21.   During dictatorships in previous decades, intelligence gathering was used primarily for spying on political opponents.

22.   During the previous decade, doctor visits and drug prescriptions had increased roughly fivefold.

23.   Dunn, the Clemson political scientist, said he doubts South Carolinians still feel the personal link to Thurmond that they did in previous decades.

24.   Even QVC, the home-shopping network, harks back to the previous decade.

25.   Experts said it was difficult to compare the situation to statistics in previous decades, because counting methods have improved.

26.   Few suspected how much the rest of the country had changed in the previous decade.

27.   For a few moments, there was such partisan rancor that it was like a blast from a previous decade.

28.   For much of the previous decade he had been on the other side of the business, selling shows to all the networks as head of Warner Brothers Television.

29.   He spent the previous decade at General Foods.

30.   Hence the ever widening income disparity between rich and poor, and between Bangkok and the countryside, in the previous decade of rapid economic growth.