Word: scenarios
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...remains unclear is which one of them moved first. Russia contends that on the night the war began, Aug. 7, they were simply responding to a Georgian attack on the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali and the threat to the lives of Russian and Ossetian civilians there. But that scenario does not explain the widely documented buildup since the spring of Russian forces just across the border from South Ossetia, which made it possible for up to 150 tanks to cross into South Ossetia within hours of the Russian order to attack...
...gamble himself by loosening the Party's grip on power. Some argue that Beijing hard-liners - having carried out harsh crackdowns with no real repercussions while under the international spotlight - believe they can continue tightening controls with impunity and without risk of backlash. But this isn't a realistic scenario, partly because not all the pressure for change is coming from the weak and marginalized. China's urban middle class is also pushing for greater freedom. Their growing feeling of empowerment is contagious. Last year's protests by thousands of citizens in the coastal city of Xiamen against plans...
...Obama wins, scenario No. 2 becomes a live option. Democrats have a history of overreaching when they win huge majorities. Franklin Roosevelt did so after his re-election landslide in 1936; so did Lyndon Johnson after 1964. Obama could as well. With big majorities in the House and Senate, he'd probably take another run at universal health care, which is what helped prompt the Gingrich revolution in 1994. He could hike taxes and impose tough new environmental regulations on business. He might preside over a messy withdrawal from Iraq and perhaps see Iran complete development of a nuclear weapon...
...McCain wins, of course, scenario No. 2 is impossible. The problem is that so is scenario No. 1. There's simply no way a McCain Administration could pass the kind of large-scale conservative initiative--think of Reagan's big tax cut in 1981 or George W. Bush's in 2001--that fires up the GOP base. Facing large and aggressive Democratic majorities in Congress, McCain will have to drink deeply from the well of bipartisan compromise if he wants to get anything done. The alternative will be veto upon veto as he tries to remain ideologically pure...
Eurostat researchers caution that their projections are a "what if" scenario and do not take into account future changes in immigration policy or fertility rates that could alter the outcome. But Kroehnert says that in the case of declining birth rates, it will be difficult to make up for them simply by adjusting policy. In many cases the decline has its roots in developments over several decades, he says. Making up for a decline in number of babies by, say, 300,000 by admitting 300,000 more immigrants "who have to be integrated" isn't realistic, he says...