Grinning Cat's definitions
"Infernal Revenue Service", how many Americans feel about the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. federal tax collection agency.
Legend has it that IRS employees scrutinize handwritten envelopes containing tax returns, and any addressed to the "Infernal" Revenue Service are flagged for audits.
by Grinning Cat April 18, 2008
Get the IRSmug. The rules for "acting like a man"; the mentality, behaviors and restrictions that many men and boys are socialized to conform to. These tenets of the "cult of masculinity" are both symptoms and enablers of Dominator Culture. They can be so pervasive as to be almost invisible; yet they lead men to disrespect, mistreat, and abuse women and each other.
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THE MAN BOX
Demonstrate power/control (especially over women)
Aggression - Dominance - yell - intimidate
Do not cry openly or express emotions (except for anger)
Do not express weakness or fear - "take it"
Don't back down - don't make mistakes
Do not be "like a woman"
Heterosexual
Have lots of sex with women - "conquests"
Do not be "like a gay man"
Tough/Athletic/Competitive/Strength/Courage
Make Decisions - Never ask for help
Women viewed as property/objects (especially sexual objects)
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(Based largely on Tony Porter's TED talk "A Call to Men")
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THE MAN BOX
Demonstrate power/control (especially over women)
Aggression - Dominance - yell - intimidate
Do not cry openly or express emotions (except for anger)
Do not express weakness or fear - "take it"
Don't back down - don't make mistakes
Do not be "like a woman"
Heterosexual
Have lots of sex with women - "conquests"
Do not be "like a gay man"
Tough/Athletic/Competitive/Strength/Courage
Make Decisions - Never ask for help
Women viewed as property/objects (especially sexual objects)
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(Based largely on Tony Porter's TED talk "A Call to Men")
This is the love of my life, my daughter Jay. The world I envision for her -- how do I want men to be acting and behaving? ... I need you working with me and me working with you on how we raise our sons and teach them to be men -- that it's okay to not be dominating, that it's okay to have feelings and emotions, that it's okay to promote equality, that it's okay to have women who are just friends and that's it, that it's okay to be whole, that my liberation as a man is tied to your liberation as a woman.
I remember asking a nine-year-old boy ... "What would life be like for you, if you didn't have to adhere to this man box?" He said to me, "I would be free."
I remember asking a nine-year-old boy ... "What would life be like for you, if you didn't have to adhere to this man box?" He said to me, "I would be free."
by Grinning Cat March 28, 2013
Get the man boxmug. A congresswoman or congressman: an elected official who serves in the House of Representatives, the lower house of the United States Congress. "Congresscritters" can also, loosely, include U.S. Senators. The term is gender-neutral, and also attempts to remove these elected representatives from their pedestals.
"Writing to your congresscritters about an issue may seem pointless, but when enough people -- you and your friends and their friends and THEIR friends -- make their voices heard, the congresscritters will realize that their chances of reelection ARE affected by doing the right thing."
by Grinning Cat January 5, 2009
Get the congresscrittermug. Someone who cluelessly increases the noise-to-signal ratio on Urban Dictionary with hundreds of useless entries.
"1. Figga
A fake ass Nigga
All this Figgaz wanna fuck with a real Nigga like me."
What the fuck is this shit, and who's the fuckwit that wrote it?
(Definition adapted from, and example by, SonOfSamus)
A fake ass Nigga
All this Figgaz wanna fuck with a real Nigga like me."
What the fuck is this shit, and who's the fuckwit that wrote it?
(Definition adapted from, and example by, SonOfSamus)
by Grinning Cat January 31, 2017
Get the fuckwitmug. A device that records the choices of voters in an election. It can take several forms:
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1. (Becoming less and less common in the U.S.)
A mechanical device, where the voter flips small levers next to the candidates' names to indicate their choices, then pulls a big lever to record the votes. Very difficult to tamper with.
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2. (Very common in the U.S.)
A direct-recording electronic (DRE) machine. May print vote totals on paper, but there is no way for a voter to verify that his/her votes were accurately recorded.
Unlike mechanical voting machines, DRE machines are EXTREMELY VULNERABLE TO FRAUD. In addition to outright tampering with the records, malware can be used to steal a percentage of votes, reassigning them to the rigged candidate. The purported verification mechanisms -- logs, audit trails, "snapshots" of individual voters' choices -- can be manipulated to leave no evidence, corresponding perfectly to the rigged results.
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3. (The way to use technology for elections we can have confidence in)
An electronic machine that lets the voter make choices (preventing overvotes and highlighting undervotes), then PRINTS AN ACTUAL FILLED-OUT PAPER BALLOT, which the voter can review and either discard (and start over) or cast.
THE PAPER BALLOT IS THE OFFICIAL RECORD OF THE VOTE. (Voters could also choose to fill in a blank ballot by hand.)
Ballots can be quickly counted by optical scanning technology. Importantly, ballots can be RECOUNTED, by hand if necessary.
Counts from the voting machines need not be trusted as anything more than quick estimates or "exit polls". This system makes it difficult to commit the large-scale fraud so easy to do invisibly with paperless DRE machines.
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1. (Becoming less and less common in the U.S.)
A mechanical device, where the voter flips small levers next to the candidates' names to indicate their choices, then pulls a big lever to record the votes. Very difficult to tamper with.
---
2. (Very common in the U.S.)
A direct-recording electronic (DRE) machine. May print vote totals on paper, but there is no way for a voter to verify that his/her votes were accurately recorded.
Unlike mechanical voting machines, DRE machines are EXTREMELY VULNERABLE TO FRAUD. In addition to outright tampering with the records, malware can be used to steal a percentage of votes, reassigning them to the rigged candidate. The purported verification mechanisms -- logs, audit trails, "snapshots" of individual voters' choices -- can be manipulated to leave no evidence, corresponding perfectly to the rigged results.
---
3. (The way to use technology for elections we can have confidence in)
An electronic machine that lets the voter make choices (preventing overvotes and highlighting undervotes), then PRINTS AN ACTUAL FILLED-OUT PAPER BALLOT, which the voter can review and either discard (and start over) or cast.
THE PAPER BALLOT IS THE OFFICIAL RECORD OF THE VOTE. (Voters could also choose to fill in a blank ballot by hand.)
Ballots can be quickly counted by optical scanning technology. Importantly, ballots can be RECOUNTED, by hand if necessary.
Counts from the voting machines need not be trusted as anything more than quick estimates or "exit polls". This system makes it difficult to commit the large-scale fraud so easy to do invisibly with paperless DRE machines.
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A number of Diebold electronic voting machines have been in the news, first for criminally incompetent software and database design, leaving vote records wide open to undetectable tampering, more recently for vulnerability to "computer virus" style malware that can spread from machine to machine through the data cards used to collect voting data.
Making such electronic voting machines widespread is the perfect way to lay the groundwork for large-scale, invisible voter fraud.
There's plenty of information on this on the Web. A good place to start: the Coalition for Voting Integrity, www.coalitionforvotingintegrity.org .
Making such electronic voting machines widespread is the perfect way to lay the groundwork for large-scale, invisible voter fraud.
There's plenty of information on this on the Web. A good place to start: the Coalition for Voting Integrity, www.coalitionforvotingintegrity.org .
by Grinning Cat April 18, 2008
Get the voting machinemug. Another name for "RAS syndrome" (short for Redundant Acronym Syndrome syndrome) -- redundantly using a word in connection with an acronym or initialism that already contains the word. "ATM machine" is an example: the phrase literally refers to an "Automatic Teller Machine machine".
Enter your PIN number when the ATM machine prompts for it on the LCD display.
(That sentence contains several anticronyms.)
(That sentence contains several anticronyms.)
by Grinning Cat January 6, 2015
Get the anticronymmug. Getting down on one knee, curling one's wrist to one's chin, and looking up, mimicking the pose of Auguste Rodin's classic sculpture "The Thinker".
(Created by Dave Silverman, reported by Staks Rosch, "Thinkering: The atheist answer to Tebowing", Dec. 30, 2011, examiner.com)
(Created by Dave Silverman, reported by Staks Rosch, "Thinkering: The atheist answer to Tebowing", Dec. 30, 2011, examiner.com)
In response to the fundamentalist craze of Tebowing, American Atheists President Dave Silverman has come up with an atheist version called "Thinkering."
Someone commented that the pose looked too similar to Tebowing, to which Silverman responded: "That's the point. The difference is we don't bow our heads in blind submission, rather we consider and conclude for ourselves."
Someone commented that the pose looked too similar to Tebowing, to which Silverman responded: "That's the point. The difference is we don't bow our heads in blind submission, rather we consider and conclude for ourselves."
by Grinning Cat March 10, 2012
Get the Thinkeringmug.