Word: ballast
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...uranium story puffed up so huge? It wouldn't have been a very big deal without the deepening crisis in Iraq. But it also has ballast because it clarifies an aspect of George W. Bush's essential character - specifically, the problem he has with telling the truth. I am not saying Bush is a liar. Lying is witting: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." This is weirder than that. The President seems to believe that wishing will make it so - and he is so stupendously incurious that he rarely makes an effort to find the truth...
When deregulation came to Wall Street in 1975, Weill found his weapon. Fixed 15% commissions were history and soon, too, were some of the old brokerage battleships that had stayed upright with that ballast. Weill and his partners Roger Berlind, Arthur Carter and, later, Arthur Levitt torpedoed one competitor after another because they were better stock pickers and better managers...
...George W. Bush seems destined to be a spectacular President - of some sort. He combines the idealism of Woodrow Wilson with the bravado of Theodore Roosevelt, but these were not always their best qualities. And he lacks the rigor, the love of learning, of either man. There is no ballast to this Administration, and we are going...
...taken on issues from foreign policy to the environment. They say he can fill the party's gaping need for someone who can speak cogently on national security. Kerry's credential as a decorated Vietnam veteran not only makes a useful contrast to President Bush but also adds some ballast to the surefire applause line he drops into every speech about Iraq: "The United States should never go to war because we want to; the United States should go to war because we have...
...French movie about the sport that was inspired by real events and featured rapturous cinematography. Today there are more than 20,000 free divers around the world, in a sport that was barely heard of 15 years ago, and the number is growing. Most practice the "constant ballast" technique, in which a diver uses fins but no extra weights to dive as far as possible before coming up for air. No-limits free divers take it further, using a weighted sled running down a vinyl-coated steel cable that pulls the diver to depths where Coke cans implode and fish...