Word: marvell
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...place of striking natural beauty: jagged peaks surrounded by fields of bright green rape, ridges slashed with limestone outcrops and plunging waterfalls. But these days the region's grandest sight is man-made: the Baling River Bridge. Due to be completed early next year, this 1.4-mile (2.25 km) marvel of engineering is a jarringly conspicuous splash of 21st century technology amid Guizhou's farms and rice fields, which haven't changed much in thousands of years. It's as if the Golden Gate Bridge had been dropped into some bucolic Middle-earth mountainscape...
Moreover, while the drones may seem a technological marvel and strategic asset to those waging the campaign on the American side, they don't impress the local tribesmen. On the contrary, they feed a perception that the U.S. is a cowardly enemy, too frightened to shed blood in battle. "The militants say that if the Americans want to come and fight, they should fight them face to face," says Mahmood Shah, a retired brigadier who was once the top Pakistani official in FATA. Shah, a Pashtun himself, says the families of the drones' victims are required under the tribal code...
...hottest-women-in-the-world list. (She's No. 93; it probably wouldn't be proper for a First Lady to come in any higher.) Cameras with lenses that can count her pores from three states away are trained on her around the clock. Former East Wing veterans marvel at the lovesick coverage she gets: when Oscar de la Renta questions her fashion sense - "You don't ... go to Buckingham Palace in a sweater" - the response is, essentially, Well, what does he know? This is what a paradigm shift looks like. (See pictures of Michelle Obama's fashion diplomacy...
...Origins: Wolverine, a prequel to three Marvel hits, with Jackman serving this time as star and producer, grossed a burly $87 million at the North American box office. McConaughey's Ghosts of Girlfriends Past earned $15.3 million. The totals nearly replicated those of last year's first May weekend, when Marvel's Iron Man took in $98.6 million to $14.8 million for the Patrick Dempsey romantic comedy Made of Honor. Shrugging off tepid reviews, Wolverine proved that Hugh is huge, movie-starwise, as long as he carries cutlery between his knuckles. In its first two days' release, it easily outperformed...
...Tunnels have been a factor in conflicts and escapes for millennia; only after the Vietnam War did the world came to appreciate the engineering marvel the Vietnamese Communists accomplished in the Cu Chi tunnel networks, which was as extensive as the New York City subway system. But in today's age of asymmetric conflict tunneling seems to have a new cachet. The US military is finding this out in Iraq and Afghanistan, where there have been numerous successful and nearly successful underground breaches at bases and prisons where suspected terrorists are held. "Protecting underground perimeters is the next capability...