Word: skein
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...justice against the exigencies of realpolitik. London's request to Moscow on Tuesday to extradite Andrei Lugovoi as chief suspect in Litvinenko's murder drew a response that's increasingly familiar to Kremlin watchers: an abrupt no. There were some obvious reasons for Russian intransigence. The case is a skein of disputed plots and subplots. Lugovoi and one companion - or two, according to some versions - met Litvinenko at a London hotel on Nov. 1. Litvinenko died 22 days later from the invisible toxin apparently swallowed at that meeting. British investigators have tried to unpick the events, linking Lugovoi...
...court?s decision will end these (and many other) inequalities, and in that sense it stands in contrast to the embarrassing New York high court ruling from earlier this year. A skein of twisted reasoning, that 4-2 decision went against marriage equality. In an unpersuasive bit of reverse bigotry, the New York court said that because straight relationships ?are all too often casual or temporary? and can lead to children born out of wedlock, the state needed to help straights by maintaining an exclusive, all-heterosexual club called marriage. Straight people used to be obsessed with the dangers...
...Finally, the bosses want to trim the fat and the inventory. At a time when studios are wailing about box-office flatlines (though this year's take is up from 2005) and insufficiently ballooning zillions from the DVD cash cow, Paramount figured that committing to another long skein of expensive movies from the erstwhile boy wonder...
Today the Gush Katif bloc of settlements is a fortress under siege, a surreal mix of suburbia and security. The tight skein of roads in the area, restricted to Israelis, run through barren no-go zones where every tree and plant and dwelling has been bulldozed for a hundred yards. Thriving hothouses and comfortable red-roofed villas set in lush, green gardens spread across the dunes, huddling inside rings of razor wire and electric fence. Three-story military watchtowers draped in camouflage rear up out of back gardens, and tanks patrol the perimeters. The only Palestinians allowed within view...
...Hill has written better books since, including this year's Exit Lines and the chilling 1984 portrait of a psychopath, Deadheads. Nonetheless, this volume is a skillful reworking of a standard routine in mystery fiction: the discovery of a long-buried skeleton and the consequent unraveling of a skein of past concealment and deceit. The setting is a mediocre British college, recently converted from all girls to coeducation, and the fierce possessiveness of the female Old Guard gives the story depth and humor...