It is also almost certain to set off a wave of lawsuits in the state, sending the issue to the courts: exactly where lawmakers, advocates and lawyers had long predicted it would be resolved.
Want to set off fireworks?
radicals needed to set off the cascade.
BEIJING — As any artist or performer in China knows, it is impossible to predict what will set off the mercurial culture censors who have sweeping power over the content of film, music, television and print.
The AirTrain terminal, with its sleek driverless trains to Kennedy International Airport, was plunked down six months ago in the middle of a ragged pocket of Jamaica, Queens, and many community leaders predicted it would set off a tide of revitalization.
Dr. Emanuel predicted that Sandy would set off a scientific rush to perform the same kind of modeling for hybrid storms.
They also predicted the deal could set off an avalanche of wider takeovers in a luxury goods sector.
But in the year since the weather forecasts first turned ominous, sending workers scrambling for sandbags and plywood that would in too many cases prove no match for the storm, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been forced to adapt in ways few could have predicted, setting off a procession of management changes, unexpected system failures, and, at times, fiscal uncertainty.
When Israel announced its plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip by the end of 2005, some people predicted that the pullout would set off a wave of violence and that the likeliest battle would be between followers of the fundamentalist Hamas group and the supporters of Yasir Arafat, president of the Palestinian Authority.
Several scientists predicted that the new research would set off a flurry of efforts to clarify whether trees are really using less, and what the implications might be, not only for forests but for the human and ecological systems that depend on existing patterns of moisture flow.
In the last several years, cable and telecommunications companies have consolidated, and analysts predict that the deal could set off another wave of combinations, with jostling by groups like Nexstar, Tegna (which was formed when Gannett split into a newspaper division and a television company), Cox, Hearst and Meredith Corporation.
