Games in which minimising mistakes tend to produce the ultimate winner are losers' games. Golf and many card games are good examples.
The most extreme example is warfare. Mr Ellis said: "AJP Taylor proved from his study of history that most wars are begun by the ultimate loser and every war is a loser's game, though sometimes there is enough losing to go round for all sides to claim complete defeat."

"To put it simply, it's a fairly radical belief that a child in an African village whose parents are dying of AIDS has the same importance before God as the president of the United States," said Michael Gerson, Mr. Bush's chief speechwriter and an important White House policy adviser who is a born-again Christian.

When an administration is hiding in a no-news bunker, how do you find the news? The first place to look, we're starting to learn, is any TV news show on which Ms. Rice, Mr. Card, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld are not appearing. If they're before a camera, you can assume that the White House has deemed the venue a safe one — a spin zone, if you will.
But in America, at least, history always catches up with those who try to falsify it in real time.