Word: basic
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...started simply enough: a tax-exempt corporation had purchased some of the most valuable property in the area. The loss to the tax base was substantial, and it threatened the provision of basic services. The dispute was followed by others like it, and the controversy quickly became a hot political issue. Finally, the government stepped in and started to consider legislation that would restrict the ability of non-profits to buy property tax-free...
...there are also financial winners, among them, surprisingly, a few airlines - the low-cost carriers. While some consumers curb their spending, others have a more profligate sense of carpe diem. At a personal level, many people may be nicer to their kids, more suspicious of neighbors, willing to relinquish basic liberties in the name of security. Some have gained faith in a divine power above this earthly mess . . . or lost it completely...
...others say that the terrorist attacks have them questioning some of life's basic decisions, some temporarily - "I've buckled down financially and I've put off buying a flat," says London lawyer Victoria Froud - and others perhaps for some time to come. "I would not want to [bring] children into a world where people are continuously fighting each other," says 23-year-old Berliner Nada Todorovic. Explains Prague resident Alena Svobodova, a 57-year-old retired opera producer: "I have realized that any long-term planning is pointless because you don't know what is going to happen tomorrow...
...difficulty with this argument, however, is that every definition of personhood—save the basic biological one—breaks down upon careful inspection. An embryo isn’t self-aware, sure, but neither is a 13-year-old boy in a coma. Can we kill him without qualm or sanction? An embryo can’t feel pain, admittedly—but if you give me enough drugs, neither can I. Do we excuse a murderer who first administers a merciful dose of morphine? An embryo can’t survive on its own, doubtless?...
Wells pointed to what he saw as the fallacies of Darwinian evolution. Wells said he accepted some of the basic tenets of evolution—that a fossil record exists and one can observe changes within species...