Sentences with phrase «as gadflies»

But more often than not, they have acted as gadflies on the backs of the world's merely imperfect governments no less than its truly sinister ones.

If the philosopher has an extraordinary role to play, it as a gadfly.

Given his litigiousness, it's no surprise that Antonious has earned the enmity of some executives in the golf industry who see him not as a creative genius but as a gadfly who likes to sprinkle the landscape with legal land mines.

He might be regarded as a gadfly and bon vivant, but he has a keen understanding of his party's working - class appeal.

He's 0 - for - 3 in previous runs, mostly recently for mayor in 2005, and is regarded by some as a gadfly.

Not exact matches

It involves a powerful company, a cocksure entrepreneur in CEO Mark Zuckerberg, gadfly critics who seemed less wacky as time went by, and even the occasional counter-villain, notably media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Billionaire Mark Cuban, for example, has poo - poohed much of the doom and gloom and said that «TV is the new TV,» while media gadfly Michael Wolff has written an entire book about how television isn't being nearly as disrupted as other media industries.

Investors are not particularly skeptical of proposals by unions and public pensions, but appear to view proposals by individual «gadfly» shareholders as value - destroying.

At Corpgov.net, corporate governance advocate James McRitchie quoted Gallagher as stating, «Activist investors and corporate gadflies have used these loose rules to hijack the shareholder proposal system.»

I've often viewed this blog as a kind of «gadfly» - pricking some bubbles and occasionally stinging.

Funk paints Jesus as a social radical, gadfly and deviant who serves up an alternate construal of reality by offering puzzling parables.

He has always rejected the many attempts to make theology address special interests, and as a result has been something of a gadfly on the current theological scene.

Pitchers who make the majors a year after being drafted are the Rhodes Scholars of the industry: They're about as likely to be the President of the United States as an unemployed gadfly, statistically.

Former Independence Party member and Staten Island gadfly Frank Morano claims he has made some headway in his long - shot campaign to draft retired Paychex CEO and ex-New York resident Tom Golisano to run for president as a (small i) independent.

With a vaunted email «boom list» of 50,000 conservatives, he quickly carved out a perch for himself as an outspoken anti-establishment gadfly.

As a would - be candidate for governor — and one whose New York residency is sketchy — Democratic gadfly challenger Zephyr Teachout should immediately make public her tax returns.

The answer lies in the fact that Mr. Philpotts, regarded as a harmless gadfly in local political circles, had the foresight to stock the county committee of Mr. Camara's 43rd Assembly District with a handful of family members and allies.

Democratic power brokers, past and present, couldn't keep a political gadfly from running as a Democrat in a Brooklyn special election.

Cahill added that he was happy that Attorney General Eric Schneiderman addressed allegations made by political gadfly and comedian Randy Credico to Fred Dicker that the incumbent Democrat used cocaine as a state senator in the mid-2000s.

He was often dismissed by former congressman Rick Lazio, the party's designee, as an unelectable gadfly, putting forth no substantive solutions atop his bombastic rants.

Capitalizing on a boost to a historically anemic budget, Public Advocate Letitia James has emphasized the use of litigation in her capacity as the city's elected gadfly, often suing the city that funds her.

Mr. Díaz's father, an ordained minister born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, was elected to State Senate in 2002 after a short stint in the Council — but, for two decades before that, Rev. Ruben Diaz Sr. was an incessant nuisance to the Bronx political machine, a «gadfly,» as the borough president called him.

They're planning to help Paladino, who has been strongly identified with the conservative - activist Tea Party movement, to launch a New York Tea Party, much as billionaire Rochester political gadfly Tom Golisano's gubernatorial campaign launched the Independence Party in 1994.

But Martinez - Alequin, who has been a City Hall gadfly for more than 20 years, said he feared for his life that day as a large group of people surrounded him.

In addition, Mr. Levy, who described Mr. Amper as a «gadfly» who doesn't represent all environmentalists, said the bill was coauthored by environmental groups Citizen's Campaign for the Environment and The Nature Conservancy.

A gadfly who won only 5 percent of the vote in a State Senate race last year, Mr. Philpotts stunned the Democratic establishment on March 1 when the county committee in the Crown Heights - based Assembly district selected him over several better - known candidates to run as a Democrat.

Socrates was a great needler or, as he called it, a gadfly.

Hameroff is best known for serving as a kind of gadfly in the fields of neuroscience and philosophy.

His observations, which grew out of his opposition to the Vietnam War and, later, what he saw as the United States» resorting to violence and other forms of coercion and domination abroad, thrust him into the spotlight and have made him one of the top pundits and gadflies of the day.

The philosopher, dubbed «the gadfly of Athens», had made himself unpopular with his fellow citizens by questioning what he saw as their unthinking pursuit of power and pleasure.

Moore, as narrator, brings humor and sarcasm to his comments, and occasionally appears onscreen in a gadfly role.

Bell deftly parodies Vivian's vérité style of wobbly, gratuitous close - ups of hands and facial features but her characterization of Vivian as a nasty feminist gadfly seems a little reactionary.

We've been known for ages as education gadflies, and we still find plenty to fault when it comes to policy and practice in the United States.

More Than You Wanted to Know About John Baldessari presents Baldessari as storyteller, moralist, teacher and occasional gadfly, always concerned to accomplish what he describes as the central task of art making: to communicate in a way that people can understand.

However, said Brill, who is a noisy gadfly and prolific producer of multipage criticisms of Mass MoCA and suggestions of what it ought to do, «Over the years I've come to see that they have not been as good a neighbor to the surrounding community as they should be.»

Ad Reinhardt was my personal gadfly, and he had much to goad, since I was an avid devotee of Abstract Expressionism and a member in good standing of «the boys,» Philip Pavia's term for de Kooning's coterie, condemned by Ad as «impure.»

In fact, Mr. Gore's global travel to maintain his swashbuckling status as a politician turned international gadfly really does produce quite a carbon footprint.

«At the first opportunity for audience participation just several minutes into the proceeding, a longtime and well - known Apple shareholder — some would say gadfly — who introduced himself as Sheldon, stood at the microphone and urged against Gore's re-election to the boa...

Their failure is so extreme that they actually serve as propagandistic cheerleaders rather than the gadflies they're supposed to be.

I'm speaking, of course, of the Toronto - based National Post, which provides a home to such climate «experts» as Lorne Gunter, Peter Foster and Terence Corcoran, as well as a platform for notable Canadian contrarians such as faux - environmentalist Lawrence Solomon (of «The Deniers» fame) and economist and climate gadfly Ross McKitrick.