Word: backgrounders
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Because of what it says about Sarkozy, of course, who totally dominates political debate in France even as he languishes in the opinion polls. "This setback is mainly significant against the background of serious public displeasure with Sarkozy's leadership, and the growing incidence of conservatives openly defying him and the government to show their disagreement," says Dominique Reynié, a French political analyst and professor at the Fondation National des Sciences Politiques in Paris. Despite the President's recent efforts to alternatively charm and threaten his party members back into order, Reynié says unhappiness over the meager results...
...Larry David there to make that nothing funny. As reality shows catapult their subjects to fame, they also undermine the illusion they create—any life we see depicted is always highly selected, reworked and dressed up to maximize our entertainment. With some good editing and the right background music, anyone’s life can become drama-filled—if only for the moment before the credits. But let’s not call that reality...
...Campaign allies are less restrained when they talk on background. One key Indiana player said the Clinton camp, by questioning Obama's electability, had been "blowing the dog-whistle on race" in Lake County, which helps make up northwestern Indiana's 20%-25% of likely Democratic primary voters. He and other Indiana aides say Clinton surrogate attacks on minority-focused get-out-the-vote efforts in the region were racially based. Others said Clinton's choice of venues, especially "white flight" towns in southern Lake County, were chosen to send racial cues, and to target fertile ground for the coded...
...joys of the franchise's Next Gen detailing quickly fade into the background, and it soon feels like just another day in Liberty City. (After all, there have been five games with the exact same tone and story framework before this one.) At 20%, I'm skipping the Ben Hur-length cut scenes, and groaning every time I have to drive all the way across town. GTA: IV has a clever system that allows taxis to instantly take you across long distances. The problem with this is, now I'm furious when I can't find a cab. Even...
...African tyrannies have dispensed with the awkward trial of popular votes altogether, and ruled as unapologetic autocracies. So why the need for a veneer of respectability, however thin, in Zimbabwe? The answer lies in the psychology of Mugabe and his fellow liberation leaders, many of whom came from a background of elite academia. Mugabe himself has seven degrees, most of them earned during the 11 years he spent in prison when the country was called Rhodesia...