The other issue is, though, how much would such a system contribute to flight safety. Information about what went wrong may contribute in the long term to flight safety, but in the short term such systems won't prevent crashes. They will just tell us where to look for the bodies.

Actually, as I understand it, the lack of support for Unicode is a deliberate security measure. The fear is that including some "characters" would damage the page, and that, of course, malicious posters would take advantage of this.

While some teachers are just plain incompetent or ignorant, that is not the only factor leading to poor performance. Here are several more: (a) teacher training is poor. Far too much time is devoted to topics like philosophy of education and social issues, too little to things like subject knowledge, normal and abnormal language acquisition, how to teach reading, and so forth. For example, I know of teacher education programs in which teachers, including those destine to be elementary school teachers, are not taught how to teach children to read, which is probably the single most important thing they do. In one case, as part of a seminar, the students read and discussed two papers on approaches to the teaching of reading; that was the entire extent of their training in how to teach reading! (b) excessive diversity of students is very difficult for a teacher to deal with. You only have the time and resources to individualize instruction so much. If the students are at very different levels, even a good teacher can't do a good job. The mainstreaming of students with disabilities has exacerbated this problem. I don't mean to suggest a return to rigid tracking or to dumping all special needs kids in separate classes or schools, but we need some combination of classes that are more homogeneous as to level and ability together with adequate support (in the form of teachers' aides and other resources) for special needs students. (c) school administrations and government departments of education often impose poor curricula and materials. Greater competence and less political interference in the education bureaucracy would be a boon.

Actually, freedom of speech is intended to protect people who, by their speech, upset other people. Otherwise virtually any expression of an unpopular view could be prosecuted since somebody would be upset by it. The Holy Thursday and Good Friday liturgies of the Greek Orthodox Church to this day ascribe to Jews such as myself the guilt for the death of Christ. Naturally, we find this upsetting. Do you think that the Greek Orthodox Church and its priests should be prosecuted? That is why in countries with strong protection for freedom of expression there are strict limitations on the ability to retaliate for speech, e.g. requiring that defamation be objectively false in order to be actionable.

Sea urchins aren't exotic for Italy. They may be considered an exotic food in North America, but they're indigenous to the Mediterranean and eaten in the region.

None of the articles explains the basis for the Indian government's claims. Does anyone know the basis for this dispute?

At first I read that as JSON and wondered what had happened to it.

Mass release of methane from eating all those beans.

Why bother? The National Security Agency already backs everything up for you.

Spending a few years in prison tends to leave an awkward gap in your employment history.