Word: rubes
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...what Pentagon officials call "a thin line of defense" that's equal parts James Bond and Rube Goldberg. There are 11 interceptors ready to launch from silos in Alaska and California, cued to their targets by arrays of satellites and shipboard sensors all linked through a Colorado command center. The Pentagon wants 48 interceptors by 2011, including 10 in Europe - the Czech Republic and Poland are likely sites - oriented toward any threat from Iran. While the system generally isn't on full alert - meaning ready to fire its interceptors - Pentagon officials said last week the system had been cranked...
...film from becoming ideologically burdensome. The coincidence of casting Daniel Craig, the newly appointed successor to Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, as the team’s impetuous driver links “Munich” to a rich tradition of spy cinema (and the team’s Rube Goldberg-esque bombs are more than a little reminiscent of Q’s gadgets).Taking a cue from David Cronenberg’s recent film “A History of Violence”—which similarly explored the toll violence exacts on its practitioners?...
...criticism of Florida paled in comparison to the scrutiny put on the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for which Wilma was a chance to redeem itself after the debacle of Hurricane Katrina. FEMA did perform more ably this time; but it fell short of redemption thanks to a Rube Goldberg bureaucracy that left local officials like Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez flummoxed by the "intricacies" of getting simple items like ice to "PODs" (points of distribution). Governor Jeb Bush tried to shield his brother George W. Bush's Administration by insisting that people "blame me" for supply shortfalls; but Gloria...
...Northern intelligentsia was initially blind to Lincoln's writing ability for at least two reasons. First, there was the strong impression, reinforced by his unkempt appearance and awkward demeanor, that he was a rube. His obvious discomfort in formal clothes on ceremonial occasions and his constant fidgeting with his ill-fitting kid gloves did little to dispel those misgivings. Moreover, he insisted on entertaining sophisticated visitors by telling country stories in a broad hoosier accent. Wall Street lawyer George Templeton Strong wrote in his diary after their first meeting that the President was a "barbarian," a "yahoo." And Strong liked...
...faithful reconstruction of a pre-Revolutionary crane, this Rube Goldberg device consists of an upright 30-ft. ash sapling, a block and tackle suspended from a fork at its apex, yards of thick manila rope woven through an assortment of pulleys and a stout ashwood capstan. Today it will raise the final gable, a 20-ft.-long triangle of beams on which roof boards will later rest. Babcock casually knots the free end of the rope around the beams, then signals his crew of four. Under their weight, the groaning capstan turns. The rope creaks. The beams refuse to budge...