Word: westly
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...It’s true that “genius” has become a catch-all term of praise for everything from violin playing to political strategy. Yet modern understanding of the word is best explicated by rapper and self-proclaimed genius Kanye West, as good a barometer of the cultural zeitgeist as any: “If you read books—which I don’t, none at all—about how to become a billionaire, they always say, ‘You learn more from your mistakes.’ So if you learn...
...White House adviser become a czar? No one knows for sure, since the term itself has no formal definition. Essentially it's a media creation - the White House rarely even acknowledges the title - used as a snappy shorthand to identify and describe the array of policy officials swarming the West Wing. And it's hard to blame reporters; unwieldy official titles are often begging for a rebranding (Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, for example, doesn't stand a chance against drug czar). Counts of Obama's czars range from the high teens to about 28, depending...
...more interesting criticism, however, is the charge that czarism simply doesn't work. Czars generally don't have budget control or other real authority, and are often caught up in turf battles among Cabinet secretaries and fellow West Wingers. "There've been so many czars over the last 50 years, and they've all been failures," New York University public-service professor Paul Light told the Wall Street Journal. "It's a symbolic gesture of the priority assigned to an issue." Sometimes, however, symbolism matters. John Koskinen, the Clinton Administration adviser responsible for overseeing Y2K preparation, was cited...
...IAEA accused Iran, which had started a civilian nuclear-energy program during the reign of the U.S.-backed Shah, of falling short of NPT transparency requirements. Although the IAEA has never accused Iran of trying to build a bomb, intelligence agencies in Israel and the West believe Iran is using its civilian nuclear program, particularly its uranium-enrichment capability, to assemble infrastructure that would give it the means to create nuclear weapons. The specter of a nuclear-armed Iran has, in turn, sparked interest in acquiring nuclear technology among a number of Arab countries that are wary of Iranian power...
...failed to convince the Israelis to halt settlement, and now they want a photo opportunity," a Palestinian official speaking to Reuters said of the New York City meeting. "We'll do this not to upset Obama. But it's a victory for Netanyahu." (See pictures of life in the West Bank settlements...