Word: balking
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Three Me's Generation. In the future, sinister corporate hucksters will cheat us out of our lives and our very identities as "clone" replaces the hopelessly insufficient "poser" as an epithet. The streets will run with clones and genius oligarchy of the rich will prevail. Barring that, people will balk at, yet secretly desire, the ability to control serendipitous mediocrity or excellence in their offspring. Also in the future: it will somehow be profitable and useful to graft our deepest mortal enemy's genes onto human ones, so as to further the self-destruction of the human soul...
...dues--more than the organization's entire annual budget. Before deciding on the gift, Turner says, he considered a more unorthodox approach: buying the outstanding U.S. debt from the U.N. and then going to Congress and demanding to be paid, threatening to sue if Congress continued to balk. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who called Turner last week to thank him, was quick to applaud the gift. "I think this reflects not only Ted Turner's brilliant approach to solv[ing] problems," she said, but also "how the American people feel about the value of the United Nations." Turner...
...create a separate Scottish Parliament; another would give that body the power to levy taxes. If a parliament is created, it would administer Scotland's share of the UK government budget, currently $22.5 billion. That appears to be enough for locals, who support the idea of a parliament but balk at it actually having any power over their wallets...
Kasparov still maintains that he will easily defeat Deep Blue in a rematch and that the best humans will always be able to beat computers, "barring human error." Some may balk at the claim and consider Kasparov's excuses of tiredness and lack of spirit to be mere poor sportsmanship, but a part of me (albeit a small part) wonders if maybe Kasparov is right...
...deadly serious. The power of the powerless is shaking Eastern Europe again as tens of thousands of Bulgarians fill the streets of Sofia each day to show just how fed up they are with their government of national disaster, a batch of renamed but unreconstructed communists who still balk at basic reforms. Inspired by two months of demonstrations in next-door Serbia, Bulgarian workers, students, doctors and civil servants are striking, marching and bouncing for change. Taxis sporting opposition flags block the roads, along with people clinging together in human chains. "I earn $21 a month," says Nikolai Ivanov...