The Queensland premier, Anna Bligh, said this morning that the state was facing a reconstruction effort of "post-war proportions".
Since, the summer of 2008, policy makers on both sides of the Atlantic have exhumed long-buried policy tools – from pump-priming to nationalisation – in the hope of preventing an economic train wreck of inter-war proportions.
It was a ceremony of pre-war proportions, made to feel like a talent competition.
Shortly after the second world war the proportion of Japanese over 65 was around 5% of the population, easily below that in Britain, France or America.
More recently, GPS has allowed the development of precision-guided weapons, the smart bombs that home in on targets: between Serbia four years ago and this year's Iraq war, the proportion of such bombs used rose from no more than 3% to at least 60%.After spending $20 billion, the Pentagon has built a global system that is a key ingredient of NATO defence.
It is ironic that as weapons become more sophisticated and more legislation is passed to try and control war, the proportion of civilians involved as casualties has steadily increased (table 1).
It'd confuse me and distract me, overwhelm me with a sense this is an unwinnable war of epic proportions.
It is a two-front war of Napoleonic proportions: battling against bigger, more cash-rich rivals at home while trying to fend off leaner, hungrier competitors overseas.
"There's a war of intergalactic proportions brewing, and instead of an army, they're coming armed with patents," said Mr. Rohan.
I think people have a couple of different impulses when confronted with a tragedy of epic proportions (war, genocide, natural disaster, etc)., the kind of enormous, devastating event that seems to stop history in its tracks.
