link about getting your dander up.

It is tout de suite.

Good to see I've drawn out a know-nothing deletionist, but I repeat myself.

Oh, and before the obligatory [Citation Needed]:
http://www.snopes.com/language/notthink/deserts.asp
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/just_deserts
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/just-deserts.html