These are not trivial benefits.

But a simulacrum falls apart much faster.

Putin s simulacrum of a large ideological regime simply couldn t avoid this fate.

But what they see is small mindedness and the pursuit of narrow self interest.

In the past violent responses to these kind of nonsense videos, innocent people have died on streets.

One small time operation ground up sheet rock and put it in gel caps to sell as medicine.

Even the constitutional treaty, which should have been a clarion call for all Europeans, was allowed to become bogged down in minutia.

Turf battles with NATO intrude, as well as competition between the EU s executive Commission and the member based Council.

In such circumstances, seemingly small events can trigger an unforeseen and disastrous chain reaction.

This would require, of course, less cynical political elites who can transcend their petty ambitions and divisions for the sake of the country.

Although the collapse of the common currency area owing to political squabbles seems unlikely at this point, it cannot be ruled out entirely.

Nor can we overlook the banal bargaining of European leaders, the quarrels over budgets, and the rise of national egoisms whenever elections loom.

This is not a trivial question, given the role of unabated inequality in growing social unrest and even revolution around the world.

I was informed by this kind of unoriginal and trite idea that new technologies were an opportunity for social transformation, which is what drove me then, and still, it's a delusion that drives me now.

He reacted to moral shabbiness with revulsion, but also with fear. He saw it as a source of disposable masses, a human reservoir for totalitarian movements.

Is this just petty politics, or does it really matter? In fact, it does matter and not just for Americans.

Current executive directors typically do not have the authority to make commitments on their countries behalf, so their effort is often diverted to minutiae.

Students can have so many easy successes during subsequent years that either their study skills deteriorate or they become so frustrated with banal lessons that they drop out.

What is most striking is the discovery of niggling little rules, outlined in CIA manuals and co opted by the government s legal executives.

These allocation decisions are understandable, given the paltry yields available in fixed income investments, but the resulting second order impact could ultimately prove devastating.

There were always exaggerated claims that bringing in the new members would be a costly affair, just as petty and narrow prejudices blemished the willingness to open up Europe s borders for Polish plumbers.

There were always exaggerated claims that bringing in the new members would be a costly affair, just as petty and narrow prejudices blemished the willingness to open up Europe s borders for Polish plumbers.

In this area, too, Europe has taken the lead, especially concerning global warming, showing that petty selfishness can be put aside to achieve a common good.

Casual observers of today's freewheeling offerings of sex, crime, drugs, violence, and banal game shows on Chinese TV might come away with the impression that most of the shackles have been removed from televised content.

In the worst case, as Juergen Stark, a member of the European Central Bank board, has put it, a debt restructuring of a eurozone member could put the consequences of Lehman s bankruptcy in the shade.

While staid TV pundits ask the usually vapid questions during presidential debates in the United States, candidates know that the really important thing is to get laughs on the comedy shows of David Letterman or Jay Leno.

The ECB s paltry rate hike in December, together with the supine promise of no plans for further monetary tightening, demonstrates that Trichet is no Duisenberg.

Threats to internal security may be directed at either the state's citizens, or the organs and infrastructure of the state itself, and may range from petty crime, serious organised crime, political or industrial unrest, or even domestic terrorism.

In the meantime, Americans can only hope that their national elected representatives show an equal willingness to face up to and take responsibility for their failures, pettiness, and insistence on putting partisanship ahead of the country s manifest and urgent needs.

Only such a culture one that undermined the longstanding presumption that an accused person is innocent until proven guilty could produce the Bush administration's niggling legal distinctions concerning what is and what is not torture.

Currency manipulation is a real problem that causes significant damage. The TPP deal if it establishes a dispute resolution mechanism that can quickly dismiss frivolous claims and home in on genuine cases may offer the best chance to fix it.

There was the US government s eleventh hour decision to table hundreds of objections to the final Summit Declaration, effectively reducing it to a series of lowest common denominator platitudes.

The initiation of a case 61. In paragraph 512 of the report, the Working Group suggests that adopting the system of appointing an independent prosecutor would obviate the need for a preliminary hearing to test the evidence as a court could dismiss quot frivolous or unsubstantiated charges quot .

NEW YORK Mitt Romney s income taxes have become a major issue in the American presidential campaign. Is this just petty politics, or does it really matter?

Indeed, while people are entitled to believe in horoscopes, trust in crystals to bring good luck, or buy into quack medicine, such junk science becomes a serious threat to society when it is allowed to influence public policy.

Moreover, he has little use for small talk or the grubbier side of politics, and his overweening pride in his exceptional intelligence makes him impatient with others ideas. As a result, members of Congress, business figures, and others have felt put off in his presence even insulted by his remoteness.