Word: balks
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Israeli troops are going the extra mile to avoid collateral damage in Gaza. However, some Israeli officers speak more bluntly when their audience is domestic. ("We are very violent," the commander of the Israeli army's élite combat engineering unit, Yahalom, told the Israeli press. "We do not balk at any means to protect the lives of our soldiers.") When Israeli forces shelled a United Nations school that left more than 40 dead, the Israeli military initially did its best to back its claim (denied by local U.N. officials) that the school was being used by militants to fire...
...drama and import. But critics say the BCS can discriminate against worthy underdogs and elevate the wrong teams to its ultimate showdown. Outrage over its capricious rankings spurred Senate hearings in 2003 and a congressional inquiry in 2005. A 2007 Gallup poll found that only 15% of fans would balk at scrapping the present format for a tidy year-end tournament. This year, that number is probably even lower in the Lone Star State...
...inept at punishing people. America has the largest total prison population in the world, and incarcerates people at rates four times higher than most other countries. Mandatory federal guidelines require a five-year sentence for a first-time offender individual caught with 500 grams of cocaine. But people balk at the idea of putting CEOs in prison. Obviously this is because having half a kilo of coke is much more damaging to the country as a whole than train wrecking the entire economy...
...less than a month, both the national election and Motley’s unexpected turn as president will have come to an end. He and the HRC executive board have begun to plan for both of these eventualities, and while most HRC members balk at discussing the potential for their candidate’s loss next week, it’s a possibility all seem to have considered. (The club’s post-election after-party will have an appropriately flexible “celebrate the election/drown your sorrows” theme...
...Some of your closest aides are suspected of stealing land, smuggling drugs and running illegal militias. Yet you balk at bringing them to trial. One of our biggest sources of contention with the international community has been their use of [militias as] private security companies. [That's] one of the reasons for insecurity on our highways. This is something that we do not support, that we are publicly and officially very much against. It is something with which I have called on all members of the international community, on all the ambassadors...