Straw Quotations

The noun phrase straw man, now used as a compound adjective as in 'straw-man device, technique or issue,' was popularized in American culture by 'The Wizard of Oz.'

The Left masks its distaste for the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality in a straw man argument that Bible believers are violent bigots. They are not. Citing the Bible doesn't make you a bigot against human beings - it makes you a bigot against sin, which is a good thing.

Nothing of the kind; they do all these things in their houses and sheds, with common charcoal fires, and a quantity of straw to stop up the crevices in the doors and windows.

The murder of Robert Krentz - whose family had been ranching in Arizona since 1907 - by illegal alien drug dealers was the final straw for many Arizonans. But there are dozens and dozens of other citizens of our state who had been murdered by illegal aliens. Currently 95 illegal aliens are in Maricopa County jail for murder.

There is no limit to what a man can do so long as he does not care a straw who gets the credit for it

Companions are we, enlivened by a mighty gallop quickly sliding a harsh straw basket of sea foam gathered astride the tide.

I compare a lot of life to looking at a map through a straw. The less ability you have to see life in a humorous way, the smaller the straw is that you're looking at the map of life. You're not looking at the whole picture. You can't see the whole topography without it, and it can help you to make better choices.

When the Internet really first started to hit, people felt this would be the death blow: after suburbs and long commutes and television and the death of the family dinner, this would be the last straw that would totally break society.

If you are looking for a needle in a haystack, and somebody has already cataloged all the straw in the haystack, when you get to that needle you will recognize it's different than what was supposed to be there based on all that computerized haystack information that had been predetermined for you.

The other team is trying to set up a straw man with Tim, but I doubt anyone here is going to be running around talking about Dr. Dobson, and his name ID is higher. I'm hoping we can talk about the issues and not have this dueling.

When you stick a straw in a soda and suck on it, everything goes down.

We experienced what I consider to be an extremely unlikely event. It was truly the straw that broke the camel's back.

We've got businesses on the North Shore who have seen 30 per cent property tax increases on top of 40 per cent the year before and 30 per cent the year before that, then you're hitting them with another basically property tax. . . . It's just the straw that broke the camel's back, it's too much.

More women should be running for higher office. This is just a straw poll, but it makes people think about putting a woman in the White House.

Maybe I can get some straw men out here and we can make a buck,

Idaho is perfect because of our climate. We have a drier climate and we can then supply dry straw for the first plant.

Barley also and straw for the horses and dromedaries brought they unto the place where the officers were, every man according to his charge.

Imagine trying to breathe through a straw for hours on end. These patients are extremely scared.

Furthermore, there is always the fear that one more building boom will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. We remind investors that the cruise sectors maintained for many years that new supply would create demand until it didn't in 2000-2003.

If a man knew where he would fall, he would spread straw there first

For me, the straw that broke the camel's back was just being there.

If the decision was made by consensus or straw vote in the executive session, that was a clear violation of the open meetings law.

He has that magnetism. He's a big man, a strong man, a likeable man. He's the Straw Man.

To conjure up such ridiculous questions, the answers to which we all know or should know are in the negative, is to build up a whimsical and farcical straw man which is not only grim but Grimm.

HMOs and insurers pumping up their coffers at the detriment to seniors is a blight on the Medicare prescription drug benefit and is the last straw of their looting and pillaging of health care.

Katrina and oil prices are simply the straw that broke the camel's back. Delta was going to file anyway. And Northwest was playing chicken with its unions. It seems to me they didn't do nearly enough and waited much too long. They thought they could just ride it out. But the rise in oil prices upset everyone's plans.

Just when you think to expect the usual, you see straw truckers, fedoras and cowboy straws come out and change the trend.

I think that (high inflation readings) would be almost the last straw to convince the Fed.

I think when he lost his girlfriend that that was the last straw for him. She was his everything.

I think a lot of people like to use Wal-Mart as a straw man.

I think we're just playing the ultimate team game and so everybody has to be on board. Specifically, the quarterback has to be on board because that's kind of the straw that stirs the drink, if you will. You have to feel that, it has to be ringing through. I didn't quite get it.

I think straw polls would be left for the year of the election and for people who need to emerge. John McCain emerged a long time ago.

Jason is a selfless guy, he makes everything work around here. That's what he's all about. He's the straw that stirred the drink from Day 1, and he will continue to do it.

Remember to wear your Hawaiian shirts, straw hats, coconut bikinis and other tropical gear, because there will be lots of sun to catch.

That, according to defense attorneys, was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I think maybe that was the final straw that made her realize that the Commonwealth was going to be able to prove the case and to act in her best interest was to take some responsibility and be willing to testify against any codefendants.

That was the straw that broke the camel's back.

The quarterback has to be on board because that's kind of the straw that stirs the drink. I didn't quite get it.

The ratio of inventories to shipments rose a bit in the latest month. We have found movements in this ratio to be a good indicator of industrial activity. Just a straw in the wind at this point, but a possible indication of future moderation in the sector.

The real mechanism is what this will do to the dollar. It may be the straw that breaks the camel's back should oil prices move up sharply.

We believe that this quarter's results will be the final straw for some of those investors that were taking a leap of faith on Amazon. While we believe now is the wrong time to throw in the towel, the market will likely take a 'prove it' attitude towards the company's future.

Failure to push the budget through could be the straw that breaks Mori's back.

We were down to our last straw several times. All second half, we had opportunities to lay down and quit. But we didn't do it.

We were down to our last straw several times.

We've had a lot of adversity, and I think losing Tiffany was pretty much the final straw tonight. The one intangible that we've been missing with this team is they haven't understood how to stay connected with adversity.

This team, it all flows from me. I've got to keep it going. I'm the straw that stirs the drink.

We sparked a new industry. Straw all of a sudden became a valuable commodity.

When I spoke to him he wasn't respectful. He just chewed on a straw when I asked him to take it out of his mouth.

To us that was the last straw and we started attending City Council meetings asking the officials and the builder to take responsibility,

could make a difference in the straw poll, there's no doubt about it. This is almost like the old Daley machine, where you tend to buy votes.

Eugene wouldn't let the game end without getting one. He wanted to be the last straw that broke their back and he did it.

It would be actually foolish for me to spend a big chunk of money in a straw poll,

The straw that broke the camels back was the 99-yard run.

Often the straw that broke the camel's back may be pretty little. Somebody may get upset about something that doesn't appear to be related to what's going on at the farm.

During Seattle's successful campaign for a $15 an hour minimum wage, our opponents would sometimes roll their eyes and snort, 'If $15 is so good, why not $50?' It was a straw man argument: Nobody was proposing a $50 minimum wage; it would have been too high, and we said so.

An event like this can be the proverbial straw that breaks the market's back.

You take one of those routes, it was probably a challenging route to begin with and we just look at the restructuring and the loss of the other flights as the straw that's going to break that camel's back.

This is dreadful news for both Kris and the club and indeed for the whole of the Rugby League. Kris has been battling against one injury after another since the time he was injured against Australia in Sydney in 2002. The final straw arrived when he could not make sufficient recovery from his long standing knee injury. We fully understand his right to give up the struggle particularly as he has been such a great servant to the club and the game itself.

This continues the venerable Darwinian tradition of making grandiose claims based on piddling results. There is nothing in the paper that an ID proponent would think was beyond random mutation and natural selection. In other words, it is a straw man.

They don't want to sell anything that's important. That (DC Air) is a competitive straw man. A peanut entrant cannot possibly compete with United.

This may have been the straw that breaks the camel's back with regard to attacks on fellow members of Islam.

They're dealing with challenging kids all day long, and then no one's sleeping at night, ... It's like the straw that broke the camel's back.

It seems the most common thing for serial interventionists to do these days is to lob the term 'isolationist' at anyone who does not agree with their latest folly, and then set up a straw man about those people not wanting to be involved in the world.

It's usually the last straw for families caring for an elderly person.

For me and for many people across the country who care about women's rights, that was the straw that broke the camel's back.

It's the straw that broke the camel's back, if the camel's back is broken.

It's the straw that broke the camel's back for some of them. If you're somebody who was already down to the last thread of survival, just trying to keep the bills paid, this will leave you flat out.

It's the last straw for Roush Racing. We're officially retiring as Kurt Busch's apologists, effective today.

It's the last straw for Roush Racing, ... We're officially retiring as Kurt Busch's apologists, effective today.

It's the nature of all relationships, really: The straw that breaks the camel's back is rarely the most obvious thing, ... meets the dictionary definition of a crony.

It's the analogy of the straw and the camel's back. We keep loading the camel's back with straw and higher energy prices and interest rates. It's probably going to be what's good for oil is going to be bad for the rest of the market.

It's another straw on the camel's back toward higher rates, ... but it isn't the straw that breaks the camel's back.

David Gunn bucked that idea, so that was the straw that broke the camel's back, ... He's a very capable operational manager, but he wasn't willing to go along with the dramatic changes that need to be made.

That is a competitive straw man, ... A peanut entrant can not possibly compete with United.

That kind of was the straw that broke the camel's back. We never expected him to pop out of there and go the whole way like that. You don't draw that up.

It's clear from the beginning that this is not a real science discussion. This is a showcase for intelligent design. They have created a straw man. They are trying to make science stand for atheism so they can fight atheism.

It's great to support us and all that, but $1-million a year is a heck of a support. Children's Hospital has been very supportive and it's not on the board radar to close us down right now. But if we lose a couple hundred thousand dollars more in funding, I don't know if they can support us any more. It's getting to the straw that breaks the camel's back.

The restraining orders and the cancellation of classes was the straw that broke the camel's back.

There was an element of the last straw in this,

This is kind of the last straw of a lot of issues.

The last straw would be when I told them that I had been having suicidal thoughts, ... But once again, I was the one who wanted to get help; I initiated it.

If you blow through a straw and pinch one end, what happens? ... If the filter is clogged, the burner will still be burning at full capacity, but it won't push as much heat through the house.

In their native land, pythons hang around wading bird rookeries. Our wading bird populations have declined because of insults we've done to their environment, and here we're throwing another insult at them. We're trying to restore their populations, but this could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

I think all of the airlines will feel this. It's a little more than a blip, but New Orleans and Gulfport alone is not going to put Delta into bankruptcy. I think $70 a barrel oil is the straw that would break the camel's back.

I think all of the airlines will feel this (and) ... $70 a barrel oil is the straw that would break the camel's back.

But if all these things were the bits of tinsel and straw I made my nest out of, the way I felt while I worked was strangely different.

Before the election, that information (that scientists were making public) could have been the straw that broke the camel?s back.

I asked him why. He gave me the whole list of reasons. But it didn't make much sense to me. It was a bunch of stuff the government did, and the last straw was Waco,

If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search.I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor.

I would be -- for no knowledge is worth a straw --Ignorant and wanton as the dawn.

How the mighty fall. It really is the final straw for this guy. Just when you think things can't get any worse, he holds his baby out of a window. It's actually quite unbelievable. I suppose he'll blame Sony for that, as well.

Heaven and earth are ruthless and treat the myriad creatures as straw dogs.