Instead, there was a litany of astonishing optimism.

Pandemic bird flu early detection, early response. It is a litany.

The election court disqualified Lutfur Rahman and his agent for a litany of corrupt and illegal practices, he said.

Last year a special election court ruled the sitting mayor, Lutfur Rahman, should be removed from office following a litany of corrupt and illegal practices.

This could happen only if European companies cut costs and increase productivity. As always, a litany of plans and promises for structural reforms can be heard, but none of them is likely to be implemented anytime soon.

While the IMF s primary scenario is that Irish and Portuguese debt levels will soon stop rising, it comes with a chilling litany of downside risks. The likelihood that budget deficit and debt targets will be missed is rising.

The report of the recent bipartisan investigation, led by US Senators Carl Levin and John McCain, into the infamous London Whale trades provides just one example. There is also the litany of complaints and legal cases now surrounding the firm.

First, there is the long standing litany of policy responses needed to deal with the global trade imbalances. These include greater fiscal discipline in the US, greater reliance on domestic demand in both Europe and Asia, and more flexible exchange rates in Asia.

In fact, a genuine commitment to poverty reduction implies working with these countries. They are home to 70 of the population that lives on less than 2 a day, facing massive unemployment, gross inequalities, lack of infrastructure, regional imbalances, and a litany of other challenges.

In the face of the familiar litany of desperate global problems not just financial instability, but also climate change, energy insecurity, potential pandemics, terrorism, and the spread of weapons of mass destruction the prospect of a rudderless world is more than alarming. What is to be done?

The opposite is also true. Religion has led people to commit a long litany of horrendous crimes, from God s command to Moses to slaughter the Midianites men, women, boys, and non virginal girls through the Crusades, the Inquisition, innumerable conflicts between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and suicide bombers convinced that martyrdom will lead them to paradise.

As the party s narrative became an endless litany of the good social things it had done (or was about to do), Poles came to view the campaign as a cynical attempt to buy their votes and to do so with their own money. Even the fact that these promises, though plentiful, were mostly inexpensive (certainly compared to those of the opposition) was not used to convey a commitment to fiscal responsibility.