If, as has been argued, BP has the worst record on this count, the heavy burden of the tort system will lead more reliable firms to take a larger role.
Consequently the potential monetary benefit from greater territorial control of waste sites and from employing reliable firms to perform reclamation of hazardous sites has increased.
And according to the usually-reliable firm Martin E. Segal, those costs are likely to rise more than 10% on average in the coming year, even as benefits are cut back.
One of the new polls, from Gravis Marketing, isn't necessarily reliable: the firm often produces findings that overstate the G.O.P. vote relative to other pollsters.
After Libeskind's designs were, in classic New York fashion, interred under laurels, the design of the tallest tower was handed over to David Childs, of the reliable corporate firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, with the secondary towers assigned to a group of celebrity architects.
What once felt reliable and firm in your hand, now gives way with unpredictability.
So by taking a firmer stand against bugs and making their programs more reliable, software firms can also improve security.Microsoft is now making a particular effort to improve its reputation for shoddy security.
According to Merrill Lynch, after-tax profits in America (based on national-accounts data, which is more reliable than firms' reported data) rose from about 5.5% of national income in the early 1990s to more than 9% in 2003.
At least in imagery, then, absinthe reflected a certain view of modernity: A firm, reliable order weakens, giving way to bleak uncertainties.
My mother was the loving source, the reliable presence, a firm balance between me and my little felonies of self-perception.
