Word: rationalization
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...official called "atrocious" conditions in a former military base outside the city. Many were wearing the nightgowns and pajamas they had on when Croat troops ordered them out of their homes into the night; some reported receiving only four biscuits and a glass of water as their daily ration. An infamous Balkan strategy is being utilized once again -- with a new practitioner. "The Bosnian Croats don't want Muslims in their areas -- they want them ethnically clean," said a U.N. analyst...
Nonetheless, course instructors feel that they must ration the number of good grades they give, because if everyone got honors grades it would be "grade inflation." The result is large differences in letter grades between students whose actual test scores in class only differed by a point...
This is a place where electricity is available only a few hours a day, telephones work intermittently if at all, and two gallons of gasoline costs more than the average monthly salary. The daily ration of nine ounces of bread is less than the amount allotted workers in Leningrad during the German siege in World War II. Food -- what little is available -- sells for double the exorbitant prices charged in Moscow. Schools have closed. Many hospitals have no hot water, electricity or heat and are turning the sick away...
...meat at 125 rubles per lb.; 13 lbs. of sausage at 100 rubles per lb.; 22 lbs. of potatoes at 7 rubles per lb.; 90 eggs costing about 38 rubles for 10; and 3 lbs. of butter totaling 300 rubles. Sugar costs 40 rubles per lb. and requires a ration card allowing the purchase of 4 lbs. a month. The seasonal fruits and vegetables that supplement this diet come from the Vaktins' own country garden. Some cash is usually put aside for a few bottles of vodka...
...Bush Administration vetoed the plan. (The Democratic ticket is divided: Clinton supports it, Gore opposes.) Critics call the Oregon scheme "health- care rationing," which is exactly right. But as frustrated defenders of the plan note, we ration care now, except we do it irrationally. We pretend to believe in unlimited health care for all, thereby making it harder to provide decent health care to many. Our refusal to acknowledge that trade-offs are necessary -- including, yes, the ultimate trade-off between money and human life -- makes intelligent debate about intelligent trade-offs impossible...