Word: spasm
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...more judicial favor. Even if his petition is successful, at this point it is unlikely that Musharraf has enough support in Parliament to win the presidential election, which by law must be held sometime in the next 35 days. Sharif's deportation was "the death spasm of the general's rule," says Gilani. "He can't survive any more as a political entity. This is the logical conclusion of what happened on July...
...latest, ugliest spasm of scandal came Wednesday night, when Tour leader Michael Rasmussen was sent home by his Rabobank team after the Dane admitted having lied about his suspect pre-race training program. That logic was based on a move made a week before by Danish cycling authorities to kick Rasmussen off their national team headed for the 2008 Olympics. Danish officials say Rasmussen failed to provide required information as he trained for the current Tour - details on his whereabouts designed to allow anti-doping experts to perform surprise tests. Rasmussen's departure was greeted with relief by Tour directors...
...turns out, vigabatrin, an antiepilepsy treatment that is marketed in 60 countries (but not yet in the U.S.), is an effective GABA booster. In epileptics, vigabatrin suppresses overactivated motor neurons that cause muscles to contract and go into spasm. Hoping that enhancing GABA in the brains of addicts could help them control their drug cravings, two biotech companies in the U.S., Ovation Pharmaceuticals and Catalyst Pharmaceuticals, are studying the drug's effect on methamphetamine and cocaine use. So far, in animals, vigabatrin prevents the breakdown of GABA so that more of the inhibitory compound can be stored in whole form...
...view to disturb our tranquillity." In the early 19th century, the Catholic Church in Europe won no favors in the U.S. by opposing republican revolutions in Italy and Hungary. American Catholics had been good citizens; would new arrivals also be? The anti-immigrant reaction of the 1920s was a spasm of disgust with both European autocracies and European revolutionaries. Kings and emperors had caused World War I, and Bolsheviks were plotting new horrors. Most Americans wanted to wash their hands of the Continent and its people...
...dictator falls, a country is set free and in the inevitable spasm of liberation, some folks get wistful about the bad old days. It happened in Yugoslavia and to an extent in Iraq, and it broke out like a sweet fever among East Germans after the Wall came down in 1989. They called it Ostalgie--Eastalgia--and in 2003 it suffused the hit film Good Bye, Lenin! But for the imposingly named writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Ostalgie is a sickness in need of treatment. His urgent, exceptional first feature, The Lives of Others, is the ideal antidote...