To concentrate minds, leaders arriving in the Caribbean will be presented with two reports, both of which are remarkably blunt, considering that one was funded in part by the Commonwealth's small Secretariat, and the other came from the Royal Commonwealth Society, the largest of the NGOs that promote the club.

ECONOMIST: The Commonwealth

Just a few days ago, the U.S. State Department issued a blunt travel advisory warning Americans with plans to travel in Mexico to be extra careful.

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To be fair and blunt the political unrest in the Middle East will have more to do with pushing oil prices higher than monetary policy for the time being.

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While some top-tier science was presented at the conference, there was too much time given to claims of cure that had little to support them but patient testimonials, small studies with no long-term follow-up, and, to be blunt, some science that has nothing but the backing of a single very optimistic scientist looking to attract a grant or an investor.

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His duties as majority leader are to be assumed, for now, by Roy Blunt of Missouri, the House Republican whip, with assistance from David Dreier, a representative from California, and Eric Cantor of Virginia.

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Smarter deployment policies may be needed down the road to scale better technologies, but they would come with less baggage than the blunt deployment policies used today.

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Another is a secretary of defense with an unsteady grasp of a department that may, within a month, be facing a historic and blunt reduction in its budgets.

WSJ: Stephens: Hagel's Hruska Defense