Word: unraveler
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...many card transactions at gas pumps and ATMs -- PanAmSat's Galaxy 4 satellite has gone a-wanderin'. After the failure of onboard control systems left technicians powerless to stop the key communications satellite from drifting out of position yesterday evening, the binary fabric of our electronic society began to unravel. To the relief of everyone from doctors on call to crack dealers, some pager service was restored early this morning by using other satellites. The rest of us wait, meanwhile, as PanAmSat technicians try to coax the wayward Galaxy 4 back into position...
...ensure that the 11 member states and such non-member producers as Norway, Russia and Mexico stick to their agreed cutbacks totaling 1.5 million barrels. Analysts are skeptical over whether Russia, Venezuela, Nigeria and others will avoid the temptation to exceed their new production quotas, which would quickly unravel the agreement -- and even the oil cartel itself. After all, it?s not as if renegades face the prospect of having their legs broken or anything...
...Perfect worlds don't last forever, and Buffett knows that," Leeb says. What Buffett doesn't know is how, or when, this one will unravel. But he's not alone in planning for problems. Some other high-profile investors, including Loews Corp. chairman Lawrence Tisch and international investor George Soros, have big stakes in metals-mining operations. And Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has been talking about either inflation or deflation at various times in the past few months. Either one could knock the stock market for a loop, and Buffett's highfliers probably would be among the hardest...
...trying to unravel the detailed behavior of El Nino, Ralph and dozens of other researchers are furthering a scientific quest that began in the 1920s, when the British meteorologist Sir Gilbert Walker linked swings in atmospheric pressure over the Pacific to a disastrous failure of the Indian monsoon 50 years earlier. In the 1960s, UCLA meteorologist Jacob Bjerknes suggested that El Nino was governed by the same swings in atmospheric pressure...
Given the present state of knowledge, no one can tell. The more scientists learn about the earth's climate system, the more complex and interconnected it seems, and the harder it is to unravel. That does nothing to diminish the tremendous advances that have occurred over the past decade. In fact, it is only because they have learned so much that scientists are finally ready to tackle the questions that the current El Nino has so eloquently framed--questions that may still be formidable, but perhaps no longer quite so intractable...