Word: lopping
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...worst enemy" in front of the U.S.S. Pueblo, an American spy ship captured by the North Koreans in 1968 that is still on display on the banks of the Daedong River in Pyongyang. They win school sporting contests by being the first to use a wooden sword to lop off the limbs of an effigy of a U.S. soldier. "North Koreans' loyalty to Kim Jong Il is stronger than that of Iraqis for Saddam," said Kim Sik, a former university professor in North Korea who is now living in the South...
Saddam owns a poor record for generalship, and U.S. officials expected him to lop off the south as lost in the war's first hours. Instead Iraq's newly titled Staff Field Marshal Saddam played to his limited strengths by deploying highly motivated loyalist paramilitaries to the towns and cities where they could help him keep his grip on power. Saddam carefully chose forces that could handle double duty, tying down coalition troops with a stubborn stream of skirmishes while compelling local populations to stay loyal...
...early target of American might. Wolfowitz, says a Republican lawmaker, "was like a parrot bringing [Iraq] up all the time. It was getting on the President's nerves." At one point in the Camp David meeting after Sept. 11, Wolfowitz tried to persuade Bush to back a scheme to lop off the southern part of Iraq, including Basra, its third largest city, and some important oil fields. That went nowhere. And no matter how hard the intelligence agencies looked, they couldn't come up with a link between Saddam and Sept. 11 that might persuade Bush of the virtues...
RAISE YOUR DEDUCTIBLE. Doubling your deductible from $250 to $500 will slice 15% off your premium; raising it to $1,000 will lop off 25%. And it's a backhanded way to make sure your insurer doesn't fire you. These days, some carriers are refusing to renew customers who file several small claims. Keep your deductible high, and that won't even be a possibility...
...best because it allows you to invest the money until the payments are due. The decision isn't as clear cut if you need to stretch out the payments over four or five years. On a 48-month loan, you can generally figure that each percentage point you lop off the interest rate will save you $20.50 for every $1,000 that you borrow. You can head to cars.com on the Web, where an incentives-comparison calculator will allow you to see a side-by-side snapshot...