Institution which, with a bit of luck, can just about manage to undo half of a percent of the damage wrought by school.
by Fearman August 03, 2007
Morbid and (possibly) irrational fear that if you decide to do something different every day the CIA may decide to keep a close eye on you.
by Fearman March 06, 2008
Accommodation typically offered by cowboy landlords and especially to students, shot through with a fungal growth. The fungal infestation is often temporarily retarded at point of sale by gas or electric heaters which the landlord has removed shortly thereafter. Even if the hyphae have ramified all the way into or up from the foundations, in popular mythology it is always the tenant's fault.
Shane and myself got a cheap ground floor apartment ostensibly for a year on coming to Cork, but it turned out to be a fungus farm and we had to move out after a month for the good of our health.
by Fearman December 18, 2007
Branch of the sciences with which everyone is of course familiar and which already has coffee-table books devoted to it, but which has yet to be satisfactorily defined. It is therefore incredibly easy to award yourself a doctorate in duttyology. In a postmodern world in particular, duttyologists can multiply like rabbits.
As soon as I had even heard of the word, I had instantly awarded myself an advanced doctorate with honours in duttyology.
by Fearman October 31, 2007
An answer to the argument in favour of belief in God formulated in Pascal's Wager, formulated in turn by that great philosopher, Homer J. Simpson. Essentially, the God we are asked to believe in on the strength of Pascal's Wager, presumably the Judeo-Christian Jahweh, is merely one of thousands if not millions to have been worshipped throughout human history. Assuming the mere numbers of the faithful are an unreliable guide to the veracity of this god's existence (and no serious scholar of human beliefs would argue otherwise), then how do we know we've got the right god?
Simpson Rebuttal:
"But Marge! What if it's the wrong god? We'd only be making him angrier and angrier every Sunday!"
"But Marge! What if it's the wrong god? We'd only be making him angrier and angrier every Sunday!"
by Fearman February 24, 2008
Mealy-mouthed attempt at getting people to avoid superficial expressions of bigotry, which ends up debasing the language without dealing with the stupidity underlying most hates and fears. Merely ends up giving the bigots one more thing to snarl at and, yes, it really can impose a tyranny of its own. Many examples of allegedly common politically correct speech are urban myths ... which we could still have done without.
Some (real and imaginary) examples of political correctness:
You're not black (in the USA), you're African-American.
(As Whoopi Goldberg once commented, and I may be paraphrasing, "My ancestors didn't come through generations of the slave trade and the Civil Rights movement to end up hyphenated.")
You're not crippled, you're differently abled.
You're not a member of the Undead, you are biometrically challenged.
You're not an android, you are an artificial person.
You're not black (in the USA), you're African-American.
(As Whoopi Goldberg once commented, and I may be paraphrasing, "My ancestors didn't come through generations of the slave trade and the Civil Rights movement to end up hyphenated.")
You're not crippled, you're differently abled.
You're not a member of the Undead, you are biometrically challenged.
You're not an android, you are an artificial person.
by Fearman August 16, 2007
Played by Jonathan Pryce in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). Newspaper magnate who likes to make his own stories. Had his wife murdered for colluding with 007 (and thoughtfully put her in his news bulletin). Prepared to risk WW3 in order to secure his market in China. Made the film. The only truly frightening Bond villain in the franchise's history.
Elliott Carver (on Bond's mobile in Hamburg): You have two things belonging to me, Mr. Bond. Now I've found one of them, I've a fair idea where the other one is.
(He is referring to his satellite decoder and his wife. Bond floors the accelerator back to the hotel ...,)
(He is referring to his satellite decoder and his wife. Bond floors the accelerator back to the hotel ...,)
by Fearman August 03, 2007