The third part of that series is out: World Speaks Our Language and Attends Our Colleges

For two years, the Pew Research Center for People and the Press polled 66,000 people from 44 countries on whether children "need to learn English to succeed in the world today."
The answer was a resounding "yes."
More than 95 percent of those surveyed in Indonesia, Germany and South Africa agreed that English is necessary for children. More than 90 percent of those surveyed in China, Japan, France and Ukraine agreed.
Only one of the 44 countries had a substantial minority that disagreed — 35 percent of Jordanians said English is not a necessity.

And that attitude will make all the difference for the future of the Middle East.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:21 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I had to do a double take: an article about the US that's all good? Woah.
America enjoys view from the top

And it looks like it's a five-part series; I'm anxious to read the rest.

Posted by: Sarah at 06:18 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Look at Bunker's new style for the holiday season! I like it.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:53 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Law and order are coming to Iraq. In baby steps, naturally, but they're coming.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:23 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I had read this Michael Crichton speech on junk science before, pointed out by Kalroy, but I returned to it today, pointed out by Hud. It's amazing how much junk science we're inundated with every day. My favorite bit, per global warming:

Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?

This is one of the best articles I've ever read.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:16 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Varifrank tackles the underpants gnomes of "import less oil".

Posted by: Sarah at 02:57 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I'd like to meet Ben Stein. He sounds like a good guy.

Hud says:

I've talked to people on the left who live in red states, who told me they've encountered some ugliness for expressing their beliefs, but I'd be really surprised if they feel they have whisper to each other like the people in this article. Most lefties I know are pretty open about it. On the other hand, I have known many people on the right who were afriad to speak out for losing work. I've even had some people tell me I was risking never getting hired for the stuff I say on this blog. And what I tell them is, if you let people oppress you, they win. And now more people are going out and challenging the leftist orthodoxy

I know I never show my Bush support unless asked a direct question about whom I voted for, and we live on a military post, for pete's sake.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:45 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Bunker's son nearly got shot yesterday. No, not the Marine. Not the Soldier either. The cop. That's why I don't waste time worrying about whether my husband could die in Iraq; non-Soldiers are just as mortal. And most of them don't spend life in IBA and an M1A1.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:13 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Lots of my friends here are red-state voters who come from coastal blue states. They sort of can't figure out why I want our next duty station to be Texas. Lo and behold, Vinod says it better than I could. A blog post in praise of Texas that includes references to 1) Lila and 2) groking: could it get any cooler than that?

Posted by: Sarah at 07:24 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Man, did I get sucked into this comments section!

And if there's one thing I can say about Ann Coulter, it's that she sure knows how to make me laugh:

But Bush nominates a brilliant geopolitical thinker who happens to be black and female and all of a sudden she's Butterfly McQueen, who don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no Middle Eastern democracies.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:56 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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