Word: breakdown
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...most interesting thing about orlistat is the way it works. It targets a pair of key enzymes in the digestive tract and by blocking their action neatly thwarts one of the body's most basic functions: the breakdown and utilization of dietary fat. Most of the fat we eat is too . . . well, fat to be absorbed by the body. Before it can pass through the walls of the intestine into the bloodstream, each fat molecule must be split into its constituent parts: three fatty acids and the glycerol backbone to which they are attached. That...
...happens early in this big, messy, off-and-on brilliant novel, Powers tends to go for flash. He sets off skyrockets, then more skyrockets. Great, arcing bursts of language streak across not just pages but whole chapters. (On pollution: "Maroon-brown patinas of condensing air . . . the noxious residue, the breakdown skeins of hydrocarbon linkages . . .") Then, before the afterimage can fade, the bedazzled firmament detonates again in grander, wilder colors. Great stuff, the reader thinks, and does anyone have an aspirin...
...still locked in political rivalry; Somalia remains a violent, lawless land; Bosnia is shattered for good. Asked by the world to take over as Globo-cop, the U.N. has gone further than ever before, breaking its precedents and stretching its mandate to repair the ravages of war and internal breakdown. The role hasn't worked very well, in part because the U.N. lacks the money and men to do the job. But the main difficulty is with the job itself. The U.N. has been asked to patrol war zones, create governments from feuding factions, supply humanitarian relief -- even...
Meanwhile, across town at a private dinner studded with senior Republicans, the mood was much different. Clinton's latest humiliation had infused a sense of quiet pride in G.O.P. elders, who saw the Administration's breakdown as a vindication of Republican competence. More than that, Clinton's drafting of a former Republican operative, Gergen, to help bail out the White House image machinery was delicious irony. Joked one Republican lobbyist: "I'm telling a lot of my Democratic friends that if they need to get to Gergen, I'll be glad to help them...
Even more indicative of a breakdown in professional behavior, police and security sources say is the department's attempt to figure out how security unit personnel records were leaked to The Crimson...