Mr McDaid admitted that the amount of interest can add pressure to help the falcons, particularly when they appear to be in trouble.

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Add to this the typical Third World complexities for petitioners who might have trouble learning that their signatures have been challenged or have problems physically reaching the official locations for appeal.

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Indeed, even the most ardent worshippers of big government would have trouble asserting that the Departments of Commerce, Energy and Labor add more to the economy than do Apple, Walmart, and Cisco Systems.

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Far from being a spark plug for crowd trouble, I believe anthems, whether booed or sung with lung-busting gusto, add to the atmosphere of the game and put fire in players' bellies.

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"The trouble is that we take 1p off fuel one day and the next day the oil companies add it to the price, we need to come up with a new way of pricing fuel, " one MP later told me.

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