About

battle, battles royal, bedeviling, beguilement, blaspheming, bluntness, breaking off negotiations, bringing matters to crisis, brooking no dissent, canceling, changing the subject, circumvention, clashes, closing with the enemy, coming to close quarters, confrontation, contention, contesting, contradiction, counter-claims, countering, coups d’oeil, coups de grace, coups de main, crescendo, crossing swords, cutting to the quick, declining comment, demands, demurral, diametrical opposition, direct confrontation, disaccommodation, disagreement, disinclination, dismissal, dismissiveness, disobedience, disproof, disputation, disregard, dissent, divergence, doggedness, dragooning, driving from the field, driving to the hilt, droit du seigneur, earnestness, economics, ending argument, entering the fray, escalation, fait accomplis, faustian pacts, fencing, fortissimo, frankness, fraying tempers, gall, giving leave to speak, giving no quarter, giving them enough rope, goth girls, having a convenient memory, having the last word, havoc, heresy, heterodoxy, high-handedness, hotheadedness, humoring others, ignoring, impatience, impiety, impugning, incivility, incommodation, inconveniencing, indisposition, inflexibility, influence, ingratitude, insistence, instigating crises, insubmission, insubordination, interrupting, intransigence, keeping rabble in line, machiavelli, making short work of, memorizing poetry, mishearing, nietzsche, nonattendance, noncompliance, non-negotiable demands, not accepting parleys, not answering the phone, not brooking opposition, not entertaining further discussion, objection, obscenity, obstinance, opportunism, opposition, physical strength, playing devil’s advocate, political science, political theory, profanity, psychology, pugnacity, punitive expeditions, raising cain, reading the riot act, rebuttal, recalcitrance, refractoriness, refusal, refusing argument, refutation, relentlessness, remaining above the fray, ripostes, rows, running the gauntlet, scandal, security studies, seduction, self-interest, silencing opposition, single-mindedness, sophistry, stalling, standing no nonsense, stonewalling, stubbornness, study, swashbuckling, taking no prisoners, tardiness, tenacity, the social sciences, throwing away the scabbard, throwing down the gauntlet, touche, turning the tables, twisting the knife, unappealable decisions, unholy rows, unmitigated gall, veto, womanizing. 

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“There was no rake~hell, no ruffian, no knaue, no villaine, no cogging raskall, but his hand was in with him.” –Angel Day, The English Secretary 44 (1586)

The title is a lyric from Tom Waits’ song “Jockey Full of Bourbon.”

My hobbies are weight training, sophistry, and happy hour.