Word: ersatz
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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General Colin Powell complimented the Iraqis last week for their skills of deception. "They're quite good at it," he said. In addition to the ersatz launchers, Iraq has employed mock tanks, airplanes, bunkers and artillery. The preferred materials: plywood, aluminum and fiber glass. Among the Iraqis' possible suppliers was a French company, Lancelin-Barracuda, and an Italian competitor, M.V.M. A U.S. Defense Department official says Baghdad is even hiding missiles in "portable mosques sized to the task of concealment." In addition to deploying decoys, the Iraqis are painting craters onto repaired airfields so allied bombers won't retarget them...
...make an attention- grabbing statement. I think I have a winner: I am 39 years old and I am going through freshman orientation on assignment for TIME. I needn't have wasted my breath. One look at my adult face and khaki shorts -- so dull compared with the colorful ersatz boxers in vogue among the young -- and they know I am not one of them...
...stage with Farrakhan was the other fringe minister, George Stallings Jr., excommunicated Roman Catholic priest, accused pederast, founder of his own ersatz Catholic Church called the Imani Temple. Stallings marked his entry into the political arena with the declaration that Barry, "the greatest mayor this city has ever had," was brought low by a racist government because he is "too intelligent and too black...
Food and freedom have in many ways restored the soul to Bucharest, whose soot-covered older buildings and hideous concrete towers bear witness to how hard Ceausescu tried to kill the city's spirit. The dimly lit cafes in which couples two months ago whispered fearfully over mugs of ersatz tea now ring with gossip over cups of real coffee. Rumanians who once shied in terror from contact with foreigners besiege me as soon as I open my notebook. In the vast plaza of Piata Unirii, crowds that would once have been swiftly dispersed by Securitate goons argue the merits...
...takes a brave or foolhardy author to court competition with the 19th century masters, to write an ersatz novel when dozens and dozens of the real things are on the library shelves. That Palliser succeeds in capturing this distant world of Victorian fiction -- with its careful plotting and moral punctiliousness -- is impressive enough for openers. That he makes The Quincunx a gripping read throughout most of its length is practically miraculous...