It's muffled English. It's degraded Japanese.

Annan's staff released evasive, confused statements.

It's not English. It's noisy English.

We can think of ourselves as kind of a noisy channel.

In Europe, the picture is also mixed.

The natural responses of ordinary Bahamians grow mixed.

Current US policy is befuddled, to say the least.

Woman 2 I'm a little bit confused. Woman 3 They look like the squares to me.

As for Israel, it initially responded to the Arab revolts in a confused way.

Obama inherited messy and expensive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and an economy in meltdown.

Krugman is hampered by the fact that he attributes the crash to irrationality, which, as Cochrane points out, is no theory.

And second of all, his data was grainy and fuzzy, and he couldn't quite make out what it was he was looking at.

There are now accusations, however, that the state's investigations have become chaotic and hostile , and that the authorities leading the inquest have obstructed the work of international experts.

NEW HAVEN As America s election season nears its finish, the debate seems to have come unhinged.

It really started from the destruction of the idea that the government is there because it's our government, meant to protect the larger public interest.

With regards to Rwanda s role in the crisis, the U.S. policy to minimize sanctions against Kagame s administration is perplexing to many observers.

Furthermore, the estimate of loss does not take account of possible confounding factors, such as the decrease in fishing activity during the period of the invasion and occupation and some time subsequently.

But if you ask the government s supporters why there is no alternative to mammoth cuts in government spending and increases in taxes, they sound confused and incoherent.

Iraq is showing some positive signs of political and institutional recovery, but the omens for the future remain, in Obama s own words, messy.

In an era of zero interest rates and quantitative easing, macroeconomic policy has become unhinged from a tough post crisis reality.

The Chinese delegation voted against the Declaration because the Declaration's wording is too confusing, and the prohibition it contains could be misunderstood as applying to all research into therapeutic cloning.

On the question of what caused the crash, the debate is more even. Krugman is hampered by the fact that he attributes the crash to irrationality, which, as Cochrane points out, is no theory.

Europe continues to be a mixed picture, with the European Central Bank almost perversely raising interest rates even as Europe s economy needs further stimulation to ensure its recovery.

We find that the media not only fail to weed out bad ideas, but that they often favor bad ideas, especially when the truth is too messy to be packaged neatly.

But if you ask the government s supporters why there is no alternative to mammoth cuts in government spending and increases in taxes, they sound confused and incoherent. Or perhaps they are merely parroting talking points backed by little thought.

The pattern is starting to look familiar a new crisis, a new meeting in Brussels, an initially muddled response, debates and divisions, and then gradual, step by step progress toward a common response, driven by the realization that there is no other alternative.

As for Israel, it initially responded to the Arab revolts in a confused way. Now its leaders maintain that they would welcome democratic changes in the region as a guarantor of peace and common values, though they express skepticism about whether such developments are actually imminent.

Annan's staff released evasive, confused statements. Oblivious, apparently, to the dreadfulness of the situation, they failed to sound the alarm properly and did nothing to intervene.

Thumbing one s nose at scholarly evidence is always a bad idea, but it is especially damaging to an institution that relies so heavily on the credibility of its technical competence and neutrality. If the Fund embraces muddled economics, on what basis will it defend its policy advice?