Word: odd
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...called screen savers installed on their computers. These programs normally stay dormant in the background (that is, somewhere in your computer's RAM, or random-access memory). When no keystrokes or mouse movements are detected for a specified period of time, a screen saver kicks in. Popular programs feature odd-looking shapes, fish, mountains or even flying toasters...
...Administration is still trying to mollify the dubious and the displeased. Over the weekend White House health adviser Ira Magaziner sat down to write 150-odd changes into the 239-page draft that was widely leaked two weeks ago. One sample: to reassure women's groups, the Administration put obstetricians and gynecologists with the "primary-care physicians" whose numbers it wants to swell, rather than with the "specialists" whose ranks it intends to thin. Magaziner expects to make about as many more changes in each of the three or four remaining weeks between Clinton's speech and the submission...
...absorb the blow of any military thrust against Israel. He saw no irony in reassuring his audience that the West Bank settlements are valuable and truly livable, while simultaneously designating their inhabitants as mere cannon fodder. To use citizens in such a way is evidence of a very odd logic--an ad hoc obstructionism which offers no prospect of a decisive issue...
...that one's helpmeet in life should, in addition to everything else, possess erotic skills formerly known to few other than to gigolos and ladies of the night. Now anxious spouses were forced to master concepts such as the G spot and "excitation plateau." Yet no one thought it odd that the person who mowed your lawn or folded your shirts was expected to provide orgasmic experiences at night...
Which makes antipoverty efforts, by government standards, exceptionally efficient: only 11 different federal agencies and departments have a hand in administering 340-odd separate programs to aid families and children. Even so, a pregnant teenager who has a juvenile-offender record and is on welfare may have to deal with six caseworkers, each representing a different agency and no one able to deal with all her problems. Worse, they may operate under conflicting rules. A family receiving food stamps must not own a car worth more than $4,500 in market (that is, resale) value. But there is an exemption...