Word: explainers
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...guess I had forgotten. Portland’s a haven for hippies and hipsters—not to mention lumberjacks—which helps explain the local popularity and prevalence of the beard. In the past year, facial hair has even played a minor role in mayoral politics...
...there may be something more complicated going on there. But there's not any good data [to explain why a calorie of trans fat should cause more weight gain than a calorie of something else]. It may be that on the high-trans-fat diet you're more likely to push those calories into your fat cells rather than your muscle cells - and muscles burn calories 24 hours a day. In the long run, that could make a difference in weight gain. But that's speculation. We're really not sure...
...July 3, I wrote my letter of resignation but because of the long holiday weekend, I could not find anyone at the White House to take the letter until July 8. A week later, the House Subcommittee on Aviation asked me to explain why I was leaving my job. Transportation Secretary Pena and administrator Hinson were there too, and they seemed determined to distance themselves from any responsibility for the problems at the FAA that I complained about. The Inspector General had never warned him about ValuJet, Pena told the Senators. He had no knowledge, he insisted, of how deep...
...knew someone who knew someone who had heard about them. Yet I never met anyone who had actually seen the official figures, much less helped compile them. In many meetings, FAA officials argued as if they had those figures on the tips of their tongues--"losses," they would explain patiently, from the small number of crashes and even smaller number of attacks on planes just did not justify vast airline investments in safety and security. After all, as the FAA's associate administrator for civil-aviation security, Cathal Flynn, would tell me, the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight...
Consider the Republican Party. Many Republicans dislike John McCain with a passion that has lasted for years. Asked to explain, they refer to the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance-reform law (which they thought, incorrectly as it turns out, would bite Republicans more than Democrats), or his opposition (since rescinded) to the Bush tax cuts, or what they regard as his tiresome and preening routine as a maverick. They resent his mutual love affair with the press (which he jokingly refers to as "my base"). They remember a lot of foolish talk a while back about how McCain might switch parties...