Word: direness
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...goal of health-care reform for Democrats on either end of Pennsylvania Avenue has been to bring down the long-term health-care costs for the government, companies and individuals. It's the overriding justification for attempting such an ambitious overhaul while the economy is in such dire straits and the federal budget deficit is skyrocketing...
Chinese officials say they are on course to achieve GDP growth of about 8% this year, and the fall's dire predictions of massive unemployment leading to social upheaval haven't been borne out. But last week's killing of a steel-company executive by striking workers in northeastern China highlights the ongoing threat of labor unrest even as the country shows signs of emerging from the economic downturn...
...tucked-away "clarification" published on page 7 of a recent edition of L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican produced a document that unequivocally confirmed automatic excommunication for anyone involved in an abortion - even in such a situation as dire as the Brazilian case. It settles any questions about the absolute nature of church doctrine on the matter of abortion - but it could potentially reignite the p.r. firestorm. (See the original story of the controversial abortion in Brazil...
There are also areas where the Taliban is threatening farmers with dire consequences if they don't grow poppy. The opium traffickers send in merchants in the fall to prepurchase the crops, so it gives the farmers a much needed cash injection that they use to get their families through the winter. We've done nothing in the international community to provide that kind of microcredit program for licit crops. To my mind, the important thing is to really take the focus off of the farmers and to put it on the traffickers...
...guess what Cheney would have done.) Yet however overblown the story, if a full-fledged investigation into it does occur, it could be the last nail in the CIA's coffin. This Congress could succeed where the Church Committee failed. Even if things are not that dire - people are always talking about abolishing the CIA - it will undermine morale for years. Congress, no doubt, will explain in the coming months how a program that was no secret was somehow beyond the pale. But if this game is nothing more than political bickering, it is not worth the candle...