Word: whim
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...report defines consensual sexual intercourse as rape by the male unless it occurs with "the expressed consent of the person" who is his partner. "Expressed consent" should not be confused with consent; it requires verbalizations or actions definable at the whim of the Ad Board. The expressed consent requirement restricts the freedom of choice for couples in long-term sexual relationships, who know the intimate preferences of their partners and are thus able to engage in sexual intercourse without discussing beforehand what types of acts they will perform. For example, the proposed rule would have branded a former hallmate...
First, consider the consequentialist argument, which is rooted in the knowledge that closed-door trials are Stalinist stuff. Abuses of justice breed easily when nobody knows that the judges are doing. Keeping trials open and public does not ensure that convictions and acquittals will not be based on arbitrary whim. Without reporting on courtroom activities, the guardians of justice are themselves unguarded...
...perfume business today is a contest between commercial calculation and customer whim, with the marketers growing ever more sophisticated. But there are still a few wild cards in the poker game. This fall will also see the launch of Omar Sharif's signature scent for women, which will come in at $750 an ounce. For this whopping sum the customer gets a Baccarat crystal flacon and two refills a year for her life -- or the perfume's. Who knows? Four cherries and a banana? Or maybe a five-cherry...
...many scientists see Biosphere 2 as a kook's dream and a rich man's whim: John Allen, who used to call himself Johnny Dolphin, the engineer, ecologist and poet-playwright who hatched the scheme and heads the project, and Texas billionaire Edward Bass, who is financing the venture, have been described as onetime members of a cultlike commune. Biosphere participants have admitted that the degrees some of them received from the Institute of Ecotechnics in London are something of a sham; the institute was set up by Bass to confer legitimacy on the project...
...again. In the former German Democratic Republic, the secret police have melted into the night. There are no more prying wiretaps. Numbing political regimentation has come to an end. Germans, all 80 million of them, are free to read, watch, hear and say what they please and travel wherever whim takes them. For the first time in more than a half-century, easterners can choose -- and criticize -- their leaders, and make their own economic decisions: quit a job, sell a house, start a business...