Classic Southern fried green tomatoes are cooked in bacon drippings in a cast iron skillet. My version is more Mediterranean. I use a heavy nonstick skillet, which requires less oil than cast iron, but either will work.

• bacon: 咸肉,熏肉，可以用“bring home the bacon”表达“成功、挣到养家糊口的钱”。另外，解救某人摆脱困境可以说：save sb’s bacon/neck。
• drippings:在此处表示烤肉汁，这个词还有油汁、滴落物及水滴的意思。dripping当形容词用时有湿淋淋的意思，如Her face was dripping with sweat. 她脸上汗水淋淋。
• cast :一般表示向…投以（视线、笑容等），投射（光、影子等）等意思，在此处表示浇铸、铸造，和iron一起表示抛铸铁制的。cast iron另外还有个意思是“有力的；确实的；确定不移的”
• skillet:煎锅
• Mediterranean：地中海的
• nonstick：adj. 不粘附的(没有粘性的,不会粘着的,灵活的)

1 pound firm green tomatoes

1/2 cup cornmeal (you will not use all of it)

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Extra virgin olive oil or canola oil for frying

• firm：做名词用时一般表示公司、商号的意思，文中做形容词用，表示坚硬的
• cornmeal ：n. 玉蜀黍粉,玉米片,麦片
• ground pepper:胡椒粉
• virgin olive oil：初榨橄榄油。 virgin 是处女，男人们不要太意淫了。
• canola：蓖麻

1. Slice the tomatoes about 1/2 inch thick. Season the cornmeal with salt and pepper and dredge the tomatoes in it. You can do this in a large bowl, a flatter baking dish or a brown paper bag — whatever is easiest for you. You won’t use all of the cornmeal.

2. Heat a heavy skillet, either cast iron or nonstick, over medium-high heat, and add enough oil to coat the bottom by about 1/8 inch. Fry the tomatoes on each side until golden, about two to three minutes per side. Drain on paper towels, on a paper bag or on a rack. Keep warm in a low oven until all of the tomatoes are fried. Serve hot or warm.

Yield: Serves four.

Advance preparation: You can keep these warm in an oven for a short while, but they’re best served right away.

其实不算新闻了，是我几个月前在译言上翻译的文章，
原文在

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=7547085

译文可见

http://www.yeeyan.com/articles/view/83163/40422

为了翻译这篇文章，我查阅了不少资料，就是为了准确的译出文中所有的人名和物名，觉得这样才能对得起那些为了我们的文化而付出心血乃至青春的人们，不论60年前这些人站在哪一方。

文章很长，我会分几部分贴出

Taiwan art collection evokes tumultuous history

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Sixty years later Zhuang Ling remembers it all — the rain pelting down onto the roiling sea, his mother retching from seasickness and, of course, the cargo of priceless art works the freighter Chung Ting was carrying from China to the Taiwanese city of Keelung.

evoke 引起，引发
tumultuous 动荡的
pelting 打击，当我们形容大雨倾盆而下的时候可以说The rain is pelting on the ground.
retch 呕吐，类似于vomit；如果要形容令人作呕的话，有另外一个词 nauseating，或者简单的说disgusting也可以
freighter运输舰
Keelung 台湾的港口城市基隆

It was toward the end of the Chinese civil war, and Zhuang’s father had been ordered by the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek to help shepherd the cream of the country’s thousand-year-old imperial art collection from the Yangtze River port of Nanjing, ahead of the communist takeover of the mainland.

shepherd 最初的意思是牧羊人，或者动词放羊，引申为护送和照料
takeover接管，夺取

Today the Chung Ting mission — and two others like it — is memorialized in Taiwan’s National Palace Museum, home to some 93,000 items of Chinese calligraphy, porcelain, bronzes, landscape paintings, portraiture and figurines from Beijing’s Forbidden City. The museum also holds a treasure trove of 562,000 rare books and documents.

memorialize记载
calligraphy 书法
porcelain 瓷器，大家知道瓷器还有种说法就是china，实际上这里用china也是可以，但是因为上下文都充满了指代国家民族的China, Chinese，因此用porcelain从用词看会更加清晰明确一些。
landscape 山水风景画
portraiture 肖像，更简单的形式就是portrait
figurine 雕刻，这个词来自于figure(人像)，指小的雕琢而成的人像；我们知道雕塑的英文是sculpture，那么两者有何区别呢，从英译来看，sculpture更像是一个完整且较大型的三维雕塑，譬如断臂维纳斯，或者罗丹的沉思者，这样的艺术在中国古代好像就是佛像能算得上了。另外中国的传统艺术之一根雕，是root carving。

In the eyes of the Nationalists the transfer of the art was a patriotic act, taken to save China’s 5,000-year-old cultural heritage from Mao Zedong’s Communists.

Nationalist nationalist 本意是民族主义者，但是这里首字母大写，专指国民党人。当然国民党还有另外一种音译， Kuomingtang，简写为KMT
patriotic 爱国的，名词有两个 patriotism(爱国主义）和patriot(爱国者），后者还有一部梅尔吉布森的同名电影。2001年911事件后，美国出了一个著名的爱国者法案，USA PATRIOT Act，有意思的是其中USA PATRIOT，也就是美国爱国者，实际上是另外一堆单词的缩写，这个法案的全称是Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act，即”通过提供必要的工具截获和挫败恐怖主义从而让美国团结和强大法案“。谁说只有中国人会玩文字游戏……

For the Communists it was nothing less than a cosmic art theft, a final, desperate move from a discredited political gang.

nothing less than 这是加强语气的说法，如果后面跟的是一个负面的词，就可以译为彻头彻尾的
cosmic 本意是宇宙的，引申为巨大无边无沿的；我发现美国人形容巨大有很多种说法，除去我们都知道的huge, enormous, 前不久我看某美剧里还有人说 it’s a colossal waste of time（这太浪费时间了），其中colossal也是巨大的意思，词源是希腊语中的巨石像
discredit失信
gang 黑帮，匪徒，当年两大政治势力互称对方为匪，打得血流成河，一个甲子过去，两边又开始眉来眼去，只可叹造化弄人

But with political tensions across the 100-mile-wide (160-kilometer-wide) Taiwan strait now receding, Beijing and Taipei are finally looking at ways of putting the bitterness behind them and sharing their precious artistic heritage.

tension 紧张
recede 倒退，退潮
bitterness 痛苦，怨恨
heritage 遗产，传统的传承物；一个相应的动词inherit，便是继承的意思

Beijing’s Palace Museum, the original home of the art works, has announced it will lend items from its own galleries, which hold three-quarters of the total original collection, to its Taiwan namesake to go on show in October.

namesake同名者

And while the Taiwan museum is not yet willing to reciprocate — it fears China would unilaterally repossess the art — a recent Beijing visit by senior Taiwan museum staff has opened a dialogue.

reciprocate 互换，回报，这个词看起来挺复杂，但是口语里用的还是很多的，还有种更加通俗的说法是 return the favor

That delights Zhuang Ling, now 71. He thinks the return of the transferred art — temporary or otherwise — would be a fitting memorial to his father, who died more than a decade before the reconciliation between Taiwan and China began.

delight 让某人高兴，如果看一些老片子，里面的人物会自称 I’m delighted，或者I’m pleased，但是现代人用的好像就没那么多了
memorial 纪念
reconciliation 和解，动词是reconcile，不过除了指两方和解之外，这个词还有让自身去接受的意思，譬如我们可以说I finally reconcile myself with the reality. 我终于能够面对现实了。

“His biggest wish was to bring these artifacts back to Beijing,” Zhuang said. “It was his most sincere regret that he could not realize this wish during his lifetime.”

sincere 诚挚的

文章很长，今天大概只说了1/3，后续部分敬请期待。

我们开设了一个twitter: @17bdc, 欢迎follow.

提供好的新闻线索，搞的我好像做新闻的… 职业病？

twitter和blog不一样，我们不会做非常多的分析，但我们会推荐比较多的好文章和资源。 如果朋友们有什么问题要问我们，我们也竭尽所能的回答。

我们一起上twitter吧。

For Sports Obsessed, a Site Tries to Please Every Fan
FanBase, 一个想取悦所有体育迷的网站

本文介绍一个体育维基网站Fanbase. 这个网站希望通过维基的方式把所有知名和不知名的运动员运动队一网打进，慢慢积聚人气之后，卖T恤。 我觉得这个想法不错，本人现在在做体育的产品，所以特地为大家介绍一篇体育的文章。

There will always be sports fans ready to relive and reargue the merits of celebrated professional sports teams like the 1995 Dallas Cowboys.

• merit: 优点
• celebrated:知名的，著名的

But how about the Long Beach State women’s water polo team?

A new Web site called Fanbase, backed with $5 million from venture capitalists, is creating an almanac of every professional and college athlete and team, no matter how obscure.

The company and its investors are betting that sports fans — and the players who hung up their cleats and goggles long ago — will want to review and update Web pages devoted to their thrilling victories and bitter defeats.

今年最值得期待的电影是什么，变形金刚2已经成为过去，但是年底我们有望看到另外一部大片，这便是泰坦尼克号导演詹姆斯卡梅隆闭关十多年之作 Avatar，这部片子的16分钟预告片也是一票难求，可以预见上映的火爆了。

By Cindy Clark, USA TODAY

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A sneak peek on Friday of Avatar, James Cameron’s highly anticipated epic adventure, drew an overall positive response from fans here.

sneak 偷偷摸摸的，电影界通常用sneak preview表示内部放映；它的名词sneaker，还有跑鞋的意思
peek 一瞥，偷偷的看
highly anticipated anticipate是期待的意思，highly anticipated 被高度期待的

“I was pretty impressed, especially technologically,” says Ryan Gillon, who took in a screening at the AMC Hoffman Theater. Two screenings were originally scheduled, but a third was added due to overwhelming demand.

impress 如果说一样东西让你印象深刻或者震惊，可以说it’s very impressive，或者说I’m very impressed
overwhelming 势不可挡的；动词overwhelm便是指通过巨大的优势取得压倒性胜利

“It’s definitely very pretty visually,” says Sean Colligan, who scored a walk-in seat because some ticket holders were no-shows.

“It seems like it’s (set) mostly in this computer-generated world,” says Gillon, who calls the 3-D effects “mind-blowing.”

mind-blowing令人极度兴奋的。blow这个词经常可以跟强烈的感情相关联，譬如 this movie blew me away，这场电影太震撼了；另外还有一个词mind-boggling，惊人的，用处也很广泛

The movie doesn’t hit theaters until December, but Cameron and Twentieth Century Fox offered free tickets to a 16-minute preview of the film at 102 screens across the nation.

hit hit虽然最基本的意思指打击，但是也经常用于形容产品打入市场

On Monday, the website offering the free tickets crashed from high traffic, causing frustration for some eager fans. “The first few hours I couldn’t get in, and then finally the website cleared up and I was able to get it,” says Gillon. “I’m a big James Cameron fan, and I’ve been waiting for him to do something new for a while.”

crash 崩溃，可以用来形容软件或者网站由于资源不足，或者不适当的操作导致非正常的结束。

With the technology now in place, Cameron — who first conceived the film 14 years ago — has spent the past four years realizing his vision. It is the Oscar-winning director’s first film since his 1997 blockbuster Titanic.

conceive构思，酝酿
blockbuster 票房大片

Cameron first broke the norm for movie trailers when he released a four-minute clip of Titanic, twice the typical length of previous trailers.

break the norm 打破常规

Avatar, which stars Sigourney Weaver, Sam Worthington, Michelle Rodriguez and Zoe Saldana, will be released Dec. 18.

Microsoft, Yahoo Unite Against Google Book Search

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) have confirmed that they have joined the Open Book Alliance, a newly formed group opposed to the Google Book settlement.Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) also reportedly joined the coalition, which is expected to make an announcement next week. Amazon, however, declined to comment.

• alliance: 这个词和后面的coalition 都是指联盟的意思。Alliance 通常和专有名词联合在一起，表示什么什么联盟。例如, Myspace joined Google Alliance to counter facebook.  Coalition这是比较随便一些，是通常意义上的联盟，但很少和专业名词联系在一起。
• Google Book settlement: Google 图书和解。Google 图书应当是Google所有产品中遭遇官司最多的产品， 可谓前无古人，后面有没有来者难说。 简单来说，Google把图书馆和书店的书都扫描成电子文档，这一步是不和版权所有人商量的，默认所有书籍是有限浏览的，但如果版权人声明一页都不能让潜 在的读书人看到，那么版权人可以向Google声明。 Google遭遇到了集体诉讼，这样的诉讼在中国是不允许的,否则三X奶粉就不用打个X. Google为了和这写诉讼人和解，于是在法院的许可下，出钱出力搞个网站，解决这个诉讼问题。 详情，可以点击链接查看，有中文版本。

The Open Book Alliance is a distinct organization from the Open Content Alliance, a group with similar goals created by Yahoo, the Internet Archive, and many universities.Last October, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) reached a settlement with the authors and publishers who brought a lawsuit against Google for scanning books for its search index without permission. The settlement awaits approval from the judge overseeing the case. The U.S. Department of Justice is also weighing whether the settlement merits antitrust action.

A fairness hearing to consider approval of the settlement is scheduled for October 7. The deadline for objections to the settlement is September 4.

• fairness hearing: 公平听证会。 fair,公平的. hearing 听证会， public price hearing 就是价格听证会。 中国也经常听到听证会，特别是价格听证会。但一般听证的结果是涨价和加税。

The major areas of contention revolve around issues of privacy, exclusivity, and indemnification from liability. Critics of the settlement want Google to commit to: offering online readers the same privacy protection enjoyed by offline readers; an open registry system rather than one controlled by two publishing industry groups; and indemnification from copyright claims for those who want to scan orphaned works — books for which the copyright holder cannot be found — as Google has done.

这一段介绍了争论双方的焦点。这段文字看起来简单，但说起来好像听难的， 也有不少看上去认识，但实际上还挺难的词语。

• contention:争论，或者指争论一方表达的观点。 例如， The contention of the government is that the typhoon was unable to be reported accurately.
• Revolve: 表示旋转，自转。例如，The earth revolves on its axis. 而 revolve around: 指围绕什么转。地球绕着月亮转就可以说， the earth revolves around the moon. 这里显然是引申的含义，表示抽象上的围绕。 本段中表示，争论的中就是隐私，专属权和赔偿。

• indemnification: 赔偿。
• Liability: liability 对于我们熟悉的应当是义务这个词语，而这里应当是指引起的麻烦。
• Orphan：孤儿。 这里是说那些版权拥有者找不到的书不得印刷，否则要赔偿。但我不知道什么书版权所有者竟然找不到呢。找不到还要什么版权？

In May, Google said that it planned “to build and support a digital book ecosystem to allow our partner publishers to make their books available for purchase from any Web-enabled device,” showing that Google Book Search will become a platform for Google book sales. This presumably explains Amazon’s reported decision to join the coalition opposing the settlement.

Google 旨在进入图书销售领域，这个白痴也看得出来，所以，Amazon才考虑要加入到反对者联盟中去。

To Google, Microsoft’s public opposition seems incongruous because the company shuttered its Live Book Search project last year “to focus on search verticals with high commercial intent, such as travel.”
“The Google Book settlement is injecting more competition into the digital books space, so it’s understandable why our competitors might fight hard to prevent more competition,” said Google spokesperson Gabriel Stricker in an e-mailed statement. “That said, it’s ironicYet, there’s incongruity too in Google’s reluctance to brawl publicly with the company that it opted not to name in its statement despite the growing number of skirmishes that Google and Microsoft face across an increasingly broad number of markets.

that some of these complaints are coming from a company that abandoned its book digitization effort because it lacked ‘commercial intent.’”

微软去年关闭了图书搜索，why? 因为这项目不赚钱。 但是现在他又加入雅虎来对抗Google, why？ 因为利益，就是不想让你Google牛。 记者说微软跳出来没道理，不按常理出牌，这事和你没关系。关系就在于Google是MS的竞争对手。

• incongruous:不一致，不协调。The traditional Chinese Medical methods are incongruous with the western medicine science. 后文中的incongruity 是它的名词形式。
• brawl: 公开闹事。
• opt to: 选择做什么事情。 Many workers opted to leave theirs jobs rather than take a cut pay. 工人宁愿选择失业，也不愿意减薪。 这里指Google选择不提微软的名字，但白痴也看得出来。
• skirmish: 小规模战斗。 微软和Google的小打小闹何其多，不过Google Chrome OS的横空出世，开始将微软的军了。

Two years ago, Google engineers, product managers, and executives tended to downplayblunt the efforts of journalists to highlight the corporate conflict. Google Docs, said CEO Eric Schmidt at the 2007 Web 2.0Yet, with the City of Los Angeles weighing whether to replace e-mail and productivity applications from Novell and Microsoft with Google Apps, it’s clear that competition between the two companies is real and a matter of high stakes. This has been evident too in Microsoft’s opposition to Google’s DoubleClick acquisition, its role in rousing the Department of Justice to derail the ad deal that Google last year planned to consummate with Yahoo, and its support for a broad antitrust case against Google.

competition between the two companies, in part to Expo, doesn’t really compete with Microsoft Office. Google Docs “does not have all the functionality, nor is it intended to have all the functionality, of Microsoft Office,” he said.

Google两年前和现在对微软的态度上发生了一些改变。两年前，低调处理，两年后，广告牌挂在了告诉路上。 但是微软更加龌龊一点，使阴招，要是在中国就和某搜索引擎有一拼。

• downplay: 低调,轻描淡写。这个词记住好处很多。比如说，你考了个高分，但老师只不过轻描淡写的提一下，就会有， The professor downplayed the thesis.
• blunt:钝化。
• rouse:唤醒。如 The alert rouses me from dreams at six every morning. 当然这个词也表示激起兴趣，这和唤醒其实是一个意思。 另外，arouse也表示激起兴趣，不过用于性欲和情感比较多。
• derail: 是指火车脱轨，用在这里表示让什么事情黄掉了。 这个词有助记法，rail是火车轨，而de这个前缀表示和XXX相反。和铁轨相反，就是脱轨，和中心话相反就是去中心化，这就是decentralize.

Google insiders have acknowledged being surprised by the breadth of the opposition to the Book Search settlement and the company has recently been more energetic about making its views known.

In one contentious aspect of the settlement, privacy, Google has been unable to answers to satisfy critics because the settlement doesn’t spell out the technical specifics the company claims must be known before commitments can be made. And other complaints about the settlement having to do with the registry are matters in which the publishing industry plaintiffs will have a greater say than Google.

What’s clear at this point is that Google, its competitors, and its critics will be wrestling over the settlement until the judge finally rules in two months.

Google显然始料未及，但也只好硬着头皮上了。

• plaintiff: 原告
• wrest: 争夺权力。 The people attempted to wrest the democracy over the government via Internet.

——– 分隔线 ——————

选择本文有几个因素：

1. Google 和解成功与否，法院近期将要判决，这次判决的成功与否可能影响Google Books的前途;
2. Google Books可以找到很多好书，免费的，至少也可以看到不少的内容，现在中文的书也不少了，虽然和英文不能比;
3. 微软和Google的竞争已经浮出了水面，从雅虎的争夺到办公软件市场的抢夺，再到Google Chrome操作系统的诞生，可谓一波未平，一波又起；
4. 瞧不起使阴招的公司，也希望那些看不清社会前进方向的人醒醒。 I’m rousing you from the sleep.

今天先暂时不注解新闻，而是请大家一起来看则故事

In March 1949, Eisenhower’s friend and personal physician, Dr. Howard Snyder, told Ike he would have to cut down his smoking from four packs of cigarettes per day to one pack:

physician: 医生，不要和physicist物理学家弄混了
Eisenhower: 美国第34任总统，也即二战期间的功勋彪炳的艾森豪威尔将军
cigarette: 香烟

After a few days of limiting his smoking, Eisenhower decided that counting his cigarettes was worse than not smoking at all, and he quit. He never had another cigarette in his life. … Eisenhower was frequently asked how he did it; he replied that it was simple, all he did was put smoking out of his mind. It helped, he would add with a grin, to develop a scornful attitude toward those weaklings who did not have the will power to break their enslavement. He [remarked]: “I nursed to the utmost … my ability to sneer.”

quit: quit smoking 戒烟
grin: 咧嘴笑
develop: 发展，培养
scornful: 鄙视的
attitude: 态度
weakling: 软弱的人
will power: 毅力，精神力量
enslavement: 被奴隶的状态，这里指陷入烟瘾无法自拔
nurse: 名词是护士，相应动词是悉心照料，但是还有一个动词的意思是心怀某类念头或者想法(To bear privately in the mind）
utmost: 极大的，最高程度的
sneer: 鄙视，讥笑
最后一句可能不好理解，实际上是因为宾语后置的原因，换成这样就容易点了 I nursed my ability to sneer to the utmost
“得以嘲笑那些（不能摆脱烟瘾的）人，我心怀极大窃喜”

这就是艾森豪威尔戒烟的故事，很简单，说戒就戒，绝不含糊。据说在他戒烟前，还有记者问他是否有信心能够戒烟成功，将军的回答是，我绝不戒第二次烟。

联系到我们的英语学习上，相信很多同学也曾经下过至少一次决心一定要攻克英语，如果你下过不止一次，那么，请和我们一起把这里当作决心的终点站，我们不要再下决心了，我们只要坚持和毅力。

让别人不停得去搜罗资料寻找捷径不停的求助别人如何学好英语吧，我们只要每天认真看一段新闻，背二十个单词。

我们曾经被英语折磨得死去活来，现在开始我们要把英语折磨得死去活来。

在这里我要给一年后的自己留一段话：

亲爱的自己，你现在一定觉得英语的阅读写作都如沐春风，不认识的单词越来越少，会用的单词越来越多。你要感谢我，因为这一年来我每天都在努力，风雨无阻，我把别人用来聊天和玩游戏时间用来学习，所以你现在才能在别人为工作或者考试发愁的时候自信满满。但是你要继续努力，为了两年后的你。

Life Expectancy Hits New High of Nearly 78

U.S. life expectancy has risen to a new high, standing at nearly 78 years, the government reported Wednesday.

The increase is due mainly to falling rates in almost all leading causes of death. The average life expectancy for babies born in 2007 is nearly three months longer than for those born in 2006.

The preliminary data are based on about 90 percent of the death certificates collected in 2007. The information comes from the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The United States continues to lag behind about 30 countries in estimated life span. Japan has the longest life expectancy: 83 for people born in 2007, according to the World Health Organization.

– Associated Press

本部分说到美国人的预期寿命延长到了78岁，但仍比30多个国家落后，其中日本是寿命最长的国家，83岁。

• Life Expectancy: 预期寿命。

Ranks of Uninsured, Poor Likely to Rise

The numbers of poor and uninsured Americans are probably rising, with more than 38.8 million thought to be in poverty.

Rebecca Blank, the Commerce Department’s undersecretary of economic affairs, spoke in advance of next month’s release of census data. Blank said the 2008 data will probably show a “statistically significant” increase in the poverty rate, to at least 12.7 percent. That would represent a jump of more than 1.5 million poor people last year.

The number of people who lack health insurance is also expected to increase from the current estimate of 46 million.

美国没有保险和贫困线下的人口有所攀升。 其中，有150万人生活在贫困线下，有4600万人没有医疗保险。

• Statistically significant: 统计上显著。 统计学上对A比B多和 B比A多有一个比较严格的定义，以确保这样的多不是出于随即因素。 社会统计学继承了统计学的东西，但往往来说，误差比想象中要大很多，很多统计原理不能直接应用。

CHEMICAL WEAPONS
Incineration-Plan Challenge Is Rejected

A federal judge has rejected a challenge to the U.S. Army’s plan to incinerate chemical weapons at four storage sites in the country, despite claims from a watchdog group that the practice releases toxic pollution.

U.S. District Judge Richard Eaton ruled Wednesday that the Chemical Weapons Working Group did not prove that “alternatives to incineration are readily available and capable of destroying the quantity and type of chemical warfare agents and munitions at the challenged sites.”

Destruction of the stockpiles, which date back as far as World War II, is required under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention.

The storage sites at issue are in Pine Bluff, Ark.; Tooele, Utah; Umatilla, Ore.; and Anniston, Ala. The stockpile in Aberdeen, Md., was not involved in the court arguments.

– Associated Press

燃烧化学武器引起了维权团体的控诉，但被法官拒绝。

• Incineration: 焚化，燃烧。 Most of the waster is incinerated.
• watchdog:维权人士。 这些维权人士监管公司/政府的行为，看是否伤害民权。 和我们的维权人士有些差别，我们那些上访的不算。
• stockpile:大量的储备。如the stockpile of nuclear weapon.

MERCURY EXPOSURE

Fish in 291 Waterways Found With Pollutant

Every fish in every stream tested in a national study by the U.S. Geological Survey contained traces of mercury, scientists said Wednesday, proof that the toxic pollutant is widespread.
The 11-year study examined 291 streams and rivers, including Rock Creek in the District, Potomac River tributaries in West Virginia and a creek on the Eastern Shore. In each waterway, all of the fish tested showed traces of mercury, a pollutant that spews out of power-plant smokestacks and settles into streams.

About one-quarter of the fish, including seafood species such as largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass, had mercury levels above federal limits for people who eat fish regularly.

Geological Survey spokeswoman Barbara Scudder said that seafood eaters with questions about mercury should refer to the Environmental Protection Agency’s fish-consumption warnings.

– David A. Fahrenthold

美国的小溪和河流的鱼被检出汞，并且超过经常食用鱼类的人群能承受的量。

• Mercury: 水银／汞
• waterway: 航路. Inland waterway: 内陆航路
• smokestack: 工厂的大烟囱。 stack, 一堆，一叠。 例如 a stack of books. stack 在程序中表示堆栈。
• spew out: 喷出。 spew 表示喷的意思，例如， the flames spewed from the aircraft’s engine. spew 也表示呕吐的意思，如she spewed up all she took at noon.
• largemonth bass: 大嘴鲈鱼。 相应的其他几个词语分别是小嘴鲈鱼，和细斑鲈鱼。

经济学人对金大中的纪念文章

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14254430

NO ONE would have been more pleased than Kim Dae-jung with North Korea’s announcement on Monday August 17th. The hermit state said that it would allow separated families to hold a reunion and let South Korean tourists back into the country. South Korea’s former president, who died the next day at the age of 85, was the foremost proponent of engagement with North Korea as a means to bring peace to the Korean peninsula.

hermit 隐居的，我记得新概念英语里有一篇文章叫做urban hermit，都市隐士
reunion 重聚，我们可以说family reunion, school reunion; 还有一个形式很相近的词，reunification，统一，这个词经常出现在两岸关系的文章里，就不多说了。
foremost，最重要的
proponent 支持者，它的反义就是opponent 反对者
engagement 以前我们说过，engage以及它的名词engagement有很多用法，包括约会，开战，雇用，订婚。这里的意思是共同参与某项事业
peninsula半岛，我们知道朝鲜是半岛，其他我们还会经常听到的是 Liaodong peninsula 辽东半岛， Scandinavian Peninsula 斯堪的纳维亚半岛

Mr Kim was widely praised for his bold decision to meet North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Il, in June 2000. But the achievement was later sullied after payments were found to have been made by South Korea to the North in exchange for attending the historic summit. The company at the centre of those payments, South Korea’s Hyundai Group, is once again at the forefront of initiating contact with North Korea. Hyundai’s chairman, Hyun Jeong-eun, recently had a four-hour lunch with North Korea’s leader.

sully 玷污
in exchange for 用以交换

Kim Jong Il was in good form, according to Ms Hyun. “He accepted all our requests,” she said. “He told us to tell him everything we wanted so we did.” Apart from pledging to allow family reunions and tours of his country (managed by Hyundai), the North Korean leader promised to “energise” the joint inter-Korean industrial park in Kaesong. He also pledged to allow commercial traffic across the heavily fortified border to resume at the levels reached before the latest bout in acrimony between the two Koreas.

in good form 也可以说in good shape，即指身体情况很好
pledge 承诺，保证；
energise 即energize，激活，赋予能量；本句里即指启动工业园
fortify 大家知道fortress 是城堡的意思，fortify 是相应的动词，建筑防御工事，加强防御
bout 一轮，回合
acrimony 深深的敌意

Ms Hyun’s private visit to North Korea has lent credence to those in Seoul who have been urging renewed diplomatic efforts towards thawing relations. Distrust between the two Koreas had reached a new level after North Korean missile and nuclear tests in April and May. South Korea’s president, Lee Myung-bak, has all but stopped political, cultural and family exchanges because of North Korea’s nuclear weapons. Mr Lee’s government has voted in favour of a UN resolution condemning North Korea’s human-rights record and lent strong support to international efforts to impose comprehensive economic sanctions against the regime in Pyongyang.

lend credence credence 是信任和推荐的意思；lend credence就是指为什么做信誉或信任方面的帮助，我们可以说This doesn’t lend credence to his argument，这不能为他的观点提供佐证
thaw解冻
in favor of我们在以前的文章里也遇到过，大家可以回头找找看
sanction 制裁

North Korea has been frosty too. In May it rejected requests by the American special representative for North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, to visit and said it would not return to multilateral negotiations that sought to end its nuclear weapons programme. Kurt Campbell, America’s assistant secretary of state for the region, said his country would not be an “ardent suitor” of North Korea. Tensions on the Korean peninsula rose with the sultry summer heat.

frosty 结霜的，也可以形容态度冰冷
multilateral 多边的，双边的关系我们可以说bilateral
ardent 热情的，热烈的；这句话的意思就是美国助理国务卿说朝鲜如果继续摆臭脸，也别指望美国死乞白赖的去求他们
sultry 闷热的

Then came the unexpected trip by Bill Clinton, America’s former president and husband of the current secretary of state, to Pyongyang at the beginning of August to meet Kim Jong Il. The visit was ostensibly a private one aimed at securing the release of two American journalists held for four months by North Korea since their apprehension on the border between North Korea and China. Mr Clinton had expressed regret that he did not try to normalise relations with North Korea during his last days in office. But Mr Clinton’s status as a former American president and his wife’s role raised speculation that a diplomatic channel had been opened.

ostensibly表面上看起来

All this would have pleased South Korea’s former leader no end. He won the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize for promoting inter-Korean reconciliation, human rights and democracy. Yet his “sunshine policy” toward North Korea is out of favour with the current South Korean government. At his last public engagement in June, Mr Kim defiantly defended his legacy. “There should be continued negotiations and patience” with North Korea, he said from a wheelchair. “Aid and compensation is needed for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.”

no end 这个不难猜，我们可以直接看英文解释: on and on for a long time

Some in South Korea view the “sunshine policy” as naive at best and at worst aiding and abetting the North’s nuclear programme. Still, at the time of his death, many South Koreans were echoing those sentiments for renewed dialogue with North Korea, worried that Mr Lee’s approach is inflexible and unimaginative. Although Mr Kim has died, his influence on relations between North and South Korea will persist.

naive 天真，我国某位著名政治家曾经一针见血的指出香港一些小报记者 Too simple， sometimes naive!
abet 教唆，怂恿
at best, at worst 这两个词组的用法，翻译过来就是， “往轻里说，这是天真；往重了说，就是资敌“。大家可以看出来 at best 描述的是相对而言不那么严重的情况，但其实也不是什么好事情；
unimaginative缺乏想象力

Some memorable quotes from former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung:

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“Democracy and the market economy are two sides of a coin or two wheels of a cart. Every nation that has embraced both democracy and a market economy has been successful.” — Inauguration speech, February 1998.

民主和市场经济是硬币的两面，亦或马车的双轮，密不可分。 如果一个国家同时践行民主和市场经济政策，这个国家就会走向繁荣。 1998年2月，就职演说。

• two sides of a coin：硬币的两面，是指密不可分的。 我们也有two sides of a sword, 是指双刃剑的意思，注意区分。
• inauguration: 就职, 就职典礼. 如 The inauguration of the president in united states  takes place on January 20.  就职典礼上的演说通常宣布总统执政理念，在天朝不一样，天朝要考揣测。

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“I have lived, and continue to live, in the belief that God is always with me. I know this from experience.” — Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, December 2000. Kim was recounting his rescue from what he believed would be his assassination after being abducted by South Korean intelligence agents in 1973.

我相信，并且继续相信，神和我同行。 从我的经验中，我即可体会到这一点。 2000年12月在诺贝尔奖的授奖发言。 （1973年， 金被南韩情报局绑架，他以为他没命了，但上帝帮助他获救了）

• recounting: 讲述自己的亲身经历。如， He was told to recount the details of the conversation to the court.
• assassination:暗杀。
• abduct:绑架。He had attempted to abduct the children. 情报局最喜欢做这事情。
• Intelligence agents: 情报局。我们熟知的CIA 就是 center intelligence agent, 中央情报局。 预知详情，可以访问CIA官方网站,他们有一个非常简单的域名，cia.org. 他们的宗旨是 The work of a nation, the center of intelligence. 这部门我们也有，不多说。

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“In 1980, I was sentenced to death by the military regime. For six months in prison, I awaited the execution day. Often, I shuddered with fear of death. But I would find calm in the fact of history that justice ultimately prevails.” — Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.

1980年，我被军暴判处死刑。 在域中的6个月里，我守候着死刑的来临。 死亡的恐惧时常让我颤抖，但我很快就让自己安定了，因为，历史证明，正义最终要战胜邪恶。 诺贝尔获奖宣言。

• shudder: 因寒冷或者其他刺激而颤抖。 He shuddered in the  dream, saying “no, please!”
• prevail: 1. 思想战胜对手 Fortunately, common sense prevailed. 2. 普遍存在，流行。 如 We were horrified at the conditions prevailing in  local prisons.
  

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“The reason why the ‘sunshine policy’ could not be fully completed and was not a full success was because of stalled U.S.-North Korean relations.” — Interview with The Associated Press in 2006, referring to his policy of engagement with North Korea.

阳关政策没有继续执行，也没有取得最后的成功，症结载于美朝终止了对话。

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“If the United States is to succeed, then the United States has to learn from the past failures and successes of history. It must not repeat the mistakes of history.” — Interview with AP in 2006. Kim was urging President George W. Bush to have direct dialogue with North Korea, noting past U.S. presidents had sought engagement with former rivals, including China, the Soviet Union and Vietnam.

如果美国希望获得成功，那么美国必须从过往失败的经验中总结教训。 美国绝对不可以重复历史的错误。 2006年接受AP的采访时，金竭力要求布什和北韩进行直接对话，并且强调，美国和曾经的对手，中国，苏联和越南成功地进行了对话。

• urge: 督促. 我们前面曾经有文章介绍过这个词语。

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Sources:

AP reports, Nobel Peace Prize speech