I can’t properly check the URL on mobile, but here’s a link that works for me:

https://www.openrightsgroup.org/press-releases/uk-government-undermines-security-with-demands-for-apple-encrypted-data/

I agree - but parallels can be a quick and effective way to communicate information where the specifics aren’t important, even if they have to be consciously discarded for someone diving further into the detail.

I won’t argue the point further than this message, and I appreciate the details you’ve provided, but the point of analogies is drawing parallels to quickly aid understanding at a surface level.

Nothing analogous to finding a needle in a haystack actually involves rooting through dry grass for a sliver of metal, but the analogy still stands.

I like your comment for the most part, but:

obviously comes from a mishearing by someone who didn’t read books

This is assumptive and prescriptive. The link I sent demonstrates that it’s been used extensively and for a long time by people who not only read books, but write books. I’m on board that “set foot” is the better phrase and likely to be the earlier one, but trying to dictate which is correct is - respectfully - a fool’s errand.

Sure, but OP’s image says:

hell, pollen isn’t analogous to sperm,

Pollen kind of is analogous to semen in a very broad sense, though, in as much as the pollen grain produces (rather than carries) sperm and delivers it to the ovule, right? It’s not the same when examined closely, but that’s the point of analogies. Grainy semen.

“Set foot” might be better established (and sound better), but “step foot” is not new.

Say no to socialism, pragmatism, empiricism, altruism, and especially that filthy foreign devil, metabolism.

Don’t be absurd. Most French cafés don’t serve grapes.

this is a ANPORT

Took me a while to find the origin of the art, so I thought I’d share it. It’s a copy of an 11th Century mural in the Palace of Westminster, in a room full of biblical illustrations, kind of like an earlier Sistine Chapel. It was whitewashed over, restored, damaged by fire, and later the whole thing was demolished. Nice.

The image is of the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar II looting Jerusalem (under the reign of Zedekiah, the “last king of Judah”), circa 586 BCE. Note the guys on the left carrying a chest and candlesticks, and the guys on the right with their hands tied and huddled together.

“Incharge” (typically without a space) can apparently be used as a noun to mean a person who holds responsibility. I’ve not personally come across this and most definitions on the web suggest it’s peculiar to Indian English, though, which is odd because the FfRF is US-based.

Parts of Italy and Czechia too.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the movie, but I still don’t understand the bit where Frodo and Sam meet Sauron’s entire army in battle, facing tens of thousands of orcs, Haradrim and Easterlings, trolls, and the Nazgûl themselves, and somehow winning, only to have a volcano fall on them at the last minute.

weird white sugar stick with almost no flavor and a red tip

Exactly right!

I think you’re thinking of a different product - these were white candy sticks made from corn starch and sugar/syrup. Your comment on the behavior is dead on, though!

“Did I see you sharing a joke with that customer?”

“Yeah, it’s okay, they’re one of the good ones.”

Apparently Fox approved usage of this photo on Wikimedia under a Share-Alike license.

Yus - the traditional cake in Latin America and the Balkans is a descendant of things like trifle or bread pudding usually called tres leches or trileçe (“three milk”) and uses condensed milk, evaporated milk, and whole milk. I think seis leches is a joking extension of that.

It’s actually a month newer (Twitter link warning) than the quote pictured.