rice bowl
n.— «Attempting to take the moral high ground in a debate that in the past has been characterized by high emotions as each service sought to protect its own “rice bowls,” the Army leadership avoided suggesting to the commission ways that the functions the military services perform could be restructured.» —“Army Seeks Moral High Ground In Briefing To Roles Panel” Defense Daily Sept. 15, 1994. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...