The leading rebels, though inevitably a mixed bunch, make incomparably more sense than the unhinged colonel.

ECONOMIST: Libya: Keep calm, keep going | The

Usurped as the world's largest by neighbouring Qatar, they remain incomparably the most expensive disco glitter balls ever made.

BBC: Abu Dhabi: The city of superlatives

But some, at least, are incomparably closer to the real thing today than they were when tyrants and autocrats ruled.

ECONOMIST: Libya��s election

Modern cars are "incomparably cleaner" than older ones, said Neil Donahue, a professor of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

WSJ: Industry giant GE aims to improve fracking

Here are the pleasures any jazz lover would expect elegant scatting from Ella Fitzgerald, an incomparably rich Ellington ballad by Sarah Vaughan, and Jimmy Rushing shouting the blues.

ECONOMIST: Jazz singers

In some ways, of course, the contexts are incomparably different.

ECONOMIST: Echoes and lessons of London��s previous Olympic games

Sensible Saudis know that those who sympathise with their compatriot Osama bin Laden would impose an incomparably nastier regime than the present one, if given the freedom to do so.

ECONOMIST: Arab autocracy

But the same factors winner-takes-all economics coupled with an incomparably bigger global economy explain part of the rise in the incomes of the chief executives who make up a bigger share of the very wealthy.

ECONOMIST: American inequality is a tale of two countries

The second big reason for a big bang is that the Russians under Vladimir Putin seem incomparably readier than they were two years ago to take it on the chin, thanks to his own new rapport with the West.

ECONOMIST: Charlemagne

But it's incomparably rewarding.

CNN: Yale grad's inspiring life over too soon