You could argue that Thousand Stars would have been better off ridden positively, or that Oscars Well, while showing a lot more this time, will conversely do better again when not obliged to set the pace himself.
There is no disgrace in joining that company but maybe it would have been better had Contador ridden away from Schleck on the Tourmalet.
Even if there are a couple of babies at home eating wine corks for dinner (which there usually are), these dudes would rather buy a 4,000-euro 4,000-eurocci flipairofs than see their families livinGuccianything better than louse-ridden squalor.
Even in affluent countries such as the United States — whose dam infrastructure is in sufficient disrepair to have earned a "D" rating from the American Society of Civil Engineers, in 2013 — maintenance is often neglected; it's not likely to fare better in impoverished, corruption-ridden countries such as Zimbabwe or Iraq.
Indeed, the surrealistic world of North Korea — its highly regimented society, the cult worship of Kim Il Sung, the formidable state propaganda machine, and the mismanaged economy — if anything makes for a better story than the corruption-ridden South.
Fishing this season has been better than in the drought-ridden previous two years, and state biologists suggested that Trout Unlimited was exaggerating the problem's gravity, since artificially raised fish outnumber wild fish in many local waterways.
For Kaye Ballard, that indefatigably cheery one-woman variety show, there is no doubt that the good old days of show business were a lot better than the loud, profanity-ridden present.
Hungary deserved so much better and heads into 2012, debt-ridden and misruled, as the region's basket case.
Families of all groups who could afford to do so usually have moved to the suburbs to find better homes and to escape crime-ridden neighbourhoods.
