Word: rubes
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Someone will do it. Some rube of an American photographer, strangling in the only necktie he owns, will shout, "Hey, Queen!" Some reporter, his thought processes numbed by majesty, will panic and address her first, which is Not Done, and then compound his blunder by asking her views on Prince Andrew's American girlfriend, former Soft-Porn Actress Koo Stark. Somebody will break commonly observed protocol?royals are not to be photographed taking nourishment?and shoot a picture of her doing the unthinkable to a Parker House roll...
Even some of the President's aides consider the proposal for stand-by tax increases to be a "Rube Goldberg" scheme that the legislature will reject. The tax-writing committees of Congress are loath to let the President specify the conditions under which levies should be raised. Republicans Robert Dole of Kansas, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Barber Conable of New York, a tax expert in the House, put their opposition on the record last week. Many Congressmen and Senators also feel that a plan to raise taxes only if certain conditions prevail is inadequate. They will...
...midst of green savannah stretching undisturbed for miles lumbers a Rube Goldberg-like contraption garnished with walkways, conveyor belts, pipes, vents and ducts. With squeaks, clicks, belches and groans, it lurches forward, a 40-ft.-tall wheel revolving at its side. The twelve buckets along the wheel's rim gouge out the earth and occasionally hurl wayward chunks of clay high in the air. Close by, groups of near-naked black tribesmen stand with spears in hand, staring in wonder...
...reception from the Senate Armed Services Committee. Most of the Senators reaffirmed their support of the MX but badgered the Pentagon witnesses about all of the zigzags on basing the missile. Scolded Washington Democrat Henry Jackson: "The public's got the idea that this is a boondoggle, a Rube Goldberg." Georgia Democrat Sam Nunn, one of the Senate's most influential defense experts, warned: "I don't think you realize the trouble the MX basing model...
...years, viewers of the TV evening news have been treated to animated illustrations of ways that the Soviets might be able to destroy the MX in its various Rube Goldberg basing schemes, including this latest one. Designers of the various plans have responded that the Soviets could not be sure of knocking out all of the MXs. Therefore the existence of the MX would introduce a cautionary, salutary factor of uncertainty into Soviet calculations. Maybe so. But the same argument can be turned around. There is always some doubt about any new weapons system, especially a nuclear one that cannot...