1.   As always with the IOC, long considered the most closed and conservative of international sports bodies, observers wondered who will appoint and control the new committees.

2.   A. The rule of thumb among show-business people is that a certain amount of capital is invested in the safest and most conservative of investments.

3.   Buchanan was going nowhere in the GOP because he is too far out of the mainstream for even the most conservative of Republican conservatives.

4.   Despite this independence, Jeffords remains the most conservative of a three-member congressional team for what was the first mainland U.S. state to approve gay marriage.

5.   Even the Swiss, long considered the most conservative of bankers, want to sell about a third of their reserves, pending a national referendum on the issue.

6.   His comments, delivered with a French accent, might well convince the most conservative of wine-lovers that there is more to life than Bordeaux.

7.   Higher interest rates are making that most conservative of investments -- the certificate of deposit -- hot again this summer.

8.   In the primary campaign, Vallone was seen as the most conservative of the Democrats, and the closest to Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

9.   It is also widely viewed as the most aggressively conservative of the appeals courts, often providing novel and cutting-edge rulings.

10.   So even the most conservative of projections appears safe for decades.