Don't Learn Grammar
7. COMPARATIVE FORM
In general, comparative and superlative forms of adverbs are the same as for adjectives:
add -er or -est to short adverbs:
| Adverb |
Comparative |
Superlative |
hard
late
fast |
harder
later
faster |
the hardest
the latest
the fastest |
Example:
Jim works harder than his brother.
Everyone in the race ran fast, but John ran the fastest of all.
with adverbs ending in -ly, use more for the comparative and most for the superlative:
| Adverb |
Comparative |
Superlative |
quietly
slowly
seriously |
more quietly
more slowly
more seriously |
most quietly
most slowly
most seriously |
Example:
The teacher spoke more slowly to help us to understand.
Could you sing more quietly please?
Some adverbs have irregular comparative forms:
| Adverb |
Comparative |
Superlative |
badly
far
little
well |
worse
farther/further
less
better |
worst
farthest/furthest
least
best |
Example:
The little boy ran further than his friends.
You're driving worse today than yesterday !
BE CAREFUL! Sometimes 'most' can mean 'very':
We were most grateful for your help
I am most impressed by this application.
Countrywide CEO sees recession ahead
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Countrywide Financial Corp Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo said on Thursday the U.S. housing downturn is likely to lead the country into recession, but that the largest U.S. mortgage lender will survive.
In an interview, Mozilo also said that to promote liquidity, the U.S. Federal Reserve should cut the rate it charges banks to borrow.
Countrywide faced a credit shortage this month as mortgage defaults rose and capital markets tightened. On August 16, it announced an unexpected drawdown of an entire $11.5 billion credit line because it had trouble selling short-term debt.
But on Wednesday, Bank of America Corp said it would invest $2 billion in Countrywide, buying preferred securities convertible into common stock.
This eased fears about Countrywide's fate, which at least two analysts this month had said could include bankruptcy.
Mozilo called the investment a "vote of confidence" and a "priceless endorsement," but said housing and the economy were not out of the woods.
Falling home prices hurt homeowners psychologically and cause them to spend less, he said. The 68-year-old executive has worked in financial services for more than a half century.
"I've seen this movie before, and the ending of the movie always ends up in some form of recession," he said. "I can see the economy slowing down substantially enough to give the regulators, the Fed some pause in what's going to happen next."
Mozilo called on the Bush Administration and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to state that they will not allow the housing environment to get out of control.
Last Friday, the Fed cut the discount rate at which it lends to banks to 5.75 percent. Mozilo said it should be reduced so that it is the same as the federal funds rate, now 5.25 percent.
Others agree that more is needed.
"The Fed has cut the discount rate and added liquidity to the markets but those things aren't enough to turn the fundamental market around," said Phil Orlando, chief equity market strategist at Federated Investors in New York. He said the funds rate should be cut to 4.25 percent by year end.
GOING IT ALONE
Analysts have said Countrywide might lose mortgage market share to well-diversified commercial banks with deeper balance sheets, including Bank of America, Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Wachovia Corp.
Countrywide held a 17.4 percent market share from January to June, according to the Inside Mortgage Finance newsletter.
The Bank of America investment also raised speculation that the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company might eventually buy Countrywide, which Mozilo helped launch in 1969.
Mozilo said that was not happening. "We've gone it alone for 40 years and can go it alone for another 40 years," he said.
In an interview with CNBC television, Mozilo said markets are in "one of the greatest panics I've ever seen in 55 years in financial services."
Still, he rejected as "irresponsible and baseless" an August 15 report by Merrill Lynch & Co analyst Kenneth Bruce that downgraded Countrywide to "sell" from "buy" and said the company might face bankruptcy if market conditions worsen.
"There is no more chance for bankruptcy today for Countrywide than there was six months ago, a year ago, two years ago, and when the stock was $45 a share," Mozilo said on CNBC. "We're a very solid company."
Merrill spokeswoman Carrie Gray declined to respond to Mozilo's comments, and said Bruce wasn't granting interviews.
Countrywide shares closed up 20 cents at $22.02. They have fallen 48 percent this year.
(Additional reporting by Joseph A. Giannone, Ellis Mnyandu and Dan Wilchins)
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Warner: Bush should bring troops home
WASHINGTON - President Bush should start bringing home some troops by Christmas to show the Baghdad government that the U.S. commitment in Iraq is not open-ended, a prominent Republican senator said Thursday.
The move puts John Warner, a former Navy secretary and one-time chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, at odds with the president, who says conditions on the ground should dictate deployments.
Warner, R-Va., said the troop withdrawals are needed because Iraqi leaders have failed to make substantial political progress, despite an influx of U.S. troops initiated by Bush this year.
The departure of even a small number of U.S. service members — perhaps 5,000 of the 160,000 troops in Iraq — would send a powerful message throughout the region that time was running out, Warner said.
"We simply cannot as a nation stand and continue to put our troops at continuous risk of loss of life and limb without beginning to take some decisive action," he told reporters after a White House meeting with Bush's top aides.
Warner's new position is a sharp challenge to a wartime president that will undoubtedly color the upcoming Iraq debate on Capitol Hill. Next month, Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker are expected to brief members on the war's progress.
A White House spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, declined to say whether Bush might consider Warner's suggestion.
Asked whether Bush would leave the door open to setting a timetable, Johndroe said: "I don't think the president feels any differently about setting a specific timetable for withdrawal. I just think it's important that we wait right now to hear from our commanders on the ground about the way ahead."
Republicans, including Warner, have so far stuck with Bush and rejected Democratic proposals demanding troops leave Iraq by a certain date. But an increasing number of GOP members have said they are uneasy about the war and want to see Bush embrace a new strategy if substantial progress is not made by September.
Warner, known for his party loyalty, said he still opposes setting a fixed timetable on the war or forcing the president's hand.
"Let the president establish the timetable for withdrawal, not the Congress," he said.
Nevertheless, his suggestion of troop withdrawals is likely to embolden Democrats and rile some of his GOP colleagues, who insist lawmakers must wait until Petraeus testifies.
His stature on military issues also could sway some Republicans who have been reluctant to challenge Bush.
Warner said he came to his conclusion after visiting Iraq this month with Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the Armed Services Committee chairman; Warner is the committee's second-ranking Republican. Levin said this week that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki should be replaced. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., followed suit and told reporters Thursday that Maliki has been "a failure."
Warner said he "could not go that far" to call for Maliki's resignation. But he said he did have serious concerns about the effectiveness of the current leadership in Baghdad, which a U.S. intelligence report released Thursday also cited. The National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq does not anticipate a political reconciliation in the next year and predicts the Iraqi government will become "more precarious" because of criticism from various sectarian groups.
"When I see an NIE which corroborates my own judgment — that political reconciliation has not taken place — the Maliki government has let down the U.S. forces and, to an extent, his own Iraqi forces," he said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the report confirms what most Americans already know: "Our troops are mired in an Iraqi civil war and the president's escalation strategy has failed to produce the political results he promised to our troops and the American people."
"Every day that we continue to stick to the president's flawed strategy is a day that America is not as secure as it could be," said Reid, D-Nev.
U.S. OK'd troop terror hunts in Pakistan
Newly uncovered "rules of engagement" show the U.S. military gave elite units broad authority more than three years ago to pursue suspected terrorists into Pakistan, with no mention of telling the Pakistanis in advance.
The documents obtained by The Associated Press offer a detailed glimpse at what Army Rangers and other terrorist-hunting units were authorized to do earlier in the war on terror. And interviews with military officials suggest some of those same guidelines have remained in place, such as the right to "hot pursuit" across the border.
Pakistan, a key U.S. partner in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, has long viewed such incursions as a threat to its sovereignty. Islamabad protested loudly this month when Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama pledged to grant U.S. forces the authority to unilaterally penetrate Pakistan in the hunt for terrorist leaders.
Washington repeated assurances it would consult before any such incursions.
But summaries of the rules of engagement on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in April 2004 say chasing al-Qaida leaders across the frontier was fair game.
One summary states that "Entry into PAK authorized for" the following reasons:
_"Hot pursuit" of al-Qaida, Taliban and terrorist command-and-control targets "from AFG into Pakistan (must be continuous and uninterrupted)."
_If the head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, approved direct action "against The Big 3," listed as Osama bin Laden; his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri; and Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar. The three are still believed to be hiding in the border region.
_If the Defense secretary approved such an incursion.
Other grounds for incursions into Pakistan, according to this summary, were "personnel recovery," including rescuing troops after the downing of aircraft; and troops "in contact with" the enemy, meaning under fire.
As for "geographic limits," the memo states: "General rule: penetrate no deeper than 10 km," or 6.2 miles.
Told of the guidelines, Pakistani military spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said, "This is all nonsense. Pakistan never allowed the coalition forces to enter into our territory while chasing militants. There was no such agreement, there was no such understanding."
Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Vician said this week he could not comment. "As a policy we don't talk about rules of engagement, certainly not about current rules in place for any operations in Afghanistan, Iraq or any other operation," he said.
The 2004 documents were included among 1,100 pages of investigative documents generated by the Army's probe into the death of NFL player-turned-Ranger Pat Tillman, whose platoon was operating in the region at the time.
E-mail exchanges between Ranger officers in the documents make no mention of a requirement to inform Pakistan in advance of strikes into that country.
However, one summary mentions a chain of required notifications, which resulted in Pakistan being apprised — apparently after the fact. One rule says "joint task force commander must inform CENTCOM immediately" and ensure the "Mil Liaison team" in Islamabad was notified.
Operations officers had a hot line to that liaison office, which would in turn inform Pakistani officials, according to a U.S. officer who served in the region and is knowledgable about operations within Afghanistan during that mid-2004 period. On some occasions, the officer said, Pakistanis would detect ground or air incursions and request explanations from the Americans, who would open inquiries.
Interviews with officers in the field, and the public statements of top U.S. commanders, indicate similar guidelines remain in place today.
At a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee in March, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., asked Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, "Do we have to have the approval of the Pakistani government in hot pursuit across the border?"
No, Lute replied. If U.S. forces spot so much as a "hostile intent" against them and chase the threat toward the border, "then we have all the authorities we need to pursue, either with fires or on the ground, across the border," he said.
Even a surveillance report of enemy fighters setting up a rocket and pointing it west into Afghanistan is enough to trigger a unilateral military response, said Lute, then the chief operations officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and now President Bush's deputy national security adviser — the "war czar" on Iraq and Afghanistan.
Capt. Scott Horrigan, a former company commander at Camp Tillman, an outpost about a mile inside Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province, told the AP earlier this year that rules of engagement allowed U.S. forces on the ground to travel up to a kilometer, a little more than half a mile, into Pakistani territory if they had "eyes on" insurgents, not just terrorist leaders.
Horrigan said that pursuit would require the approval of Pakistani authorities or Horrigan's brigade commander. It wasn't clear whether the brigade commander was required to consult with Pakistani officials before such an incursion. Through a spokesman at Fort Drum, where he is currently stationed, Horrigan declined to comment this week.
Horrigan also said in the earlier interview that U.S. aircraft could penetrate up to 10 kilometers into Pakistan, but must seek permission first. And he said his soldiers had fired from Afghanistan into Pakistan "two or three times." With fire coming from Pakistan, "usually I can fire back," he said, citing "an inherent right to self-defense."
Lt. Col. David Accetta, spokesman for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, said last week he could not talk about rules of engagement along the Pakistan border. He did say, after an AP reporter informed him of Horrigan's comments, that the rules haven't changed since January, when Horrigan spoke.
A high-ranking Ranger officer who has served in Afghanistan and is familiar with the current rules of engagement said that if he found himself "in contact" with the enemy at the border, he would feel authorized to chase them into Pakistan. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the high sensitivity of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship.
Occasionally, there have been signs of American operations in the Pakistani frontier.
In January 2006, tribal elders told the AP that U.S. helicopters had launched an attack on remote Saidgi village, about three miles from the Afghan border in Pakistan's lawless North Waziristan tribal region.
A tribal leader, Momin Khan, said the Americans took away five tribesmen. The Muslim cleric whose home was attacked was not there, but an explosion had killed eight people and wounded nine.
The U.S. military denied involvement, and Pakistan's chief Army spokesman said he couldn't confirm the raid.
A week later, the CIA purportedly sent a Predator drone from Afghanistan into Pakistan, unsuccessfully firing missiles at al-Zawahri. The attack missed bin Laden's deputy but reportedly killed four other al-Qaida leaders — although that information was never verified — and 13 villagers. Pakistan officially condemned the attack and said it had no advance notice.
In recent weeks, top Bush administration officials have staked out sometimes varying positions on the matter of penetrating Pakistani's borders.
On Aug. 5, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was cautious in describing how U.S. officials would handle an incursion. "I think we would not act without telling (Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf) what we were planning to do," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
That was far more tentative than what White House homeland security adviser Frances Townsend said last month when asked on Fox News why the U.S. wasn't sending special operations forces and drones into Pakistan.
"Well, just because we don't speak about things publicly doesn't mean we're not doing many of the things you're talking about," Townsend said. She didn't elaborate.
On Aug. 5 at Camp David with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Bush wouldn't say whether he would consult with Pakistan before ordering U.S. forces to act inside that country. "With real actionable intelligence, we will get the job done," Bush said, without elaborating.
Hezbollah exhibits 'victory' over Israel
BEIRUT, Lebanon - A replica of a long-range missile greets visitors, and posters mock Israel and the United States.
Welcome to "Spider's Web," a museum south of Beirut that has become Hezbollah's latest propaganda tool — showcasing what it says was a divine victory over Israel in last summer's war.
The museum exhibits war souvenirs — helmets, boots, ammunition and armored vehicles captured from the Israelis or left on Lebanon's battlefields. And it has gruesome photos of Lebanese civilians killed in Israeli airstrikes.
The exhibit has drawn condemnation from Israel. In Lebanon, there has been no overt criticism, although the war deepened divisions among Lebanese, many of whom opposed Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers that set off the conflict on July 12, 2006.
The museum opened last month in the Dahieh district, a Hezbollah stronghold pounded to rubble by missiles during the war, and runs until Sept. 10.
Its name was inspired by a speech in which Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said Israel's military might was flimsy and weaker than a spider's web — staple rhetoric from a militant group facing an enemy armed with a powerful air force and thought to hold nuclear weapons.
The idea is to "commemorate Hezbollah's historic, strategic and divine victory in an honest and artistic way," Ali Ahmed, a spokesman for Hezbollah's media activities unit.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said the exhibit "glorifies hatred, extremism and violence, and should be condemned as such."
During the war, more than 1,000 Lebanese were killed in 34 days of Israeli airstrikes. Hezbollah launched nearly 4,000 rockets at Israel; the Israeli death toll was 119 Israeli soldiers and 39 civilians. Most experts agree that Israel failed to achieve its declared objectives of crushing Hezbollah and freeing its soldiers — a point the museum plays off heavily.
A replica of a Hezbollah Khaibar missile is at the museum entrance. Inside, Hezbollah guides walk visitors past mannequins depicting Hezbollah guerrillas and dead Israeli soldiers.
"See here how Israel was defeated and humiliated by the resistance," said one guide, pointing out a large metal chunk from the wreckage of an Israeli Yasur CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter.
The guide, who goes by the name Abu Ali, carried a walkie-talkie as he eagerly lectured visitors. "What you see here constitutes only 1 percent of what we have," he said.
A French woman touring the museum said she had mixed feelings.
"They are using modern ways of communication to get their message across," said the woman, who would only identify herself by her middle name, Marie, for security concerns. "Who knows if that's good or not?"
The museum displays a poster ridiculing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for saying during the war that the fighting was part of the "birth pangs of a new Middle East."
Another poster mocks Israel's former chief of staff, Dan Halutz, quoting him as saying at the war's start: "We will eradicate Hezbollah within three days." Halutz resigned in January after widespread criticism of his performance.
The Israeli-made Merkava tank features prominently in the museum. One tank seized by the guerrillas is displayed in a huge crater, surrounded by mannequins of dead Israeli soldiers.
The exhibit is not the first organized by Hezbollah, but new elements have been added this time, including replicas of sandbagged Hezbollah bunkers.
One section is devoted to a new computer game, "Special Force 2: Tale of the Truthful Pledge," that allows players to shoot mock Israeli soldiers and blow up tanks. "Be one of God's men," says the advertisement for the game, shown on Hezbollah's Al-Manar television.
The game sells for $10 at a shop at the exhibit, along with Hezbollah DVDs and key chains.
The exhibit ends with an audiovisual presentation featuring what are said to be the cries of dying and wounded Israeli soldiers, followed by Nasrallah saying: "The time of victories has started and the time for defeats is over."
That show left Roula Sabra, a 36-year-old mother of three, clapping tearfully.
"I've come to show my children what victory and dignity is," she said. "You feel such pride and security."
Clinton vows to improve US health care
LEBANON, N.H. - Hillary Rodham Clinton promised Thursday that as president she would improve health care quality by raising standards for providers, educating patients and requiring insurers to reward innovation.
While rivals Barack Obama and John Edwards have proposed detailed health care overhaul plans, Clinton is taking an incremental approach. She started with a speech in June on reducing costs, followed by Thursday's address on quality, and will outline her plan for universal health care coverage next month.
"My order here is deliberate," she said. "In order to forge a consensus on universal health care, we need to assure people that they will get the quality they expect at a cost they can afford."
"Too often, and in too many places, our health care system hurts us instead of helps us," Clinton said at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. "It hurts doctors, who aren't rewarded for providing the best care and are often punished for it financially. It hurts nurses who are asked to work longer hours, caring for more patients with fewer resources. And it hurts patients, who are forced to make complicated medical decisions without basic information about their conditions and options."
To improve quality, Clinton said she would promote physician certification programs that help doctors keep up with the latest advancements, increasing Medicare reimbursements for doctors who participate in them. Nursing care would get a boost in the form of $300 million to expand enrollment in nursing schools, create mentoring programs for recent graduates and recruit more minorities into the profession.
"The nursing shortage has become a nursing crisis, and that means it is a crisis for everyone," Clinton said. "Our nurses are truly the eyes and ears, and in many ways the heart and soul of our health care system. When we've got fewer nurses, working longer hours and serving more patients, the result can be worse outcomes."
Patients, too, can play a role in improving the quality of health care they receive, she said, if they are given more information about their treatment options. She praised Dartmouth-Hitchcock's Center for Shared Decision Making, saying she would like to see similar programs nationwide.
Clinton also called for overhauling a reimbursement system that she said often punishes doctors for doing the right thing — spending time with patients or working with their colleagues to take a collaborative approach. She proposes higher payments to providers who use teams to provide coordinated care and ending payments for preventable infections and injuries sustained during hospital stays.
"We need a system that encourages instead of discourages quality," she said.
