Word: fiascoes
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...toxic wastes, perhaps, or exploring outer space. There is a danger, though, that such machines could multiply uncontrollably, like the viruses that have disrupted computer networks. Doyne Farmer, a physicist at the Los Alamos lab, points to a cautionary science- fiction tale by Stanislaw Lem. In Lem's Fiasco, space explorers discover a Saturn-like planet with a ring around it. On closer inspection, the ring turns out to be a swarm of attack satellites and killer robots, part of a "star wars" defense shield that had reproduced itself over and over again. Artificial life, says Farmer, could turn...
Such a Republican mutiny might prove fatal to the Souter nomination and to any number of wavering Senators. In a worst (or best) case scenario, such a fiasco could significantly undercut Bush's support, which is already descending from its once stratospheric heights...
...proper perspective. I do actually enjoy going to games when the Red Sox lose. I have no trouble watching a game without slamming my fist down. And, though it opened a few healing wounds, I must confess that I hardly resisted the opportunity to relive the 1986 fiasco through Roger Angell's Season Ticket...
...This fall an estimated two-thirds of the electorate will not go to the polls. Large numbers of American households resisted sending back their census forms, and this year's tax-evasion gap is expected to exceed $100 billion for the first time ever. Faced with the largest financial fiasco in U.S. history -- a savings and loan bailout that could cost up to half a trillion dollars -- American taxpayers have barely uttered a peep. "People don't feel any sense of ownership over the Federal Government," says Democratic pollster Geoffrey Garin. "It isn't them, and it isn't theirs...
...main obstacle concerns limits on the liability of tanker owners. The shippers want the U.S. to approve international standards adopted since 1984 by most European nations. These protocols would cap a company's cleanup costs at $78 million (Exxon says it has already spent $2 billion on its Valdez fiasco) and prevent nations from imposing more; yet the congressional bills would set higher liability limits in the U.S. and let the states go beyond the federal standards, as Alaska currently does. Says Alaska Governor Steve Cowper about the impact of the international rules: "The spiller gets off easy, the lawyers...