These floods duly came in 1995 and 1996, with devastating effect.The government's response to the disaster, though dismal by any civilised standards, was pretty good when set against the norms of unreformed communist oligarchies.
In the past opposition groups like the banned Muslim Brotherhood tried to capitalize on the government's dismal relief efforts for disaster victims by organizing their own, but such activity has since been banned.
Claiming that the arrest and intimidation of BBC journalists was legitimate on account of their "trespassing" is probably the lowest point so far in a dismal series of PR disasters".
Despite a dismal year, with rail disasters, foot-and-mouth disease, failing hospitals, tuberculosis scares and more rain than even England has withstood for a century, Blair's Labor government has held a double-digit lead for most of the campaign.
Earlier attempts to export Chinese-branded cars to Europe, a few years ago, ended in disaster after their dismal failure in crash tests was broadcast on YouTube.
But over time, and with dismal repetition, will extreme natural disasters become like school shootings, with little thought given to the larger significance?
While Broadway has rebounded from the exceptionally dismal period following the World Trade Center disaster, many producers are afraid that the usually weak months of January and February could be exceptionally harsh this year, as tourism struggles to recover.
Between bush fires, a dismal economy and the epic box office disaster Australia, there hasn't been much good news coming out of Australia lately.
There were one or two champions – but for the Mail on Sunday it was a "lazy juvenile romp"; for the Guardian "a dismal evening"; and for the London Evening Standard "a disaster".
He's in a difficult place with a dismal future, and while his early childhood was a disaster he is now an adult who keeps making bad choices.
