Word: skirmishing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When hundreds of bodies suddenly began turning up in São Paulo in May 2006, many people suspected a secret war had taken place. There had been a very public initial skirmish when members of a gang known as the PCC had spent two days and nights terrorizing South America's biggest city, killing at least 33 law-enforcement officers and transforming São Paulo into a ghost town where 20 million people cowered behind their locked doors and barred windows. But more fresh corpses began turning up in the six days after the police had restored order...
...royalty; it's hers by birth. Swinton was born into a clan of warrior aristocrats whose Scottish home dates back to the ninth century (they supposedly earned the family name by clearing the area of wild boar), and who served prominently in every major British military and political skirmish for a thousand years. One recent ancestor invented the tank; another helped invent television. Over the millennium the Swintons were deeded huge swatches of prime Scottish real estate; Tilda's father, Major-General Sir John Swinton, a.k.a. the Lord Lieutenant of Berwickshire, lives in the family estate, Kimmerghame...
...census? In very general terms, Republicans would prefer to err on the side of undercounting and Democrats would prefer to err on the side of overcounting. The options can yield very different numbers for demographic groups and localities - and they have significant political and policy implications. This most recent skirmish is more manufactured than real, the result of willful misunderstandings. But it has its roots in an ongoing battle over whom the census counts...
...latest skirmish in the checkerspot conflict began in October 2007, when an attempt to fight an infestation of tree-destroying looper caterpillars aroused the ire of environmentalists, who argued the insecticide also threatened checkerspot larvae. The government denied demands for an emergency protected-species listing but agreed to reopen debate on permanently adding the checkerspot...
...share those sentiments is greater than you think: in a 2006 Chicago Tribune poll, 68% of respondents affirmed their belief in a War on Christmas. But while Gibson and FOX colleague Bill O'Reilly have taken the fight against these left-wing Grinches mainstream, theirs is only the latest skirmish in a battle that's been going on for hundreds of years. The front lines of the War on Christmas were originally manned by none other than the Puritans - and not on the side many conservative news anchors might think. Objecting to the yuletide festivities on the grounds that they...