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“Ma, sendo l’intento mio scrivere cosa utile a chi la intende, mi è parso più conveniente andare drieto alla verità effettuale della cosa, che alla immaginazione di essa. E molti si sono immaginati repubbliche e principati che non si sono mai visti né conosciuti essere in vero; perché elli è tanto discosto da come si vive a come si doverrebbe ( Read more... )

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So many of the refugees at Capetown were of the “most-favoured nation,” that they were commonly known as “refujews.” Here is a good story of a Kimberley refujew who had just returned to his home and neighbours in the Diamond capital ( Read more... )

In criminal law, the claim that the deceased victim “needed killing” is known as “the Texas defense”, also designated as “misdemeanor homicide”. On Wednesday, 27 August 2014, a jury acquitted David Barajas of murder at the Brazoria County Courthouse in Angleton, Texas. Barajas had been accused of fatally shooting one Jose Banda in December 2012 ( Read more... )

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A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says is never accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something that he can understand. I would rather be reported by my bitterest enemy among philosophers than by a friend innocent of philosophy ( Read more... )

What are the five biggest lies?
    “The check is in the mail.”
    “I won’t come in your mouth.”
    “Some of my best friends are Jewish.”
    “Black is beautiful.”
    “I’m from your government, and I’m here to help you.”
- Blanche Knott (Ashton Applewhite), Truly Tasteless Jokes, 1983, p. 104

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“I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a ( Read more... )

It is the peculiar genius of the French to express their philosophical thought in aphorisms, sayings hard and tight as diamonds, each one the crystal centre of a whole constellation of ideas. Thus, the entire scheme of seventeenth century intellectual rationalism may be said to branch out from that single, pregnant saying of Descartes, ‘Cogito ergo ( Read more... )

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Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk? His whole abdomen would move up and down you dig farting out the words. It was unlike anything I ever heard ( Read more... )

As is well known, Holmes’s theory of liability rested on two interlocking principles. First, the primary purpose of the law is to ‘induce external conformity to rule’, [The Common Law, (M. DeW. Howe edn., 1963), p. 42.] and second, personal moral blameworthiness is not generally an ingredient of liability. [Ibid., pp. 42-3.] I turn first to ( Read more... )