Word: direful
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...buildings be constructed to withstand quakes. Haiti is neither. There is a lesson in this. The biggest threat to human life was once natural disasters. Now it is our own shortcomings. To walk through Chile's gleaming and unbroken capital is to learn that although earthquakes, when coupled with dire poverty, can do terrible harm, we have the capacity to mitigate...
...surging every year thereafter. There is bipartisan agreement that the deficits and overall debt are unsustainable. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, has urged policymakers not just to educate the public about the dangers ahead but also "to scare them to death" about the dire prospects if the debt is allowed to continue to grow. (See a report card on the stimulus programs...
Successful asylum petitions typically involve applicants whose situations are more dire, such as women who were forced to undergo abortions or genital mutilation and men whose lives were threatened because they are homosexuals or political dissidents. But Piver believes the Memphis judge was right to grant the Romeikes asylum, since the law covers social groups with "a well-founded fear of persecution" in their home country...
...final color barrier, and the youthful, eloquent, and charismatic president-elect offered a welcome promise of change. “All this we can do. All this, we will do” the President declared on that bitter-cold January day, in reference to a lengthy list of dire issues facing the nation. Obama vowed to tackle the nation’s toughest problems with strong leadership and resolve. But months away from that hopeful place and time, many Americans have started to lose faith in not just Obama but the basic functionality of the U.S. government. I still have...
...outset of “Solar,” Beard is neither a champion of alternative energy nor persuaded by the dire warnings about rising seas and melting ice. Beard refuses to be won over by the emotional appeals and mass hysteria about a phenomenon that has little immediate impact on his daily life. As one of Beard’s mistresses laments, to take action against global warming “would be to think about it all the time,” something that “daily life would not permit.” But when...