Word: direful
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...proposed three-year freeze on all domestic discretionary expenditures unrelated to defense, homeland security, or veterans’ affairs, President Obama’s $3.8 trillion budget for 2011 will actually increase spending for various education programs. We welcome the influx of money to a system in dire need of help, and take heart that Obama sees education as a priority even during trying financial times...
Part of the problem is that her character is written to be helpless—she often panics and lacks the common sense one should have in a dire situation. Her biggest lapse in judgment comes when she falls asleep with her bare hand gripping a pole. The audience must watch as she peels her frostbitten hand off in sheer agony. Moments like these provide great thrills, yet one wonders how anyone could be so foolish when the stakes are so high...
Upon arriving in Kabul last spring, McChrystal flooded the Afghan countryside with counterinsurgency experts who came up with dire assessments and stated a need for more troops. Even Gates seemed blindsided by his own general. Gates had been public about avoiding a big American footprint in the Pashtun countryside. But after the McChrystal team's findings began leaking, Gates shifted course. To me, he said, "Once McChrystal said, 'This is what I need,' then I was there. And my goal was, how do we get Stan McChrystal as much of what he's asked for as quickly as possible...
Beyond saving money, Bobb sees his mission in broader terms: to improve the system's miserable academic performance. Again, the situation is dire. Last month brought news that more than three-quarters of the 900 eighth-graders who took a national math exam scored at "below basic" levels. In October 2008, some 57% of Detroit third- through eighth-graders essentially failed a state writing test. Detroit's graduation rate is 58%. "The system is academically bankrupt. This is almost academic homicide," Bobb says. (See pictures of a public boarding school...
Maalim's case is hardly unique. Throughout recent history, Somalis have sought refuge in Yemen, a remote, impoverished country at the tip of the Arabian peninsula, less than 200 miles across a narrow sea. But despite Yemen's own dire situation, it continues to be flooded with Somali refugees seeking the safety, stability and economic opportunities that have long since vanished from their own failed state in the Horn of Africa. In fact, the number of African refugees in Yemen is steadily rising. According to the U.N.'s refugee agency UNHCR, 72,753 African refugees - mostly from Somalia - reached Yemen...