Word: thumb
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...there's an extent to which--and of course I like Anna's stuff too--I'm more of a reporter. I cover politics. And it seems to me I'm still frequently in the gritty maw of it all. I guess at this point I'm a certified thumb sucker--I still think of myself as a reporter...
...obvious pitfall. If negotiators do not hurry along specifics for enacting the deal, naysayers could niggle it to death. The P.L.O. must transform its loose structure, unruly factions and preference for ambiguity into practical governance. Arab states, which have always sought to keep the Palestinian issue under their thumb, will need to be mollified into cooperation. But since the Palestinian millstone has prevented them from bringing prosperity to their own societies, they appear ready to go along...
...economy stays in low gear and inflation remains dormant, further rate drops could keep the bulls running on Wall Street and create another frenzied wave of mortgage refinancing. Before interest rates plunged in recent years, homeowners clung to a rule of thumb that said people should refinance only when rates fell at least two percentage points below the interest on their existing loans. Under that formula, the gains from lower mortgage rates would exceed the closing costs on the refinancing. But today banks and mortgage brokers offer so many refinancing options that canny rate surfers can replace their mortgages...
...stanched the flow just briefly. Arrests by the U.S. Border Patrol along the U.S.-Mexican frontier dropped from 1.7 million in the year before the act took effect, to 890,000 three years later. But the number has climbed back to 1.2 million a year. As a rule of thumb two or three illegals get away for every one who is caught, so aliens from Mexico alone might total 4 million a year -- equal to the population of Philadelphia...
...longer help applicants from Harvard get into his school. While he is certainly more knowledgeable about the honors situation here than the average employer, word is getting around. Eventually honors and good grades won't help you at all--but the lack' thereof will stick out like a sore thumb. If the Harvard faculty implemented (and publicized) a strict grading policy, no one would forget how hard it is to get in here in the first place...