In an article about business practices, a communication consultant says, "The general rule I stand by is that we're rushing into way too many confrontations and we over-respond. Whether that's reading just enough of an email to realize that I should be upset or thinking that every minor slight is something I need to respond to. We get defensive, and that puts us on the path to mutually assured conversational destruction. Love that phrase! Have you heard it before?

I had not heard it, but it's clearly borrowing from the Cold War premise of Mutually Assured Destruction in a nuclear war. Clever, though.

It reminds me of a recent conversation with a physician in a bike shop about cycling shorts sanitation, wherein she referred to the warm, dark, moist environment of one's shorts as a pedal-powered petri dish.

That's great, arnie. So true!