Word: grand
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...What do the candidates' gambling proclivities tell us about who they are? Politicians talk of their campaigns as grand contests of ideas. But in practice, the political battle is both a crapshoot and a poker game, a study in managing risk and in manipulating people. And there is no bigger gamble than a presidential run, which both candidates have conducted very differently this cycle. McCain's campaign, like his life, has been marked by its embrace of living dangerously and by clear runs of fortune and disappointment. Obama, meanwhile, has succeeded, no less remarkably, by diligently executing a premeditated strategy...
Bill Gates, who for years was the richest man in the world, is also one of the smartest. But even he couldn't figure out how to beat the Internet - how to transition his grand old monopoly software company, Microsoft, into a business that thrives on the Net. And so he begins his retirement today from Microsoft as the PC era's biggest winner, and the Web era's most spectacular casualty...
...April 1990, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) placed Grand Tower on probation from the National Insurance Program for failing to adhere to guidelines intended to mitigate risk of flood damage. Among the guidelines: newly constructed buildings, and some existing ones undergoing significant upgrades, had to be raised some 12 feet. That's partly because major floods were projected to send at least 10 feet of water into town. Federal authorities imposed a $25 surcharge on residents' insurance policies, hoping it would pressure elected officials to comply with the guidelines...
...recent humid afternoon, Jack "Whitey" Knupp stood atop Grand Tower's levee, surveying the Mississippi. The portly 73-year-old with ruddy cheeks and a shock of silver hair spent much of his life steering barges along the river. Indeed, for years, the river produced the drama in this town's life. Pirates escaping the colonial Spaniards were among the area's first residents. Legend has it that Mark Twain frequently landed here to unload freight. Many of Grand Tower's sons took to the river's barges, hoping to escape into a relatively middle-class existence, and glimpse life...
Local government, however, refused. "We're a town that's just barely getting by and can't afford to fix all those violations," says Mayor Ellett. Nevertheless, in June 1991, FEMA suspended Grand Tower from the insurance program altogether. "Taxpayers will not be called upon to put money back into a flood area if the community hasn't done its part by enforcing the ordinance," says David Schein, FEMA's senior flood-plain-management specialist. That essentially means the only assistance the Federal Government is likely to provide is temporary shelter and food. "That's really humanitarian," snaps Ellett...