mechanical placebo

An impressive looking device or scheme, that in fact, does nothing. It is commonly believed that pedestrian controlled traffic signals and signs warning that police monitor speeders by aircraft, are blatant examples.
Why are you pushing the "close" door on this elevator? It's just a mechanical placebo.
by Bill Peters August 12, 2006
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something else

Person or happenstance with unusual, funny, quirky, and strange -- perhaps bizzarre -- qualities
Michael Jackson is FOR SURE something else.
by Bill Peters October 14, 2006
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all that

Top quality, admired. Really hot shit. So good your shit even smells good.

A person who thinks they are “all that” believes they people should buy them lunch and open doors for them. They think they are so hot and sophisicated that they can attract anybody.
In the old days we'd have a saying for women who thought they were "all that" -------- Miss Fine Thang. The whole block would be in on it -- little kids would follow her down the street ridiculing her "Oh my, you walk SO FINE".

And people would be calling her that all her life.
by Bill Peters November 06, 2006
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sound bite

(n) A short, catchy statement meeting the short attention requirements of TV news. Sound bites have the annoying habit of being play again and again ad nauseum. In fact, newscasts are increasingly built around sound bites instead of hard news and analysis. And public relations firms earn huge bucks cooking up sound bites for political spin and damage control.
One memorable sound bite (1984 Debate) from Vice Presidential candidate Lloyd Bensten countering Dan Quayle's comparision of himself to President John Kennedy.

Bensten: "I knew Jack Kennedy. He was a friend of mine. You are no Jack Kennedy."
by Bill Peters November 24, 2006
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turtle suit

GIs often don't want to wear turtle suits because it restricts their moblity and range of motion, but it has proven to have saved hundreds of lives.
by Bill Peters October 12, 2006
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brown paper bag test

An actual test, along with the so-called ruler test in common use in the the early 1900s among upper class Black American societies and families to determine if a Black person was sufficiently white to gain admittance or acceptance. If your skin was darker than a brown paper bag, you did not merit inclusion. Thousands of Black institutions including the nation's most eminent Black fraternity -- Phi Alpha Phi, Howard Univiersity, and numerous church and civic groups all practiced this discriminiation. The practice has 19th Century antecedants with the Blue Blood Society and has not totally died out.

Zora Neal Hurston was the first well known writer to air this strange practice in a public. The practice is now nearly universally condemned (at least in public) as being an example of "colorism". Particularly cogent modern day critiques can be found in Kathy Russell's "The Color Complex", Tony Morrion's "The Bluest Eye" (an Ophrey Book Club choice) and Marita Golden's "Don't Play in the Sun." The best known send-up of the pactice, however, is Spike Lee's scathing and hilarious 1988 movie, "School Daze."
"Though the brown paper bag test is antiquated and frowned upon as a shameful moment in African-American history, the ideals behind the practice still lingers in the African-American community" -- Rivea Ruff, BlackCollegeView.Com
by Bill Peters August 20, 2006
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bust on

(vb)
(1) To beat up or to physically attack
(2) To verbally tease or skewer someone either in a joking or mean spirited fashion with the intention of embarrassing or humiliating them; similar to “cracking on” someone.
They bust on me because I came to work with two different shoes and didn't know it.
by Bill Peters November 10, 2006
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