Word: whim
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...constitutional prerogative to decide whether or not the nation should go to war. About time. U.S. Presidents have gone much too far toward claiming (or rather exercising without even bothering to claim) the power of Louis XIV to send a whole nation into battle on his sole judgment, even whim. The makers of the Constitution were determined never to give one man that power in the new republic, and they were right. If the U.S. is to fight Iraq, it should be by conscious decision of its elected representatives, reached after full debate...
...Bulow, at least as represented in this marvelously sad and funny docucomedy, really were different. She, the depressive Newport heiress, with a frail hauteur in her demeanor and a well-stocked pharmacy in her purse. He, Danish-born and smartly foppish, living off her wealth and at her whim. Not Eurotrash exactly -- aristotrash. When in 1981 Claus was accused of attempting to murder Sunny with insulin injections, leaving her in a coma from which she has not emerged, the case yielded reams of tabloid tattle. Twice he was tried in Rhode Island courts: first found guilty and then, when...
...removes the most formidable barriers to church life, starting with the absence of property rights for religious groups. Previously, houses of worship existed at the whim of Communist bureaucrats, who confiscated tens of thousands of churches and mosques. Charitable and pastoral work beyond church walls was forbidden, while atheists had power to meddle in church affairs and propagandize against belief in God in schools and the media. Seminary training was severely restricted, and rank-and-file clergy were even cut off from formal food privileges. No faith could conduct religious education of children...
...government should determine that these arguments are invalid? Simple: just change the order. That can be done "at the whim of the President," says Michael Glennon, professor of law at the University of California at Davis. Capitol Hill sources assert that President Bush could issue a rewritten order, or, more likely, an "exception" to the standing one, and legally keep it secret. The only way to prevent that would be to write a prohibition against assassinations into law. After congressional investigations in the 1970s turned up evidence of CIA-sponsored assassination plots, attempts were made to enact such...
...snubs, the characters are trapped in a world beyond their control. Like Gatsby, they try to control the world through their social creations--or at least try to convince themselves that they are in control. Their final clubs, their final parties, their finally perfect resumes cannot protect them from whim of nature and arbitrary pain, from the book's dreadful and final resolution...