There were four men chiefly responsible for bringing Major League Baseball to Houston: George Kirksey and Craig Cullinan, who had led a futile attempt to purchase the St. Louis Cardinals in 1952 ; R. E.

The Conservative majority proved too small for effective control over his backbenchers, particularly after the United Kingdom's forced exit from the Exchange Rate Mechanism ( ERM ) on " Black Wednesday ", 16 September 1992, just five months into the new parliament, when billions of pounds were spent in a futile attempt to defend the currency's value.

( 135 kg ) weight against the door in a futile attempt to stop the intruders from forcing their way in.

The attempt to freeze human evolution has in the past been a futile undertaking and has probably brought about more violence than if such a process had been controlled peacefully.

Contemptus mundi is the name given to the recognition that the world, in all its vanity, is nothing more than a futile attempt to hide from God by stifling our desire for the good and the holy.

This causes Graulich and Gillespie to suggest that the general Aztec cyclical view of time, where events repeated themselves at the end and beginning of cycles or eras was being inscribed into the historical record by the Aztecs, making it futile to attempt to distinguish between a historical Topiltzin Ce Acatl and a Quetzalcoatl deity.

The Treaty of Troyes ( 1420 ) ceded it to the English, who had made a futile attempt to take it by siege in 1360 ; but French patriots expelled them on the approach of Joan of Arc, who in 1429 had Charles VII consecrated in the cathedral.

( Freud, in fact, was wont to stress that it was not merely futile but actually misleading to attempt to " explain " one part of the manifest content with reference to another part as if the manifest dream somehow constituted some unified or coherent conception ).

Russia organized a vigorous but hectic attempt to save the crew, and the entire futile effort was surrounded by unexplained secrecy.

He believes Mr. Lockwood is telling the truth, and inspects the window, opening it in a futile attempt to let Catherine's spirit in from the cold.

* Some of Lem's other novels with similar themes ( the futile attempt at communication with alien phenomena which possess apparent traits of intelligence ) are His Master's Voice, Fiasco, and The Invincible

However, in July 1871, Bonnell sold the improvements and leased the coal rights to the Wilkes-Barre Coal & Iron Co., and in February 1876, Bonnell sold the property outright to the Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Co. Lance, who moved to Philadelphia and became a mat manufacturer, spent years in court, suing his old friend Bonnell in a futile attempt to recover the mine.

Harry Sr. flew into a rage, beating his son with a razor strop in a futile attempt to get the boy to recant.

The Yorkshire branch later threatened a strike over the Government's plans for Wentworth, and Joe Hall wrote personally to Clement Attlee in a futile attempt to stop the mining.

Low on ammunition, the French had to resort to the bayonet in a futile attempt to drive the British back.

Deciding they had better leave, the crew make a desperate and futile attempt to engage Marvin's enthusiasm ( he " hasn't got one ") before he simply does what they really want and opens the door to the ship they want to steal.

Roger Ebert's review for the Chicago Sun-Times was :" Any attempt to defend this movie on rational grounds is futile.

" Later tests established that neither the force of the explosion, nor the impact with the ocean could have moved them, indicating that Smith made the switch changes, presumably in a futile attempt to restore electrical power to the cockpit after the crew cabin detached from the rest of the orbiter.

After a futile attempt to outrun the storm, Yelland recalls the strike force, and the ship and the aircraft return to 1980 safely.

Blackthorne leads his crew in a futile attempt to resist, but they are easily cowed by Omi, and one of his crew is taken out and boiled alive.

In 1980, a final attempt to win Harrison back proved futile ; and, impulsive and insecure, she committed suicide by taking an overdose of barbiturates and alcohol on 26 November 1980, at her home in Los Angeles.

Another futile attempt to dispossess the Ottomans of Poti was made by Russo-Georgian forces in 1770 and 1771.

In the face of defeat and imminent withdrawal of the Invincible, Rohan, the spaceship's navigator, undertakes a trip into the ' enemy area ' in search of 4 crew members who went missing in action — an attempt which he and captain Horpach see as certainly futile, but necessary for moral reasons.

The Urola line, formerly served by the Urola Railway, was closed by Eusko Trenbideak in 1986, after a futile attempt to renovate it.

By this time she had learned that it was futile to argue with her young husband, yet the uncomfortable fact remained: the American Congregationalists were sending them as missionaries to the Far East and paying their salaries.

This habit had become so fixed over the years that it seemed futile to do anything for which no one was waiting.

An argument with Orville Torrence Killpath was as frustrating and as futile as a cap pistol on a firing range.

Afonso IV was displeased with his son's choice of lovers, and hoped that the relationship would be a futile one.

Some astronomers endeavoured to explain this by parallax, but these attempts were futile, for the motion was at variance with that which parallax would produce.

But it was futile.

Following this law, since the economic cycle was seen as self-correcting, government did not intervene during periods of economic hardship because it was seen as futile.

In the summer of 1266, a siege of the castle was initiated, but the effort proved futile.

The latter group was to prevail following Venezuela's withdrawal from Gran Colombia at the very moment that an 1830 constitutional congress had been called in an ultimately futile effort to stem the growing separatist tendencies throughout country.

While colloquially, a person may term a law suit to be frivolous if he or she personally finds a claim to be absurd, in legal usage " frivolous litigation " consists of a claim or defense that is presented where the party ( or the party's legal counsel ) had reason to know that the claim or defense was manifestly insufficient or futile.

Perhaps in response to Hamilcar's raids, Rome did build another fleet paid for with donations from wealthy citizens and it was that fleet which rendered the Carthaginian success in Sicily futile, as the stalemate Hamilcar produced in Sicily became irrelevant following the Roman naval victory at the Battle of the Aegates Islands in 241 BC, where the new Roman fleet under consul Gaius Lutatius Catulus was victorious over an undermanned and hastily built Carthaginian fleet.

Some older composers in Naples, notably Zingarelli and Paisiello, were inclined to intrigue against the success of the youthful composer, but all hostility was rendered futile by the enthusiasm that greeted the court performance of his Elisabetta, regina d ' Inghilterra, in which Isabella Colbran, who subsequently became the composer's wife, took a leading part.

When this was rejected, Goebbels decided that further efforts were futile.

Although the political discourse had been dominated at this time by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a moderate who said that it was " madness to think of independence ", Nehru had spoken " openly of the politics of non-cooperation, of the need of resigning from honorary positions under the government and of not continuing the futile politics of representation.

This was a futile gesture.

He was convinced the European officials appointed to rule the Samoans were incompetent, and after many futile attempts to resolve the matter, he published A Footnote to History.

Taking place in turn of the century West Texas, Noon Wine was a dark tragedy about a farmer's act of futile murder which leads to suicide.

For the first time, judicial determination was sought, but the effort proved futile: the Supreme Court could not find a majority agreeing on any particular principle, and therefore instructed the trial court to dismiss the case.

Though Edward's men were an important addition to the garrison, they stood little chance against Baibars ' superior forces, and an initial raid at nearby St Georges-de-Lebeyne in June was largely futile.

After Verdonk renewed her criticism of the party in September 2007, she was expelled from the parliamentary faction, and subsequently relinquished her membership of the party, after reconciliation attempts proved futile.