【clover】ECO analysis by happy牧羊

happy牧羊UID: 2662770

因为工作的原因才开始我的eco之旅
开始了
这楼先占着
有啥要提醒自己的再添进来

阅读eco的简单规划：

1.寻找TS or 总结段意
2.查阅自己的生僻词汇、词组
3.总结好词（verb、noun、adj）
4.总结好的句子、词组搭配
5.总结例子——关键词
6.阅读或者复习是看到的红宝词汇

PS：今天发现有很多eco里面不懂得表达，查字典也查不到的表达，可以去问Yahoo answer，咩哈哈。

happy牧羊UID: 2662770

Where to now?
A ticklish 棘手的 难办的 week for Barack Obama

HE president’s annual state-of-the-union speech, despite the fuss起哄 and standing（lasting） ovations in Congress 来自国会的抗议和支持, is often a forgettable laundry list of priorities. But Barack Obama’s first proper go at the address to Congress on Wednesday January 27th as mandated by the constitution 由国会授权 (his inaugural speech 就职演说last year did not count as a state-of-the-union talk是不是指那个国情咨文，请教下大家) will be watched with unusual interest, and not only because he is a far better speaker than his predecessor, George Bush.;P After the recent stinging loss of a Massachusetts Senate seat to the Republicans近日 共和党在麻省议会的席位骤减, the president’s domestic agenda is imperilled 危险的 受到威胁的. He needs to present a clear idea of what he plans to do next.

本段简单交代了奥巴马近日遇到的一些问题，比如民主党在麻省丢掉众多席位，以及他的国情咨文为什么备受关注的原因，算是引言部分吧。


Health care医疗保健 is still foremost in many minds despite the arguments surrounding Mr Obama's continuing efforts to rein in 限制 约束 America's bankers. The Massachusetts vote means that Republicans, now with 41 of 100 seats, have denied the Democrats a super-majority 少数服从多数 and so can use a filibuster 阻碍 to talk out 详谈 almost any bill. Scott Brown, the new senator for Massachusetts, has promised to do just that. How the Democrats respond will matter greatly, both for the prospects of the bill and the performance of the two main political parties at mid-term elections中期选举 in November year. Some Democrats want to push the Senate version of the health bill through the House of Representatives 众议院 without amendment, which would mean not putting it back through the Senate（=put off）. But that would appear to ignore the voters' wishes in Massachusetts, risking a big voter backlash反击 反冲 later in the year. 可能在年末会遭到集体反对

奥巴马关于医疗保健的提案阻力重重。

Mr Obama has instead hinted that he would like to build support for a bill “around those elements of the package that people agree on.”这句不懂耶 But if this means only the populist平民党员 bits , this looks like bad policy. For example, both Democratic bills would make it illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage to customers because of a pre-existing condition先前的状态 之前的情况. This would make premiums more expensive, by putting more unhealthy people in the system, as Mr Obama himself has conceded. It is not clear what other elements the president believes could be agreed on.

对医疗改革提案当中的一个细节进行了简单的讨论。

A bolder大胆的 option Mr Obama might pursue is to make the bill bigger not smaller. Last year, he talked of bringing America’s famously plaintiff-friendly medical malpractice litigation under control这个不是很懂，sigh~. This helped to win the support of the American Medical Association. But none of this proposal made it into either the House or Senate bill. Offering this, the thing the Republicans say they want most out of health-care reform, could put Republicans on the spot立即. If they obstruct 妨碍 干扰 the bill, they would look like they have no interest but bringing Mr Obama down. But adding tort民事侵犯行为 reform could lose Democrats, who are closer to trial lawyers.

继续讨论奥巴马医疗改革提案中的细节以及由此奥巴马面对的重重政治阻力。

Mr Obama may instead want to move away from health care and to talk instead aboutthe economy overall. One reason for the punishment in Massachusetts might have been voter anger that politicians are paying too little attention to joblessness and the recession. Mr Obama has claimed that the same anger that brought Mr Brown’s victory in Massachusetts carried Mr Obama himself to office. But the president can pose as an outsider only for so long. He needs to develop some of the empathy that Bill Clinton famously showed when he adopted and made famous the phrase “I feel your pain”这是什么典故啊 我来查查. Mr Obama might try: “I feel your anger.”

第一句将医疗改革议案过渡到了经济问题，作者还提出了一些自己的见解。（总统真不容易。。o(╯□╰)o）

This could mean even more of Mr Obama's bank-bashing populism平民主义. His latest plans, unveiled on Thursday, will restrict the size and range of activities of American banks. They come a week after he announced plans to make the banks pay back, through special taxes, the bail-out money they received during the financial crisis. The latest rules to curb America's banks were inspired by the thinking of Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman 前任美联储主席and Obama adviser. If this has made Ben Bernanke, current Fed boss, a little nervous, the wavering last last week of some Senate Democrats over backing his confirmation for a second term will not have improved his composure. Mr Obama's team spent the weekend shoring up support for Mr Bernanke.

依然是讨论经济方面——银行限制问题。

Other domestic agenda-items, such as cap-and-trade legislation on greenhouse gases, will be wrapped up in the language of energy security, job-creation and boosting American competitiveness, rather than by talking about the climate changing, about which voters appear relatively unconcerned.

其他让奥巴马棘手的国内问题。

Most attention will be on domestic issues, but in foreign policy, too, the president has daunting challenges. He has won Republican support (and Democratic grousing) for his decision to boost troop numbers temporarily in Afghanistan. His vice-president, Joe Biden, has been deployed to hold hands in Iraq, where a de-Baathification commission has banned a large number of Sunni Arabs from the forthcoming elections, stoking fears of renewed sectarian war宗教战争. And Iran remains a conundrum红包词汇, with Mr Obama still committed to offering negotiations over nuclear matters, while gradually stepping up 缓慢加速 criticism of the regime’s violent handling of opposition protests. It would not surprise to hear Mr Obama offer his most ringing斩钉截铁的 condemnation of Iran yet.

除了国内问题之外，奥巴马还需要解决一些外交上的问题，比如中东问题。


======================conclusion的分界线==========================

好词
verb   mandate imperil bit obstruct unveil curb daunt
noun   state of the union speech premium 补贴 保险 佣金  composure 平静 沉着
adj    ticklish  stinging(loss) foremost bolder

新/好搭配
the fuss and standing ovations
domestic agenda 内政议程
deny sb a super-majority
matter greatly
a big voter backlash 集体投票反对
to deny coverage to customers
a pre-existing condition
win the support of
put sth on the spot
trial lawyers  辩护律师
the thinking of sb
shore up =support

好的句子、表达
...is often a forgettable laundry list of priorities. (其实不太懂这个意思，不知道怎么用更合适)
Barack Obama’s first proper go at the address to Congress  “first proper go”怎么理解？
... do not count as ... (注意这个是主动语态的表达)
he is a far better speaker than his predecessor
Health care is still foremost in many minds despite the arguments surrounding Mr Obama's continuing efforts to rein in  America's bankers. 表达方式和其中的一些搭配
use a filibuster to talk out almost any bill这句的意思是不是说：利用一些阻碍增加谈判筹码
Mr Obama has instead hinted that he would like to build support for a bill “around those elements of the package that people agree on.”本文第二个理解有难度的句子
Last year, he talked of bringing America’s famously plaintiff-friendly medical malpractice litigation under control. 理解有困难
...have no interest but bringing Mr Obama down

One reason for the punishment in Massachusetts might have been voter anger that politicians are paying too little attention to joblessness and the recession.
This could mean even more of Mr Obama's bank-bashing populism.

His latest plans, unveiled on Thursday, will restrict the size and range of activities of American banks.

Other domestic agenda-items, such as cap-and-trade legislation on greenhouse gases, will be wrapped up in the language of energy security, job-creation and boosting American competitiveness, rather than by talking about the climate changing, about which voters appear relatively unconcerned.

银落UID: 2632560

where is your conclusion?

happy牧羊UID: 2662770

4# 银落

sorry  我来了~  :mad:

小小amyUID: 2541111

羊羊，加油哦，跟紧bela和银落~~~

happy牧羊UID: 2662770

Ticking up 小幅增加
America's economy grew by 5.7% at the end of 2009. Yet it remains vulnerable

AFTER a tough start to 2010, Barack Obama could not have asked for better news on the economy to distract attention from his political difficulties.这样的开头，很喜欢 In the fourth quarter of last year American GDP grew by an impressive 5.7%, at an annual rate, the best quarterly季度的 年度的 performance since 2003. Expansion was driven by growth in private inventories 私人投资 and an increase in exports出口的增加. For all of 2009 output？ declined by 2.4%, but for Americans weary 疲惫的 疲劳的 from two years of declining employment, the fourth-quarter figure offers a clear signal that the worst is over.

09年美国经济有所回暖的简单情况

Yet only cautious celebration is in order. 不太懂耶There are reasons to doubt that the impressive performance in a single quarter will be repeated in the coming months. Weak fundamentals will prevent the American economy from sustaining that fast pace of growth快速增长. Of the 5.7% increase in real output实际产量, 3.4 percentage points came from inventory changes存货变动, as firms which had operated on a shoestring小资本 in the recession built inventories back to normal levels. That brief buying spree购物狂潮 brought some workers back to assembly lines生产线, but unless a new source of demand arises the boost from restocking will fade and growth will slow.
经济有所回暖的的原因分析

There are already signs of a loss of momentum 能量 动力 势头. According to Macroeconomic 宏观经济的 Advisers, a consultancy咨询机构, most of the inventory boost came in October, when growth roared ahead这个词组不懂 但是觉得不错 似乎就是表示上涨的势头迅猛at a 16.4% annual rate. By November, growth had already quietened 使安静下来 使平静下来 减弱 substantially. And throughout the fourth quarter the economy has continued to shed jobs削减职位. It is difficult to sustain growth when employment is not rising.这句话说的很在理啊，我觉得也应该是这段的TS了

数据说明经济的增长情况，但是失业率问题依然是不可忽视的。

Nor is it clear where new demand might arise. As the GDP reportmakes plain, personal consumption remains extremely weak; consumption rose by just 2.0% for the quarter, below the 2.8% increase of the previous three months. Spending will probably remain subdued throughout 2010. 这个表达很好According to a recent IMF research note, the crisis and recession significantly damaged household wealth, suggesting that savings rates储蓄率 will rise in a recovery. The effect on consumption may be to trim 3% off 削减 删减GDP relative to pre-crisis levels注意这个构词法 表示金融危机前的水平. Indeed, the fourth-quarter savings rate ticked up to 4.6%, from 4.5% during the previous period. New demand growth will have to come elsewhere.
要持续经济增长，还需要努力的方面

Investment may also disappoint in 2010, because of overcapacity能力超载. Oversupply in both residential and commercial property has discouraged investment in the sectors and meant that construction employment is not rising. Housing starts continue to languish 苦恼 红宝词汇at around a third of normal levels. Industrial-capacity use is similarly well below pre-recession levels. Until most existing capacity is put to productive use, there is little reason for businesses to make new investments.

分析了2010年的投资市场，作者的态度是总体并不看好。

Nor does it help that government economic support will fade during 2010. Mark Zandi, an economist with Moody’s Economy.com, estimates that the federal stimulus contributed about two percentage points of growth in the fourth quarter. That will drop below one percentage point by mid-year and fall to nothing thereafter. State budget cuts will also be a drain on output, as they have been for most of the recession. Drops in state-government spending subtracted 0.1% from output for all of 2009.

And even the fourth quarter's spirited performance may be overstated. Third-quarter growth was originally reported at 3.5%, only to be revised down later to 2.2%.

Nonetheless, the performance of the American economy in the fourth quarter is encouraging, suggesting firmly that America has pulled free of recession. Yet caution is in order. If the response is to cut back quickly on fiscal and monetary support for the economy, this flash of growth could disappear as quickly as it emerged.

认为经济的微弱上扬还是一件鼓舞人心的事情，肯定了这样的经济表现。
看完这篇文章，我感受最深的就是文中的辩证思想，看其现象，思其本质。我想我们看到国内经济状况文章，很多都隐藏了增长背后的隐患以及更深层次的危机。这篇文章，开篇用数据说明了经济增长的现状，接着开始分析增长背后的原因、增长的阻力、以及其他更急需解决的经济问题，简单易懂，一览全景。
===================conclusion分界线==========
好词
adj vulnerable  quarterly weary Macroeconomic  subdued pre-crisis= pre-recession
noun shoestring
verb fade quietene
好搭配
Ticking up 小幅增加
a tough start
that fast pace of growth
buying spree
signs of a loss of momentum
roar ahead 这个有人帮解答么 谢谢了
shed jobs削减职位
trim off
spirited performance
fiscal and monetary support
this flash of growth
好句子
the fourth-quarter figure offers a clear signal that the worst is over.
Yet only cautious celebration is in order.  有人知道什么意思么 帮我解答下 谢谢啦
Investment may also disappoint in 2010, because of overcapacity.注意这里使用的是主动语态
That will drop below one percentage point by mid-year and fall to nothing thereafter.
Nonetheless, the performance of the American economy in the fourth quarter is encouraging, suggesting firmly that America has pulled free of recession.

happy牧羊UID: 2662770

家里的网速让我想死！！！！！

happy牧羊UID: 2662770

让暴风雨来滴更猛烈吧
争取这篇的分析时间控制在1个小时

Blowing hot and cold 喜怒无常 犹豫不决 翻云覆雨
What to make of the latest row是指底线的意思么？ between China and America over Taiwan?
对台军售是否会影响中美关系？

IS IT a crisis or just (show) business as usual? 第一句开门见山地讨论对台军售的性质问题 算是TS了 With China and America, it can be hard to tell. Almost immediately after the United States said that it intended to sell more than $6 billion-worth of arms to Taiwan, the Chinese went into a spin什么意思呢？. They summoned召集 传唤 号召 the American ambassador美国大使（大使馆the American Embassy.） to denounce this interference in China’s “internal affairs”内政 (Taiwan is part of the mainland, says the government in Beijing), threatened to cut off military ties with the United States and said they would impose sanctions 允许 on American firms involved in the Taiwan deal是指台湾问题，还是特指军售问题？.

None of this looks good for the world’s most consequential举足轻重的 relationship.无论如何，这都是对世界上最重要的政治关系的伤害。 From global warming to the sickly world economy 衰退的世界经济 to stopping nuclear proliferation 防止核扩散in North Korea and Iran, co-operation between the established superpower and the rising one is vital to world stability. Why should either want to jeopardise伤害 损害 this relationship?
进一步质疑美国军售的目的

That question has produced several theories. 这个啥意思哦？One is that China’s spritely economy is making it less afraid of conflict with a tiring America, especially when it thinks that “core” interests such as its claim to sovereignty主权 over Taiwan or Tibet are at stake命悬一线 生死未卜. The other is that America timed选择。。作为时机 the Taiwan arms sale in part to punish China—for its shabby龌龊 拙劣 treatment of Barack Obama during last November’s presidential visit to Beijing, for its foot-dragging at December’s Copenhagen climate summit and for its reluctance to support new United Nations sanctions on Iran伊朗. Of course, neither theory excludes the other and bits of both may be true. But a third possibility is that there is in fact less to this “crisis” than meets the eye眼中所看到的.

America is obliged under the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 台湾关系法 to provide the island with the arms it needs to defend itself. America and China both knew that the United States would announce the package （可以表示a collection of related items，谢谢bela） at some time and that China would vehemently 强烈地 oppose it, as it always does. The package includes some sophisticated weapons, such as Black Hawk and Apache helicopters and Harpoon missiles, but it does not include F-16 fighters that the Taiwanese would dearly深深地 昂贵 like. As to the timing, says a senior administration official, “this is one of those issues where the timing is never right.” It certainly would not have been clever to announce the sale immediately before or after last year’s presidential goodwill visit to China.

If America’s announcement was expected, so was the indignant气愤的 恼怒的 Chinese response. Denunciation and the cancellation of some military-co-operation meetings is in keeping with previous Chinese reactions. A new element this time was the public threat of Chinese sanctions against American firms involved in the Taiwan deal, but most of these have little or no business in China. One big exception is Boeing, which is huge in China. But for that reason it is unlikely that the Chinese will follow up参阅 接着 跟踪 on this particular threat.

If the Taiwan weapons spat blows over, American officials will hail欢呼 致敬 what they nowadays call the more “mature” relationship they have nurtured with China during Mr Obama’s first year. But many tests lie ahead摆在。。的前头. Some are mainly symbolic, such as a forthcoming meeting between Mr Obama and Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, which the Americans postponed last year to prevent it souringthe president’s China trip. Others are more concrete, such as China’s reluctance to go along with new sanctions on Iran or to respond to America’s pleas to revalue the yuan. A world-shaking falling-out between China and America is always possible. But the falling-out over the Taiwan arms package is probably  not it.

===========================================conclusion=================================


好词
adj   tiring shabby sophisticated indignant  
noun  sanction sovereignty
verb  summon jeopardise foot-dragging
adv   dearly  
好搭配
Blowing hot and cold
go into a spin
internal affairs
consequential relationship
spritely economy
at stake
vehemently 强烈地 oppose
follow up
好句子、表达
But a third possibility is that there is in fact less to this “crisis” than meets the eye.
A world-shaking falling-out between China and America is always possible. But the falling-out over the Taiwan arms package is probably  not it.

happy牧羊UID: 2662770

刚刚没存上    喵的 白整了 下次一定保存一遍！！！

happy牧羊UID: 2662770

前几天的作业 没粘贴上来 囧

Two sorts of good news from an unhappy city

NEW ORLEANS新奥尔良 is used to big weekends（来自Yahoo answer的解释A big weekend is a weekend with events that are important to people.To say that New Orleans is used to big weekends means that New Orleans is accustomed to handling important events that attract lots of interest and lots of people from other places.） but the last one stood out清晰的显出 引人注目 杰出 出色 . On February 6th, voters elected a new mayor, Mitch Landrieu, in a landslide压倒性的胜利 more unequal than any in memory 大大胜出了人们记忆中的任何一位参选者.The next day, the city’s beloved football team, the Saints—famous mostly for bumbling（also from yahoo answer :Sort of a cross between stumbling, fumbling, and bungling. In other words, according to the writer, not winning.） —won the Super Bowl for the first time in their 43-year existence. To those monumental happenings, the annual bacchanal酒徒 of Carnival狂欢会 , now in full swing已经全面启动 进入关键时刻, seemed an appropriate backdrop. The day after the big game, New Orleanians walked around in a blissful极度的幸福的；（精神上）极乐的haze 烟雾, with schools, courts, and workplaces operating at half-strength 不懂？ and strangers greeting one another with hugs and the team’s signature chant: “Who dat!”The turn of events has given the city a dose of optimism it sorely痛苦地；剧烈地 needs after a period when its future has often seemed very much in doubt. A bit of the old swagger is back.不懂？

It’s hard to know how much to connect the Saints’ success to that of Mr Landrieu, the state’s lieutenant-governor副总督 副州长, who snagged阻碍（=stop） 66% of the vote. But there is a common theme to both results: cross-racial unity in a city that was once staunchly 坚定地 segregationist 种族隔离主义, and more recently has been governed under an uneasy detente .(国际关系等的)缓和between wealthy whites who control most of the city’s economic affairs and powerful blacks who run its politics.控制经济和掌控政治的新表达

The election of Mr Landrieu, a scion 嫩芽，子孙of Louisiana’s most prominent突出的，杰出的；突起的，凸出的 political clan党派（小集团）；部族（可追溯到同一祖先的部落分支） 家族and a surprise late entry into the race, may signal a departure from all that. For starters首先（=for the first）, Mr Landrieu is white. But his family has always been popular among blacks, in part because his father, Moon Landrieu, was the first mayor to put African-Americans in positions of real power at City Hall市政府. (Moon Landrieu was also the city’s last white mayor; he left office in 1978.)

Still, the latest election was uncharted territory未知的领域. Mr Landrieu won overwhelmingly among both blacks and whites; early analysis suggests he won 70% of the white vote and 63% of the black vote. It was a remarkably unanimous全体一致的，一致同意的verdict裁定；定论，判断性意见, considering that New Orleanians have historically voted along racial lines种族界限. Just over a year earlier, of course, Americans had elected a black president, a result that clearly shook up the old patterns.

It is hard not to read Saturday’s results as a rebuke指责，训斥of Ray Nagin. The outgoing 友善的，即将离去的 mayor was barred from running by term limit任期, but he was surely on voters’ minds. Four years ago, Mr Landrieu lost to Mr Nagin in a tight election？ after Mr Nagin appealed to black voters’ racial loyalties. In that election, Mr Landrieu got only about one in five black votes.

Since then, however, blacks and whites alike have become increasingly dissatisfied with Mr Nagin; his approval rate was recently measured at a dismal 20%. What drives his low numbers is open to debate. Surely some of it owes to the city’s halting recovery from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But Mr Nagin’s low numbers are also partly a function of his habit of dividing his constituents, suggesting that any criticism of him is racially motivated and muttering darkly about a “shadow government” and a conspiracy阴谋，密谋to install whites in offices once held by blacks. Last weekend, New Orleanians of all colours and walks of life seemed to say: let’s move on. Now that’s a lot to celebrate.

好词
adj monumental prominent
adv sorely staunchly
n   landslide bumbling detente
verb snag
好搭配
big weekends
stand out
now in full swing
a blissful haze
a dose of optimism
For starters
uncharted territory
unanimous verdict

好句式、搭配
The day after the big game, New Orleanians walked around in a blissful haze , with schools, courts, and workplaces operating at half-strength and strangers greeting one another with hugs and the team’s signature chant: “Who dat!”
The turn of events has given the city a dose of optimism it sorely needs after a period when its future has often seemed very much in doubt. A bit of the old swagger is back.
... who control most of the city’s economic affairs and powerful blacks who run its politics.
What drives his low numbers is open to debate.

happy牧羊UID: 2662770

Clash of generations
Britain will be rent, not by class warfare阶级斗争, but by an age divide, a new book argues
The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took their Children’s Future—and Why They Should Give it Back. By David Willetts. Atlantic; 314 pages; £18.99. Buy fromAmazon.co.uk

WITH a general election大选 just a few months away, the class-war trumpets阶级斗争的号角 are sounding loud and clear in Britain. From the Labour工党 ranks come tired jibes about Conservative policies保守性政策 designed on the playing fields of Eton. 来自工人阶层的群众嘲弄起伊顿公学运动场上筹划的保守政策来。From the Conservative benches保守党席位 a more interesting proposition has appeared.

In the worry about the shift of resources from the increasingly workless working class to the increasingly unleisured leisure class something new and important is being missed, says David Willetts, a Tory MP and one of his party’s relatively few acknowledged Deep Thinkers. It is the massive and crippling严重损害身体的，极有害的 shift in resources to retiring baby-boomers from the slimmer generation coming after them. Britain is ever more divided by age.

Altogether British people are worth about £7 trillion ($10.9 trillion). This can be divided roughly into £1.6 trillion in personal financial assets (shares, savings), £3.7 trillion in housing (£2.5 trillion if you subtract mortgages) and £1.8 trillion in personal and company pension schemes退休金计划. It is logical that older people should have accumulated more wealth than younger ones. But the proportions seem to be shifting sharply in favour of the older cohorts同伴 追随者 助手, especially those aged 55 to 65.

Half the population are under 40 years old but they hold only about 15% of all financial assets.持有多少财产的表达 People under 44 own, again, just 15% of owner-occupied housing 房主自用住宅. Comparing the financial and housing wealth of different age groups in 1995 and 2005 the Bank of England found that those aged 25 to 34 had seen their wealth fall？不懂, whereas those aged 55 to 64 had seen theirs triple. It helped that inflation was galloping 奔驰  when the older group was borrowing to buy homes, but slowed thereafter此后 以后 而后.

If pensions are counted, the situation is even more skewed歪曲的. Lushly funded final- salary schemes are now broadly closed to new members, in the private sector私营机构 at least. Baby-boomers can chuck辞职 the day job at 60 or 65 and head off阻止 拦截 into the perma-tanned sunset？ (they will probably prove freakishly反常地;怪异地 long-lived), borrowing against the inflated value of their houses as they do so. Their children must slog on towards an infinitely receding retirement age, squirrelling away money存款 for their meagre微薄的 defined-contribution pensions as a growing proportion of state spending is devoted to the needs of a massive generation of the elderly.

Young people have little chance of building up similar wealth. They are struggling to get on the housing ladder, though close to a fifth of people between 50 and 59 years old own a second home. Jobs for the young were getting scarcer 罕见 稀少 even before the crash. Yet more and more older people are working and earning more, relative to young workers, than before.

On top of this此外 , older baby-boomers have dodged 躲开 避开two speeding bullets, leaving their descendants squarely正对着地；径直地；不偏不倚地 in the line of fire火力线. The first is the bill for bailing out跳伞 保释 the financial sector; the second, the effect of climate change on the cost of energy, water, flood-prevention防洪 and the like. Other countries have ageing populations, but the problem in Britain is especially acute. British baby-boomers tended to believe their houses were all the piggy bank储蓄罐 they needed. They neglected to make other comparable savings or they borrowed against property to finance their old age. (One result of rock-bottom最低点 最低的 savings rates was that British banks, which did not have the same access to retail deposits小额零星存款 as banks in other, more provident精打细算的 未雨绸缪的 countries, got into trouble leaning heavily on the volatile wholesale markets批发市场 for their cash.)Mr Willetts is not the only writer to worry about baby-boomers crashing through society like a flash flood.这个比喻不错 Nor is this his first take on it. But two things distinguish this book from other offerings.

The first is the attempt to construct a logically compelling theory of self-interested altruism and reciprocity, enlisting anthropologists, Enlightenment philosophers and today’s game theorists to do so. There is an unvoiced contract that binds 约束 捆 绑 the generations. Parents look after their children, with a view to helping them do at least as well as they themselves have done, and grown-up children look after their parents, in the hope that their children will do the same for them one day. But there is now “a breakdown in the balance between the generations”, thanks to the colossal巨大的 庞大的 size of one of them. And it has brought social consequences as well as economic ones, including the disappearance of trust between unrelated adults and children and a long, messy凌乱的 拖泥带水的 transition to independence for young people today.

The second reason to read this well-written book is the wealth of social detail that Mr Willetts, with his wonderful magpie mind？, spreads before the reader. He looks, for example, to England’s historically smallish相当小的 微小的, nuclear families for an explanation of the country’s early adoption of markets and the rule of law. Weaving together使交织、组合在一起 birth rates and immigration policy, he has an ingenious巧妙 神奇 explanation for why workers from Lodz flock to London, where housing costs are higher than almost anywhere else in the world, whereas workers from Liverpool on the whole do not. As society becomes more segregated种族隔离的;实行种族隔离政策的  by age, he points out, some council estates now have ratios of adults to hormone-heavy adolescent males more typical of violent Yemen or Somalia than of developed Western countries. He turns up statistics showing that most women, employed or not, spend more time caring for their young children now than they used to, and suggests that most people have become better parents (doing more for their own children) but worse citizens (doing less for others). The end notes alone are a feast不懂.

This is not a party-political book. It is, however, a polemic争论 辩论. Mr Willetts places a big bet on demography, giving short shrift to other factors affecting behaviour, such as technology and religion. This allows him to touch plausibly貌似有理地 on many hot- button themes—the erosion of social capital, entrenched使处于牢固地位；牢固确立  inequality and social immobility—but it stops short of a full explanation of them. He is also a little hard on the boomers, who have, after all, presided over主持 负责 economic growth, cloned sheep, become gay-friendly, spent a lot of time and money looking after their children and grandchildren, and who will not escape the current financial storm unscathed安然无恙的.

In the end we are left with a question. Are the baby-boomers a lucky generation or a selfish one? Mr Willetts, born in 1956, is too prudent谨慎的；慎重的；精明的 to answer categorically明确地;直截了当地, but his arguments suggest that if nothing else they are certainly a careless one. Prolonged economic growth tends to make people assume that future generations too will grow richer, and hence to make less provision在这里应该翻译成“准备” for them.年轻人期望太高 但是准备太少 Yet the Victorians built railways and city halls for their descendants in what was one of Britain’s most optimistic eras. And the boomers’ descendants may have more cash but they are also likely to face far higher costs. Mr Willetts cites, approvingly赞许地 满意地 , the way some American Indian tribal councils部落会议 used to take decisions in the light of how they would affect the next seven generations. In Britain, alas（表示悲伤或遗憾）哎呀，唉, it is painfully hard to see beyond预见 the next election

http://bbs.ecocn.org/viewthread.php?tid=31127 全文翻译 from ECO中文论坛

这篇文章读的比较困难，可能是太多文化背景的东西。不过这样的文章也能学到更多外国的文化背景，很不错，要多多研读、学习。

happy牧羊UID: 2662770

Printing body parts

Making a bit of me  A machine that prints organs is coming to market  Feb 18th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

THE great hope of transplant surgeons移植外科医生 is that they will, one day, be able to order replacement body parts on demand. At the moment, a patient may wait months, sometimes years, for an organ from a suitable donor合适的捐献者. During that time his condition may worsen. He may even die. The ability to make organs as they are needed would not only relieve suffering but also save lives. And that possibility may be closer with the arrival of the first commercial 3D bio-printer for manufacturing human tissue and organs.

The new machine, which costs around $200,000, has been developed by Organovo, a company in San Diego that specialises in regenerative medicine, and Invetech, an engineering and automation firm in Melbourne墨尔本, Australia. One of Organovo’s founders, Gabor Forgacs of the University of Missouri, developed the prototype模型 样本 on which the new 3D bio-printer is based. The first production models will soon be delivered to research groups which, like Dr Forgacs’s, are studying ways to produce tissue and organs for repair and replacement. At present much of this work is done by hand or by adapting existing instruments and devices.

To start with, only simple tissues, such as skin, muscle and short stretches of blood vessels, will be made, says Keith Murphy, Organovo’s chief executive, and these will be for research purposes. Mr Murphy says, however, that the company expects that within five years, once clinical trials临床试验 are complete, the printers will produce blood vessels for use as grafts移植 in bypass surgery【医】绕道手术. With more research it should be possible to produce bigger, more complex body parts. Because the machines have the ability to make branched tubes, the technology could, for example, be used to create the networks of blood vessels needed to sustain larger printed organs, like kidneys, livers and hearts.

Printing historyOrganovo’s 3D bio-printer works in a similar way to some rapid-prototyping machines used in industry to make parts and mechanically functioning models. These work like inkjet喷墨 printers, but with a third dimension. Such printers deposit droplets of polymer聚合物 which fuse together to form a structure. With each pass of the printing heads, the base on which the object is being made moves down a notch刻下切口. In this way, little by little渐渐 缓缓, the object takes shape塑性 改变. Voids in the structure and complex shapes are supported by printing a “scaffold”脚手架；建筑架； 鹰架；断头台；绞刑架 of water-soluble material. Once the object is complete, the scaffold is washed away洗涤 冲刷.

Researchers have found that something similar can be done with biological materials. When small clusters of cells are placed next to each other they flow together, fuse and organise themselves. Various techniques are being explored to condition在这里怎么解释啊 the cells to mature into functioning body parts—for example, “exercising” incipient muscles using small machines.

Though printing organs is new, growing them from scratch on scaffolds has already been done successfully. In 2006 Anthony Atala and his colleagues at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina made new bladders膀胱  for seven patients. These are still working.

Dr Atala’s process starts by taking a tiny sample of tissue from the patient’s own bladder (so that the organ that is grown from it will not be rejected by his immune system). From this he extracts precursor cells that can go on to form the muscle on the outside of the bladder and the specialised cells within it. When more of these cells have been cultured in the laboratory, they are painted onto a biodegradable能进行生物降解的 bladder-shaped scaffold which is warmed to body temperature. The cells then mature and multiply. Six to eight weeks later注意 这个几周之后可以不用after, the bladder is ready to be put into the patient.

The advantage of using a bioprinter is that it eliminates the need for a scaffold, so Dr Atala, too, is experimenting with inkjet technology. The Organovo machine uses stem cells干细胞 extracted from adult bone marrow骨髓 and fat脂肪 as the precursors学会在文中使用as表达两者的相似程度. These cells can be coaxed诱哄 花言巧语 into differentiating into many other types of cells by the application of appropriate growth factors. The cells are formed into droplets 100-500 microns微米 微粒 in diameter and containing 10,000-30,000 cells each. The droplets retain their shape well and pass easily through the inkjet printing process.

A second printing head is used to deposit这里面取啥意思 scaffolding—a sugar-based hydrogel水凝胶. This does not interfere with打扰 妨碍 the cells or stick to忠于 信守 them. Once the printing is complete, the structure is left for a day or two, to allow the droplets to fuse together融合在一起. For tubular管子构成的；有管状部份的 structures, such as blood vessels, the hydrogel is printed in the centre and around the outside of the ring of each cross-section横断面 before the cells are added. When the part has matured, the hydrogel is peeled away层层剥落 from the outside and pulled from the centre like a piece of string一条带子.

The bio-printers are also capable of（be capable of 杜绝can able这样的烂词） using other types of cells and support materials. They could be employed, Mr Murphy suggests, to place liver cells on a pre-built, liver-shaped scaffold or to form layers of lining and connective tissue that would grow into a tooth. The printer fits inside a standard laboratory biosafety cabinet, for sterile无菌的 operation. Invetech has developed a laser-based calibration校订 标准 刻度 system to ensure that both print heads deposit their materials accurately, and a computer-graphics system allows cross-sections of body parts to be designed.

Some researchers think machines like this may one day be capable of printing tissues and organs directly into the body. Indeed, Dr Atala is working on one that would scan the contours of the part of a body where a skin graft was needed and then print skin onto it. As for bigger body parts, Dr Forgacs thinks they may take many different forms, at least initially. A man-made biological substitute for a kidney, for instance, need not look like a real one or contain all its features in order to clean waste products from the bloodstream. Those waiting for transplants are unlikely to worry too much about what replacement body parts look like, so long as they work and make them better.

happy牧羊UID: 2662770

The politics of repression in China ··················中国政治镇压 （这篇文章不会被和谐吧 :mad: ）
What are they afraid of?
The economy is booming and politics stable. Yet China’s leaders seem edgy 紧张的；烦躁不安的

“THE forces pulling China toward integration and openness are more powerful today than ever before,” said President Bill Clinton in 1999. China then, though battered 连续猛击 殴打 砸毁 这里应该表示“遭到重创” by the Asian financial crisis, was busy dismantling（dismantle逐渐地废除，取消） state-owned enterprises国有企业 and pushing for 争取 admission to the World Trade Organisation. Today, however, those forces look much weaker.

总结了过去中国的外交政策，虽有一些动作，却仍然不够开放。

A spate of recent events最近一连串事件, from the heavy jail sentences passed on传递 传达 human-rights activists to an undiplomatic无机智的;笨拙的  obduracy顽固;倔强 at the climate-change negotiations in Copenhagen last December, invite questions请提问 about the thinking of China’s leaders. Has their view of the outside world and dissent at home changed? Or were the forces detected by Mr Clinton and so many others after all not pulling so hard in the direction they were expecting?

对中国的外交政策提出疑问。

The early years of what China calls its “reform and opening” after 1978 were marked by cycles of liberalisation and repression怎么理解？. The turning-points were usually marked by political crisis: dissent on the streets, leadership struggles, or both. Now, however, the only big protest movements are repressed ones among ethnic minorities少数民族 in Tibet and Xinjiang. China’s big cities are hardly roiled使焦急  by political turmoil政治骚乱. By the time Liu Xiaobo, an academic, was sentenced to 11 years in prison in December, dissident 持不同政见者 debate surrounding the reform manifesto 宣言 he had issued a year earlier had long subsided. Yet it was the heaviest-known penalty imposed on any activist for “inciting subversion颠覆” since such a crime was written into law in 1997.

China has so far survived the global economic downturn全球经济衰退 with hardly any of the agitation many once feared it might cause among unemployed workers or jobless university graduates. The economy grew at a very robust-sounding 8.7% last year and is predicted by many to be on course for similar growth in 2010.

Sweeping changes are due in the senior leadership in 2012 and 2013, including the replacement of President Hu Jintao and of the prime minister, Wen Jiabao. But if a struggle is brewing 正在酝酿, signs of it are hard to spot. An unusually high-profile经常出镜（或见报）的；高姿态的 campaign against organised crim 有组织的罪行；犯罪集团by the party chief of Chongqing municipality市长, Bo Xilai, has raised eyebrows.扬眉毛，表示惊讶  Some speculate推测；猜测；推断 that it is part of a bid by Mr Bo, who is a Politburo政治局(共产党之中央执行委员会) member, to whip up激起 popular support for his promotion to the Politburo’s all-powerful Standing Committee 常务委员会 in 2012. An online poll by an official website chose Mr Bo as the “most inspiring voice” of 2009.

But Andrew Nathan of Columbia University in New York does not see this as a challenge to the expected shoo-in稳操胜券 for Xi Jinping, the vice-president, as China’s next leader, despite Mr Xi’s failure last year to garner 获得，得到，收集（信息、支持等） the leading military post军事驻地 analysts thought would form part of his grooming. Li Keqiang, a deputy prime minister副总理, still looks set to take over from Mr Wen in 2013呃，再说我们国家领导人内定的问题.

Against this backdrop of political stability 政治稳定的内幕and economic growth, the most credible interpretation of the government’s recent hard line强硬路线 is that the forces pushing its leaders towards greater liberalisation at home and sympathetic engagement共鸣 with the West are weaker than had been hoped. Nor is there any sign that the next generation of leaders see their mission differently. As Russell Leigh Moses, a Beijing-based political analyst北京工作的政治分析家, puts it: “The argument in policy-making circles where reform is concerned is ‘how much more authoritarian should we be?’ not ‘how do we embark or着手 Western-style democracy?’”

Tough though the recent sentences of activists have been, they are hardly out of keeping with the leadership’s approach to dissent in recent years. This has involved giving a bit of leeway自由活动的空间
to freethinking individuals, but occasionally punishing those seen as straying 偏离 too far. Since late last year two activists have been jailed in an apparent attempt to deter people from organising the parents of children killed in shoddily built schools during an earthquake in Sichuan province in 2008. But another critic of the government’s handling of the parents’ grievances不满,不平;抱怨,牢骚, Ai Weiwei, remains free in Beijing and just as outspoken.

The coming months are unlikely to see much change. Despite boasting of their country’s resilience
in the face of the global economic crisis, China’s leaders still appear jittery紧张不安的；心神不宁的. Mr Wen has forecast that 2010 will see “even greater complexity in the domestic and international situation”. China’s security chief, Zhou Yongkang, in a speech published this week said the task of maintaining social stability “was still extremely onerous艰巨的 繁重的”.

Some Chinese economists worry out解决 loud that China’s massive stimulus-spending might have bought the country only a temporary reprieve缓刑 暂缓. Bubbles, they fret烦恼 发愁, are forming in property markets, inflationary pressure is building up and reforms needed to promote sustained growth (including measures to promote urbanisation城市化) are not being carried out fast enough. Occasionally, even the government’s worst nightmare is mooted 提出 争论as a possibility: stagflation滞涨（通货膨胀，就业率和商业活动持续低迷）. A combination of fast-rising prices and low growth might indeed be enough to send protesters抗议者 反对者 on to the streets.

Abroad, Chinese leaders are struggling to cope with what they feel to be an accelerated shift in the global balance of power, in China’s favour. This has resulted in what Mr Moses describes as behaviour ranging from “strutting to outright stumbling”. They reacted with oratorical演讲 fury愤怒 in January, when America announced a $6.4 billion arms deal with Taiwan. But while pandering 煽动 to popular nationalism at home, they remain aware of China’s limitations. This week China allowed an American aircraft-carrier航空母舰 to pay a port call to Hong Kong, just a day before President Obama was due to defy grim严峻的 冷酷的 warnings and meet the Dalai Lama in Washington.

Chinese leaders can be confident that the plight of dissidents and the ever-louder grumbles抱怨 牢骚 of foreign businessmen over the barriers they face in China will not keep the world away. From May China will be visited by a series of foreign leaders going to the World Expo in Shanghai. Among the first will be France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, much reviled 谩骂 诟骂（艹 这词用的真是有点别有用心） by Chinese nationalists for his stance态度 架势 on Tibet. China sees the Expo, like the 2008 Beijing Olympics, as a chance to flaunt夸耀（别有用心的家伙们啊） its strength. But, as Mr Clinton noted of China in 1999, “a tight grip紧抓 is actually a sign of a weak hand”.

happy牧羊UID: 2662770

[size=0.9em]Health reform
Looking for progressBarack Obama unveils a revised health-reform plan[size=0.7em]Feb 23rd 2010 | NEW YORK | From
The Economist
online

[size=0.74em]AP

[size=0.8em]HEALTH reform has been the Obama administration’s main domestic policy priority for nearly a year, but the president himself has been frustratingly slippery on the topic. Although he has given plenty of speeches on the topic and discussed various worthy ideas, he has sounded more like a chin-stroking academic than a tough-minded politician. Until now, he has preferred to let Congress come up with specific proposals. Then, on Monday February 22nd, Mr Obama at last unveiled his own set of proposals for reforming America’s troubled health system.
[size=0.8em]It is a gamble bred of desperation. Mr Obama’s aloof strategy, adopted in response to the failure of Bill Clinton’s micro-managed attempt at health reform over a decade earlier, seemed shrewd just a few weeks ago. After months of wrangling, the Democrats did manage to push (slightly different) reform bills through the House and the Senate; all they needed to do was to reconcile them into a final law. But before they could, the upset Republican victory in the recent Senate race in Massachusetts robbed the Democrats of the 60 votes they need for easy passage in the upper house.
[size=0.8em]That has made it extremely difficult for Democrats to pass health reform this year. But not impossible: Democrats could yet win over a few Republicans, or try to push a bill through the Senate using a manoeuvre known as “budget reconciliation”—which requires 51, not 60, votes in that chamber. Either, veteran analysts agree, would be a long shot.
[size=0.8em]Mr Obama insisted in his state-of-the-union speech that he would push for comprehensive reform this year. He has promised to listen more carefully to Republican ideas and plans to hold a televised health summit with the opposition on February 25th. His aides suggest that he is now open to using the controversial tactic of budget reconciliation for health reform.
[size=0.8em]At heart Mr Obama’s reform proposals are similar to those contained in a comprehensive health bill passed by the Senate just before Christmas. Using a mix of regulation and subsidies, Mr Obama’ s plan would also restructure the health-insurance market so that individuals would be required to purchase coverage and insurers would be mandated to provide it. But seizing on recent popular outrage at rate increases announced by regional health insurers (rises of 39% were announced for some Californians, for example), Mr Obama’s proposal would go further, creating a panel to watch for “unreasonable or unjustified” increases.
[size=0.8em]Mr Obama’s plan does differ in some other ways. To get the Senate bill passed, Democratic leaders had to cut special deals that stank of corruption. For example, labour unions hated a tax on gold-plated insurance plans found in the Senate bill (because their members often enjoy such plans), so dealmakers carved out an exemption for them. Nebraska’s Senator Ben Nelson refused to join the caucus unless the federal government paid for his state’s extra costs for Medicaid, a government health scheme for the indigent. Now Mr Obama’s plan simply extends these special deals to everyone.
[size=0.8em]This largesse comes at a price. The administration estimates that its bundle of proposals will cost some $950 billion, a price tag which falls between the cost of the Senate bill ($871 billion) and the House version (over one trillion dollars). This estimate breaks Mr Obama’ s pledge to keep any reform effort under $900 billion. And that $950 billion figure may yet grow. The Congressional Budget Office, an official agency that is the referee in such matters, this week said that the president’s plan does not offer enough detail for the agency to determine its likely cost.
[size=0.8em]In sum, the proposal looks like a gamble. Because budget reconciliation must be finalised within two months, the strength of his hand will become clear shortly. Even if health reform does fail this year, however, critics can no longer say that was because Mr Obama refused to enter the scrum.

happy牧羊UID: 2662770

[size=0.9em]The Dead Sea scrolls
Voice of reason[size=0.7em]Feb 18th 2010 | From
The Economist
print edition

[size=0.74em]eyevine

[size=0.81em]The power of the written word

[size=0.8em]The Story of the Scrolls: The Miraculous Discovery and True Significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls. By Geza Vermes.
Penguin; 260 pages; £9.99. Buy from
Amazon.co.uk
[size=0.8em]WITHIN a century or so of Christianity’s emergence, Jews and Christians were having heated disputes over certain prophetic passages in the Hebrew scriptures. They were arguing not only over the meaning of those verses, but over their precise wording. Each side suspected the other of doctoring manuscripts in order to support its own interpretations.
[size=0.8em]At least until the late 20th century, it was almost impossible for modern scholars to throw any light on the substance of these disputes: in other words, to say which party was correct in its claims as to which wording was the oldest. There are clearly some small but significant differences between the Hebrew used by most Jews for at least 1,400 years or so—the Masoretic text—and the Septuagint, a translation into Greek made for Hellenistic Jews in Egypt about 800 years earlier, using a Hebrew original which has been lost. But nobody could really explain the source of these differences. Was it the case that the translators deliberately set out to mislead, or did later editors alter the Hebrew?
[size=0.8em]Debate about this and many other delicate matters was transformed by the discovery, starting in 1947, of nearly 900 documents, in a series of caves in the desolate landscape east of Jerusalem. The scrolls, the first of which was found by a young goatherd, are a mixture of biblical and quasi-biblical texts, plus some previously unknown writings, all apparently possessed by (and perhaps produced by) a dissident Jewish community just before and during the time of Jesus Christ.
[size=0.8em]The analysis of such ultra-sensitive material requires calm judgment—and Geza Vermes, a retired Oxford professor, is widely credited with having the coolest head among the scholars who have devoted their careers to studying the scrolls and sharing their insights. Some of his writing is controversial. He has, for example, strong personal opinions on the “historical Jesus”, and like anybody who enters that field he has attracted both admirers and detractors. But in this short personal memoir, he sticks mainly to the known facts about the scrolls, and the arguments they have caused. On this matter, he is careful and fair-minded.
[size=0.8em]It may help that his personal story stands at the tragic interface between Christianity and Judaism in the 20th century. As the 85-year-old Mr Vermes recalls, his Hungarian Jewish parents died in the Holocaust, even though the family, which was not religious, had converted to Catholicism in the 1930s. Young Geza was saved by the family’s Catholic contacts and went on to study in western Europe. Ordained as a Catholic priest and educated at Catholic universities, he later reverted to his Jewish roots. As a lifelong analyst of the scrolls, whose efforts to maximise scholarly access have been gratefully recalled by younger biblical scholars, such as Britain’s Philip Davies, Mr Vermes is well placed to dissect the precise significance of this unique discovery, and to assess the many theories it triggered.
[size=0.8em]One popular conspiracy theory held that the Catholic scholars who did the initial analysis of the scrolls kept their conclusion secret because it challenged the Christian faith. Mr Vermes, who was close to that research effort, finds good reason to criticise it for slowness and carelessness—but no ground to assert a conspiracy. Nor does he accept oversimplified theories that directly link the community which gave rise to the scrolls with the advent of Christianity. The manuscripts are relevant to the study of Christian beginnings, but they are not the whole story.
[size=0.8em]For Mr Vermes, the Dead Sea scrolls provide both reassurance and difficult questions for believing Christians and Jews alike. The reassuring news for Jews is that the scrolls, comprising versions of the Hebrew scriptures in use about 2,000 years ago, are mostly pretty close to the later Masoretic version.
[size=0.8em]Although Mr Vermes does not spell this out in detail, there is also some intriguing news for Christians: certain “Old Testament” passages which they hold dear—but which are mysteriously absent in the Masoretic version—do feature in the scrolls. They don’t seem to have been late Christian inventions. The challenging thing for both faiths to accept is that multiple versions of the Hebrew scriptures appear to have been in circulation for a very long time—to a degree that casts doubt on the existence of one original set of words. Indeed, the very idea there was a single
Ur-text from which later versions diverge either more or less is hardly tenable, as Mr Vermes persuasively argues.
[size=0.8em]Many believers in revealed religion, especially those who regard text as the primary medium of revelation, will find that hard. But if they do accept it, it will be much easier for believers in different religions to have civilised debates without coming to blows. As someone who has significantly advanced that cause, Mr Vermes can look back on a life well lived.