In my opinion, the hardest thing on learning English is its spelling - many languages have "write as you hear" spelling, or something pretty close to that. Although there are some spelling rules in English, most people just have to read through large texts for their brain to accomodate the way English words are written. As I see it, there are even exceptions in exceptions ;-)

On the other hand, conjugations and declensions are simple to nonexistent in English, which gives students time to absorb the rest of grammar (mainly pronunciation, tenses, and structure of sentence).

Although this study seems quite professional, I see one white spot that could validate or invalidate their data. After the circumsizion, men are somewhat protective of their manhood and if they have sex, it's more likely to be protected sex. For more data on this point, see http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/281ADC9B-AB02-49BE-AC1E-6A986B5823B2.asp

So, can anyone tell if the researchers tried to get statistics of intercourse counts (either total or protected/unprotected) in both groups, and whether their results have taken this disproportion into account?

(apologizing to moderators for not keeping on topic of Nano...)

Your reply seems to be "a bit" biased.

In the first link, they're buying back cars that are beyond warranty, partly because trying to make up for bad paint job in American factory. Pure PR job to improve their image.

In the second link, they have problems notifying customers - nothing special that other manufacturers couldn't possibly experience (how can anyone be sure of not having been missed in some other recall?)

In the third link, the data is only for 2008, method is unclear (probably total number of sold units of recalled models) and the site seems to be Chrysler-centric. I would like to see merged data for last 5 or 10 years to see something interesting.

Saw it first time now.. you're not alone, it definitely has some hidden power :-)

That was me... I wanted to become your fan, because I like your posts, and also your diary - those stories are just awesome :-) Life is the best narrator.

Insightful? Prejudice!

Bystanders are innocent or guilty - depending on their actions. How can you be so sure that they were those who allowed the government to come to power, let alone supported it? Maybe there were not proper elections for ages..

The anti-war crowd is just as guilty of prejudice as you, every one of them who is accusing all Americans. Personally... half of you didn't vote for GWB, but I don't see any reason for the other half of Americans come to harms way, even if they voted in [insert swearword adjective of choice] government.

Well, you're right, especially on Amazon.co.uk - that's one of the shiny examples.

But some (usually non-EU-based) companies still don't recognize new EU countries. For example, ThinkGeek only added my home country (new EU-member) to their shipping destinations during last year, despite of the fact that neighboring countries (also new-EU members) were present there for many years before. I've been nagging them for years...

Unobtainable.. exactly.

Lots of distributors still follow the DVD model, where world is divided into many boxes. In some parts, you cannot buy software X or movie Y at all. Somewhere, you're obliged to use PayPal, because they're afraid that your VISA credit card is different from US equivalent (WAKE UP!).

Some companies just don't see their customers outside of US, Canada, UK, and maybe France or Germany - they don't offer shipping outside selected countries. This is a big source of frustration for big part of EU, where there customers willing to pay for stuff... only to find out they must take other means to get it.

And Veronica... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronica_(computer)