But elsewhere the picture is mostly dire, and not necessarily because the countries concerned are poor.
Technical skills are good, but the rest is mostly dire: sharing information is seen as a sign of weakness; dodging blame is better than raising profits; cost control and conservation are tiresome irrelevancies.
Empty places in schools, for example, should make it possible to put more money and effort into the task of sorting out universities, which are mostly dire: cash-strapped, corrupt and old-fashioned.Experience in Estonia suggests that the right incentives can help.
Despite dire predictions, New Orleans was mostly spared by Hurricane Gustav, which knocked out power and downed trees and limbs but otherwise left buildings intact, the sewer system largely functioning and hospital emergency rooms open.
Given the data, it's understandable that their demand-side outlook has been mostly dour and dire since mid-2009.
Around the Yankees, this is mostly accomplished by forecasting dire consequences for every imaginable obstacle.
Those dire threats are based on Bendick's research into patterns that might predict earthquakes — but claims of an impending "earthquake boom" are mostly sensationalism.
In Latin America land reform has been met with mostly dire results in recent decades -- failure and widespread violence in Colombia and Brazil, coups and revolutions in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala.
In closing: this year's Grammy event was another dire showcase of (mostly) the worst that music has to offer: performers who are more interested in shoring up their deep insecurities and diminishing bank accounts than in showering the people with musical magic.
