Word: priore
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...lodging business is one of those industries that can't stand prosperity. It wasn't long ago that lodging was an absolute dog, the ugly consequence of silly tax laws and even sillier real estate investors. Prior to 1986, anyone could invest in a hotel and recover up to $3 of write-offs for every $1 invested. From 1983 to 1985, the industry added more than 140,000 new rooms annually--but far fewer customers...
Still, The Power of Beauty can be reinforcing. Friday quite intelligently suggests that women who compete with other women ought to regain the admiration they felt prior to their envy of one another. It's both a useful and a sadly inventive directive...
...historians and archaeologists agree, however, that the Olmec produced the earliest sophisticated art in Mesoamerica and that their distinctive style provided a model for the Maya, Aztec and other later civilizations in the region. According to Joralemon, small-scale Olmec objects made prior to 900 B.C. tend to be ceramic, whereas later pieces were often fashioned of jade and serpentine, rare materials that required great skill to carve. The vast majority of Olmec artifacts are sculptures--figurines, decorated stone stelae, votive axes, altars and the like--some of which were polished to a mirror-like shine...
...time, it seemed to many people like a good idea. In the wake of several brutal murders by former convicts, California enacted the toughest "three strikes" law in the nation. Any criminal with a serious or violent prior felony would automatically have his sentence doubled for a second conviction and, on a third felony conviction, would be put away for 25 years to life. But the 1994 statute, endorsed by 72% of California voters in a ballot initiative, had troubling consequences. The courts became clogged with the three-strike cases of nonviolent criminals. (One man got 25 years to life...
...Justices agreed. It would be unconstitutional, they declared unanimously, for the law to limit a trial judge's discretion to reduce a three-strike sentence "in furtherance of justice." Prosecutors are allowed to plea-bargain under the law--and so, if they choose, disregard prior convictions. If judges were not allowed to do likewise, the balance of power among the legislative, executive and judicial branches would be skewed. "The legal system has long recognized that rigid application of the law can produce injustice," said Paul Boland, president of the California Judges Association, applauding the ruling. Many...