Word: feckless
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Kremlin and its allies have portrayed the campaign to close NTV as purely a financial affair: an aggrieved shareholder, the state natural gas monopoly Gazprom, demanding its money back from a feckless and allegedly dishonest tycoon. In fact the move was born of Putin's deep dislike for that tycoon, NTV's owner and founder Vladimir Gusinsky, who could use his station for vendettas but also created a news operation highly critical of Putin's policies in places like Chechnya. Gazprom, meanwhile, is state-controlled and highly dependent on the Kremlin's graces. Moreover, the seizure was accompanied...
...Parliament in Strasbourg to be scrapped because no one bothered to turn up for votes, a move that has saved taxpayers millions of euros; Clegg has campaigned for the Parliament's over-generous system of pay and allowances to be scaled back; and Van der Laan has called for feckless institutions like the Committee of the Regions, which represents local and regional interests, to prove their worth or face the axe. "Ironically, being a bit of an insider helps you be a bit more of a reformer," says British Liberal Clegg...
...Feckless Jerry (Brad Pitt) is sent south of the border to retrieve an antique pistol for his Mob bosses. His girl, spunky Samantha (Julia Roberts), thinks this desertion is just another of his many failures at intimacy and leaves him for a new life in Las Vegas. On her way, a soulful hit man (The Sopranos' James Gandolfini) takes her hostage in an attempt to focus Jerry's attention on his job. Half comedy, half action piece, the movie runs sputteringly on the not inconsiderable charm of its stars. But basically it is languid, indeterminate and uninvolving...
...dialogue will not bring a blush to a parentally guiding grownup's cheek. Here, summer vacation is under high-tech threat from a rogue teacher--vocally characterized by a comically nasty James Woods--who is easily thwarted by the busy brats. It's a weightless, but not entirely feckless, way to pass a rainy afternoon when your kids are whiney and restless...
...foreigners entered the E.U. illegally last year, five times the number in 1994. And as the demand to enter Europe has widened, so have the opportunities for traffickers who would profit from these masses on the move. Scores of immigrants now put their lives in the hands of feckless smugglers, with tragic results. Hundreds die crossing the Mediterranean into Spain each year; last week the corpses of 10 more North African immigrants washed up on Spain's southern shores...