Word: formalities
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...Obamas spent a quiet Christmas in Hawaii last year, staying in their rented house on Christmas Eve and visiting with soldiers stationed at Marine Corps Base Hawaii on Christmas Day. They may miss singing carols and reading the Christmas story in the book of Luke, at least in a formal church setting, but after entertaining 50,000 house guests, all the First Family must really want for Christmas is some peace and quiet...
...summit's final negotiating session dragged on for more than 30 straight hours, concluding on Saturday afternoon with the parties agreeing simply to "take note" of what had become known as the Copenhagen Accord. Although the refusal of several nations to endorse the deal meant it fell short of formal approval, according to the U.N. the outcome was enough for aspects of the agreement to become operational. "It may not be everything we hoped for, but this decision of the Conference of the Parties is an essential beginning," said an exhausted U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon. "Finally, we sealed...
...member of the Harvard Society of Fellows—a University group aimed to “give men and women at an early stage of their scholarly careers an opportunity to pursue their studies in any department...free from formal requirements,” according to its Web site—before obtaining his professorship...
...nation’s upper house of parliament lacks parity with its lower, popularly elected house. Britain’s House of Lords, for instance, has not been on par with the House of Commons at least since 1911, and, in France and Germany, the lower house has the formal ability to assert its supremacy over the upper house in cases of deadlock...
...course, France and Germany had the ability to formulate completely new constitutions following World War II, and Britain to this day lacks a formal constitution, meaning that gradually weakening the upper house was far more plausible in those nations than in the United States. Indeed, formally weakening the Senate would require constitutional amendment, just the same as abolishing the Senate would. If our aim is to allow majority rule in Congress, it makes more sense to kill the Senate in one blow than to use the same maneuver to merely weaken...