I looked into this recently, and the US had a homicide rate several times higher than most developed countries, so I'm not sure how true this actually is.

One teaches evil. The other teaches good men to do nothing.

Same as above, as a child my experience with the word was that it was a signifier of weakness, with maybe a slight connotation of being associated with femininity.

It wasn't until I was much older that I stumbled upon the association with being gay. If anything, it has always seemed closer to "effeminate" in meaning to me, although when it comes to insults those two qualities are linked up pretty frequently.

This brought an involuntary —ing tear to my eye.

I'm pretty sure that has been brought up before, but I can't think of when specifically.

I have never understood the hate for pineapple on pizza. Not my go-to by any means, but if someone is offering, damn straight I'm taking a slice. It's delicious.

I think Carrot would make a good king, but I don't think he would be a great ruler. He's very obviously more world-wise than he lets on, the naivete is not entirely an act, and we've directly seen how difficult it is for Carrot to be outright duplicitous. Also, while he does have a strong tendency to bring out people's better natures and convince them to work with them, it's not a magical ability and it doesn't work universally and on everyone.

Carrot sees the best in everyone. Vetinari, by contrast, sees people precisely as they are. He doesn't appeal to their better natures. He just appeals to their natures.

Just look at the difference between how Vetinari and Carrot handled the situation in Jingo. Carrot was exceedingly effective leader, and displayed a variety of very rare virtues that are admirable in any leader. But Vetinari managed to wrap the situation up with very minimal loss of life and no damage done to Ankh Morpork. And the way he did it is something that would never have occurred to Carrot to even try.

Carrot can make water run uphill. Vetinari looks at the geography and finds the spot where if things were tweaked just a little bit, the river would flow down a different path entirely. Reality bends around Carrot slightly and makes some things that seem like they should be impossible become possible. Vetinari works more of a social judo and pivots just enough to allow the existing momentum of events to carry things along in the direction he prefers them to go.

Carrot's ability in this respect is remarkable, but it's a brute force approach, even if, in this case, it's relying on the strength of his character rather than his physical strength. Inevitably, he runs into situations that are too weighty even for him to force into another direction. Vetinari's method uses the weight of events instead of resisting them, so he winds up getting the best possible outcome in any situation regardless of who or what is lined up against him.

If Carrot was king when Leshp rose out of the sea and Vetinari wasn't in the picture, I think there is a very strong chance everyone would be dead by the end of Jingo.

I saw Lawrence of Arabia when I was fairly young, and "The trick is not minding that it hurts" was my favorite line in the movie. Stuck with me ever since.

You might say Charles I was a...

*sunglasses*

sovereign citizen.

I'm literally having a debate with someone right now who said, in consecutive sentences, that he has lived under the same rules and been given nothing that everybody else didn't get, and that his parents sent him to a private school and he was able to attend college because his father worked at one.

Consecutive sentences.