作者：shiyi18

Canada’s Mohawks
加拿大的莫霍克人准备对白人实施种族隔离措施

Get out of our canoe
从我们的独木舟上滚开！

When a Canadian is not a Canadian
既然加拿大人不是加拿大人

Feb 25th 2010 | OTTAWA | From The Economist print edition

THE dozen chiefs who make up the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake expected criticism when they began presenting eviction notices this month to 25 non-natives living on their 13,000-acre (5,260-hectare) reserve just south of Montreal. They hoped Canadians would understand their desire to protect a threatened language and culture, and refrain from interfering in internal Mohawk affairs. But many saw their action as a racist and illegal denial of Canada’s constitutional Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Despite centuries of coexistence, the First Nations, as Canada’s indigenous people call themselves, and other Canadians still live in mutual incomprehension. For a start the Mohawks do not see themselves as Canadians.
      
当组成卡纳瓦基莫霍克人委员会的12位酋长于本月初开始将驱逐告示向居住在他们居留地[1.3万英亩（5260公顷），靠近蒙特利尔以南]上的25位非本族人宣示时，酋长们预料会受到指责。酋长们希望加拿大人能够理解其保护已受到威胁的语言和文化的愿望，保持克制，不干预莫霍克人的内部事务。但许多人认为，莫霍克人的行为是一种种族歧视，是与加拿大权利与自由宪章相悖的。尽管彼此共存已达几个世纪，自称原住民的加拿大土著人与其他加拿大人仍然生活在互不理解中。莫霍克人自始不认为自己是加拿大人。

The council passed a bylaw in 1984, supported by the majority of the reservation’s 8,000 residents, which stipulated that a person must have at least four Mohawk great grandparents to live or own property there. Any Mohawk who marries a non-native must leave. “Everyone knows the law: if you marry out, you stay out,” says Joe Delaronde, a spokesman for the council. “If we don’t protect who we are, we will become Canadian citizens.”
     
1984年，委员会通过了一项获得保留地8000名居民中的大多数支持的公约，规定：[欲具备]莫霍克人资格必须至少有四个莫霍克血亲祖（外祖）父母在此地居住或在此地拥有其财产。与非本族人结婚的任何莫霍克人都必须离开。“此约人所共知：如你配偶非我族类，那你就得滚蛋”，委员会发言人乔德拉龙德说道，“如果我们不确保我们的血统，那我们就会成为加拿大公民”。

Not such a terrible fate, you might think. But the leaders of many First Nations have been fighting assimilation for centuries. The Kahnawake reserve was originally set up by the French in 1716, when the Mohawks were their allies against the British. Shortly afterwards, some French traders were asked to leave. There have been many evictions since. A more prosaic reason is that First Nations receive federal money for social services only for officially registered natives. Yet there has also been a long history of intermarriage and adoption of non-natives. “Everyone in the community has mixed ancestry,” says Matthieu Sossoyan, an anthropologist.
   
你可能会认为，不至于有此可怕劫数吧。而许多原住民的领导人已经为免于被同化奋斗了几百年。卡纳瓦基居留区最初于1716年由法国人建立，当时，莫霍克人是法国人反抗英国的同盟。不久之后，一些法国商人被要求离开。自此以后，发生了许多驱逐事件。更平实的驱逐理由是，只有获得官方登记的本地原住民才能接受联邦社会福利资助。然而，异族通婚和异族收养的传统也一直承传，历史悠久。人类学家马修说道：“该居留区的每个人都已经混血了”。

Canada’s minister of Indian affairs admits the evictions make him “uncomfortable” but says he can do nothing because First Nations have the right to say who lives on reserves. The chiefs say that rather than the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, their relations with non-natives are governed by the Two-Row Wampum Treaty, agreed with Dutch traders in the 17th century. (The wampum, or beaded belt, showed two parallel lines on a pale background.) This called for mutual non-interference. “We stay in our canoe and you steer yours,” says Mr Delaronde.
     
加拿大印第安人事务部长坦承，驱逐事件让他“感到不安”，但无能为力。因为，原住民有权决定谁在居留地居住。酋长们说，与其遵守《权利和自由宪章》，倒不如尊崇确定与非土著人关系的条约《the Two-Row Wampum Treaty》（易洛魁联盟与荷兰政府代表于17世纪签订，The wampum也叫 beaded belt，表示在灰白背景下的两条平行线）。该条约主张互不干涉。德拉龙德先生对此表述为：“我划我的独木舟，你开你的大洋船”。

译者：微言大义
欲与译者本人对该文进行切磋，请到如下链接：http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=31473&highlight=

International law
国际法

Pillar of wisdom
智慧的基石

Feb 11th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

The Rule of Law. By Tom Bingham. Allen Lane; 213 pages; £20. Buy from Amazon.co.uk

《法治》，作者汤姆•宾厄姆（Tom Bingham），艾伦•雷恩出版社出版；20英镑。可从Amazon.co.uk网站购买

TOM BINGHAM holds that what has come to be known as the rule of law is “the nearest we are likely to approach to a universal secular religion”. The key word is “universal”. Nigel Lawson, Margaret Thatcher’s chancellor of the exchequer, once described the National Health Service (NHS) as being similarly important to the British, but as Barack Obama’s attempts to reform America’s health-care system demonstrate, the NHS is not the envy of the world. For most people who live under the rule of law its blessings can be clearer and less ambiguous even than those conferred by liberal democracy or free markets.

汤姆•宾厄姆认为我们眼中的法治是“我们可能企及的一种普世的世俗宗教”。关键词是“普世的”。撒切尔夫人担任首相期间的英国财政大臣尼格尔•劳森(Nigel Lawson)曾把国民健康服务机制（NHS）称为是对每个英国人都是同等重要的，但正如巴拉克•奥巴马尝试改革美国的医保体制所展现的一样，国民健康服务机制也并非是整个世界钦羡的对象。对生活在法治社会的大多数人而言，其所带来的福祉比自由民主抑或自由市场给予的将更加实在。

Uniquely, Lord Bingham has held all three of Britain’s great judicial offices: Master of the Rolls[1], Lord Chief Justice and Senior Law Lord until his retirement in 2008. In recent times no British jurist other than Lord Denning has wielded more influence on the development of the law. In this short but important book, Lord Bingham begins by outlining the historical milestones (from the Magna Carta to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948) that have contributed to understanding what is meant by the rule of law and what he believes are eight essential principles that underpin it.

宾厄姆勋爵曾先后担任英国的三个重要司法职位：上诉法院民事庭庭长，首席大法官，高级司法议员，直到2008年退休。这是英国历史上是独一无二的。近些年来，除了丹宁勋爵，英国没有哪个法学家对法律的发展发挥这么大的影响。在这本短小而又重要的书中，宾汉勋爵开篇就梳理了历史上的重大事件（从《英国大宪章》到1948年批准的《世界人权宣言》），帮助我们理解法治内涵以及他认为的奠定法治基础的八项基本原则。

Among these are the accessibility of the law, equality before the law, the right to a fair trial, the legal accountability of servants of the state and so on. Most of Lord Bingham’s eight principles are uncontroversial, although some will feel that, in defining his preference for a “thick” over a “thin” definition of the rule of law, he goes too far by including social injustices, such as a right to education, which he feels “no one living in a free democratic society…should be required to forgo”.

这八项基本原则包括，法的可及性，法律面前人人平等，获得公正审判的权利，政府职员的法律责任等等。宾厄姆勋爵的八项基本原则大多数没有争议，尽管有人会认为，宾厄姆勋爵在解释他在定义“法治”这一概念上避“简”就“繁”的偏好时，走得太远，把针对社会不公的问题也囊括在内，比如受教育权。－－他认为“生活在自由民主社会的任何一个人都不应被迫放弃”该项权利。

However, it is when he gets to his final point, the requirement that states should regard their obligations under international law as no less forceful than those under national laws, that he really makes his mark. In a cool, but deadly dissection of the assault on the rule of law that was launched by the so-called “war on terror”, Lord Bingham deals first with the question of whether the allied invasion of Iraq was legal. He has no doubt that it was not. He argues persuasively that neither Security Council resolutions 678 nor 1441 could bear the weight that the British government was forced to place on them when confronted by the failure to obtain a further resolution explicitly authorising the use of force. One cannot help feeling that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith might have had a hotter time under examination by Lord Bingham than by the Chilcot panel.

但是，当他谈到最后一点，即要求政府应该将他们在国际法中的义务与国内法的义务同等对待时，这一点使他真正在法制史上留下了重重的一笔。宾厄姆勋爵对所谓的“反恐战争”对法治发起的攻击进行了冷静的分析，击中了其要害。他先是谈及了对伊拉克的联合入侵是否合法的问题。他毫不怀疑得指出，这是不合法的。无论是安理会的678号决议还是1441号决议，都不足以使英国政府在没获得一个明确授权使用武力的决议时出兵伊拉克。人们不禁会想，布莱尔和总检察长戈德史密斯勋爵如果遇到了宾厄姆勋爵而非柴考特调查小组，两人的日子将更加难过。

His greatest concern is the way in which the threat of terrorism has been used to justify the encroachment on civil liberties. Lord Bingham takes to task governments both in Britain and abroad who subvert the rule of law in the name of security, using Orwellian euphemisms such as control orders (house arrest without trial), extraordinary rendition (kidnapping) and enhanced interrogation techniques (torture). And he quotes Benjamin Franklin with approval: “He who would put security before liberty deserves neither.”

宾厄姆勋爵最担心的是假借恐怖主义的威胁之名，侵犯公民自由的行为。宾厄姆勋爵训斥了英国其其它国家政府以安全为幌子亵渎法治，指出这些政府用些奥威尔式的委婉语，比如控制令（未经审判的软禁）、非常规引渡（绑架）、讯问的高级技巧（严刑逼供）等。他引用了本杰明•富兰克林的话：“谁若将安全置于自由之首，谁就即无安全亦无自由。”对此，他深表赞同。

Lord Bingham ends by asking what makes the difference between good and bad government. It is, of course, the rule of law. He concludes: “It remains an ideal, but an ideal worth striving for, in the interests of good government and peace, at home and in the world at large.”

宾厄姆勋爵在其结尾处，问了一个问题。什么可以区别政府治理的好坏。显然，是法治。他的结论是，“这仍是一个理想，但其是一个值得追求的理想，为了良好的政府治理和和平，不管是在英国还是整个世界。”

[1] The Keeper or Master of the Rolls and Records of the Chancery of England, known as the Master of the Rolls, is the second most senior judge in England and Wales, after the Lord Chief Justice. The Master of the Rolls is the presiding officer of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal.

[2] The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales is the head of the judiciary of England and Wales. Historically, he was the second-highest judge of the Courts of England and Wales, after the Lord Chancellor, but that changed as a result of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, which removed the judicial functions from the office of Lord Chancellor. The Lord Chief Justice is also the presiding judge of the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal.

[3] Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, commonly known as Law Lords, were appointed under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 to the House of Lords of the United Kingdom in order to exercise its judicial functions, which included acting as the highest court of appeal for most domestic matters. The House of Lords, however, lost its judicial functions upon the establishment of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in October 2009; those in office became Justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom and lost their right to speak and vote in the House of Lords until their retirement as Justices of the new court

译者：davidship
欲与译者本人对该文进行切磋，请到如下链接：http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=30992&extra=page%3D1&page=1

Competition policy
竞争政策

Prosecutor, judge and jury
检察官、法官、陪审团三职合一

Feb 18th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

Enforcement of competition law in Europe is unjust and must change
在欧洲，竞争法的实施有失公正、亟待修正

EUROPE’S trustbusters have plenty to boast about. Over several decades the European Commission’s competition directorate has evolved into perhaps the most important regulator of its kind in the world. It has been rigorous in the development of antitrust theory and an energetic enforcer of the law. While antitrust policy across the Atlantic has veered between the activism of the Clinton administration and the relative laissez-faire of the Bush years, it has shown consistency. More than any other body it has upheld the principles of the single market, often incurring the wrath of powerful member states. Yet despite its fine record, there are deep flaws in the way the directorate operates. The priority of the new competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, must be to address them.

欧洲的反托拉斯阵线大有夸耀之处。在过去的数十年中，欧盟委员会下设的竞争理事会凭借其对推动反托拉斯理念演变的一丝不苟以及强劲的执法力度，可以说已发展成为全球同类监管机构中最举足轻重的典范。尽管大西洋彼岸的反托拉斯政策已在克林顿政府的激进主义与布什政府相对的放任主义之间找到折中的道路，但理事会依然坚持其一贯性。没有另外一个机构比它更加维护单一市场原则，这经常招致欧盟几大强国的极度不满。尽管业绩良好，理事会在运作上仍然存在着严重问题。因此新任竞争事务专员杰奎英•阿尔穆尼亚的第一要务就是将其解决掉。

The problems are not new, but they have been given fresh salience by the fallout from the European Union’s case against Intel (see article). Last May the commission fined the chipmaker a record 1.06 billion euro($1.5 billion) under Article 82 (now 102) of the European treaty, which forbids dominant firms from abusing their power. The specific complaint against Intel, brought by its smaller rival, AMD, was that it had bribed PC-makers to buy its own processors.

这些问题其实并不陌生，但是英特尔案件掀起的风波使其获得全新的关注。去年五月，欧盟委员会参照《欧洲联盟条约》第82条（现为第102条）对芯片制造商英特尔公司处以10亿6千万欧元（15亿美元）的罚款纪录，其所涉条款正是为禁止垄断企业滥用实力而设。规模较小的行业竞争者闪龙公司针对英特尔公司进行了投诉，据称，后者贿赂个人电脑制造商购买其处理器。

The sheer size of the fine had an element of grandstanding about it. But a much bigger worry was that the commission’s trustbusters may have ignored evidence that could have weakened their case and made Intel’s conduct look less sinister. The EU’s ombudsman found that in the course of the commission’s investigation, it had failed to keep a record of a meeting with a senior executive from Dell, one of Intel’s biggest customers. Critics, whose concerns have increased with the ferocity of the sanctions imposed, say that by acting simultaneously as investigator, prosecutor, jury and sentencing judge, the commission is denying defendant firms the basic right to be heard by an impartial tribunal. They are right.

这笔十足的罚款数额不免哗众取宠的成分。但更令人担心的是，欧盟委员会的反托拉斯官员可能忽视了一些能够在一定程度上削弱其诉讼理由并减轻英特尔公司罪行的证据。欧盟的巡视官发现，在其调查过程中，委员会与戴尔公司一高管的谈话没有记录下来，而戴尔公司正是英特尔公司最大的客户之一。批评家们的担忧随所施制裁的严酷程度与日俱增，他们表示，通过同时扮演调查者、检察官、陪审团以及审判法官的角色，委员会实则剥夺了被告公司诉诸于公正法庭的基本权利。他们说得在理。

The rules under which the competition directorate operates, which date back nearly half a century, are grossly inadequate for the hugely enhanced role it plays today. There are three main objections. The first is the conflicted role of the case teams. These are appointed when the competition directorate decides to investigate a complaint about abusive behaviour from a business rival, an accusation of collusion or a merger with potentially anti-competitive consequences. The case teams investigate, propose a verdict and argue for a particular penalty. From the outset, the process is polluted by a prosecutorial bias. The second objection is that the accused company is denied a fair hearing. Although it gets the chance to put forward its side of the argument, it does so only to the case team, not to a neutral judge or hearing officer. As things stand, the role of the hearing officer is purely procedural. The third objection is that the final decision on culpability is taken on a vote by 27 politically appointed commissioners, only one of whom may have attended the defendant’s hearing.

竞争理事会的运作所依托的规则已有将近半个世纪的历史，对于支撑理事会如今大幅度提升的作用只能是捉襟见肘。这其中主要存在着三项异议。其一在于专案组的冲突性角色。当竞争委员会决定调查对一商业竞争者不正当行为的投诉、对相互勾结行为的控告或者具有潜在的反竞争性后果的合并时，它会指派专案组进行调查、发表裁定意见并对某一特定处罚进行论证。于是从一开始，这一诉讼就带有检控偏见。其二在于被控公司得不到公平的听审机会。尽管被允许做出我方申辩，但被告面对的只有专案组，而并非中立的法官或者听证官员。久而久之，听证官一职变得纯粹地程序化。其三在于最终问责取决于27名由政界委任的专员，而其中仅有一人可能参与到被告的听审之中。

A fair hearing, please
请给予公正的申辩之机

In no other area of law would it be thought acceptable for the outcome of such important cases to be determined by a bunch of politicians. In America the antitrust division of the Department of Justice has to make its arguments in open court, while even the quasi-judicial commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission appoint a judge to preside over hearings and publish findings. The process is long-winded and expensive but it is an intrinsically fairer way to establish the facts.

没有其它任何一个司法领域能够接受如此重要的案件结果由一帮政客来操纵。在美国，司法部下设的反托拉斯部门必须在公开庭审中展开论述，就连联邦贸易委员会的准司法专员也需要指派一名法官来主持听审并公布裁决。这一过程在时间与金钱上付出的代价更大，但它不失为一种更加公平的方式来弄清事件的原委。

Even if Mr Almunia procrastinates, change is coming. Europe’s Charter of Fundamental Rights will finally be ratified next year. It is highly probable that antitrust appeals to the European Court of Human Rights (based on the unfairness of a process that levies huge fines but falls far short of the standards expected of the criminal law) will succeed. Realistically, amending the treaty to remove the commission’s role as the enforcer of competition law is a non-starter. A more modest change would, however, improve things greatly and bring European practice closer to America’s without importing all its excesses. That is to give the hearing officer the power to make a factual and legal determination based on a proper examination of the evidence; the 27 commissioners would then have to accept or reject this. The system would still be far from perfect, but it would be a good deal more just.

即使阿尔穆尼亚因循坐误，变革终将到来。明年，《欧盟基本权利宪章》将正式生效。这样一来，向欧洲人权法庭提起反托拉斯上诉的制度（基于徵收巨额罚款并远不及刑法尺度的诉讼所体现出的不公平性）极有可能建立起来。现实地讲，通过修改条约来解除欧盟委员会作为竞争法执法者的权力是行不通的。恰恰是较为温和的变革才能较大程度地改善现状，将欧洲的执法实践与美国接轨并摒弃其一切过度行为。也就是说，要给予听证官足够的权力，以基于对证据恰当的审度就事实问题与法律问题做出裁定；之后，27名专员必须对此进行明确的表决。即使如此，这一司法体系仍将劣迹斑斑，但它无疑会变得更加公正。

译者：yveschrischou
欲与译者本人对该文进行切磋，请到如下链接：http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=31293

How siestas help memory
午睡怎样增进记忆力

Sleepy heads
昏昏欲睡的大脑

Feb 25th 2010 | SAN DIEGO | From The Economist print edition

Researchers say an afternoon nap prepares the brain to learn

研究者认为午睡可以让头脑更清醒，学习更高效

MAD dogs and Englishmen, so the song has it, go out in the midday sun. And the business practices of England’s lineal descendant, America, will have you in the office from nine in the morning to five in the evening, if not longer. Much of the world, though, prefers to take a siesta. And research presented to the AAAS meeting in San Diego suggests it may be right to do so. It has already been established that those who siesta are less likely to die of heart disease. Now, Matthew Walker and his colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that they probably have better memory, too. A post-prandial snooze, Dr Walker has discovered, sets the brain up for learning.

疯狗和英国人——正如这首歌唱到的那样——正午时分顶着太阳外出。而英国人的直系后裔——美国公司的惯例会让你朝九晚五地呆在办公室里，甚至更长时间。但是世界上大部分人还是更喜欢来个午觉。一份提交到在圣迭戈举行的AAAS科学年会的报告中说：这么做是正确的。有午睡习惯的人很少有死于心脏类疾病的——这个已成定论。现在，马修·沃克和他在加利福尼亚大学伯克利分校的同事发现这些人很可能记忆力也会比其他人好。沃克博士发现，午餐之后打个小盹会让头脑更清醒，学习更高效。

The role of sleep in consolidating memories that have already been created has been understood for some time. Dr Walker has been trying to extend this understanding by looking at sleep’s role in preparing the brain for the formation of memories in the first place. He was particularly interested in a type of memory called episodic memory, which relates to specific events, places and times. This contrasts with procedural memory, of the skills required to perform some sort of mechanical task, such as driving. The theory he and his team wanted to test was that the ability to form new episodic memories deteriorates with accrued wakefulness, and that sleep thus restores the brain’s capacity for efficient learning.

人们早已知道睡眠能够巩固已建立的记忆。沃克正在试图扩展这一认识，他的办法是观察睡眠在大脑记忆形成的初始阶段扮演的角色。他的兴趣点在一种叫做“事件记忆”的记忆上，这种记忆与时间、地点和次数相关联。和这种记忆相反的是“程序记忆”，是记住那种完成机械任务所需的技能，例如开车。他和他的团队想验证的理论是：一个人随着清醒状态的加深，其形成新的“事件记忆”的能力就会减弱；还有，睡觉因此就能恢复大脑高效学习的能力。

They asked a group of 39 people to take part in two learning sessions, one at noon and one at 6pm. On each occasion the participants tried to memorise and recall 100 combinations of pictures and names. After the first session they were assigned randomly to either a control group, which remained awake, or a nap group, which had 100 minutes of monitored sleep.

他们找来39个人来参加两个时间段的学习——一个在中午，一个在晚上6点。在每段时间的学习中，参与者都要努力去记住并且回忆100组图片和名字的组合。在第一个时间段的学习过后，参与者被任意安排到两组：一组是“受控制组”——必须一直保持清醒；一组是“打盹儿组”——有100分钟的睡觉时间，期间全程监控。

Those who remained awake throughout the day became worse at learning. Those who napped, by contrast, actually improved their capacity to learn, doing better in the evening than they had at noon. These findings suggest that sleep is clearing the brain’s short-term memory and making way for new information.

从头到尾一直保持清醒的那群人的学习效果变差了。而那些小睡的人则相反——他们提高了学习能力，在晚上的表现要优于中午。这些发现表明睡觉加强了短期记忆，而且为吸收新信息铺平了道路。

It is already well known that fact-based memories are stored temporarily in an area called the hippocampus, a structure in the centre of the brain. But they do not stay there long. Instead, they are sent to the prefrontal cortex for longer-term storage. Electroencephalograms, which measure electrical activity in the brain, have shown that this memory-refreshing capacity is related to a specific type of sleep called Stage 2 non-REM sleep.

人们都知道知识性的记忆会被存在一个叫作“海马”的区域，该结构位于大脑中心。但是这些记忆并不会在那里停留很长时间，而是会被发送到前额皮质以备长期储存。测量脑电活动的脑电图显示，这种记忆转移的能力和一种叫作“第二阶段非REM睡眠”的特定状态的睡眠有关。

The ideal nap, then, follows a cycle of between 90 and 100 minutes. The first 30 minutes is a light sleep that helps improve motor performance. Then comes 30 minutes of stage 2 sleep, which refreshes the hippocampus. After this, between 60 and 90 minutes into the nap, comes rapid-eye-movement, or REM, sleep, during which dreaming happens. This, research suggests, is the time when the brain makes connections between the new memories that have just been “downloaded” from the hippocampus and those that already exist—thus making new experiences relevant in a wider context.

理想的小睡遵循一个90-100分钟的周期。头30分钟是浅睡，帮助改善运动功能。然后是30分钟的第二阶段睡眠，在此期间，“海马”得到唤起。之后，小睡的60到90分钟之间是“快速眼动睡眠”，或被叫作REM，期间会有梦境发生。研究表明，在这段时间，大脑将刚刚从海马里“下载”来的新记忆和那些已存记忆建立了联系——从而使新体验与更广阔的背景相关联。

The benefits to memory of a nap, says Dr Walker, are so great that they can equal an entire night’s sleep. He warns, however, that napping must not be done too late in the day or it will interfere with night-time sleep. Moreover, not everyone awakens refreshed from a siesta.

沃克博士说，小睡的好处非常大，甚至抵得过一整夜的睡眠。但是他也建议白天的小睡不应睡得太晚，否则会影响夜间的睡眠。除此之外，也并不是所有人都能在午睡之后精神充沛的。

The grogginess that results from an unrefreshing siesta is termed “sleep inertia”. This happens when the brain is woken from a deep sleep with its cells still firing at a slow rhythm and its temperature and blood flow decreased. Sara Mednick, from the University of California, San Diego, suggests that non-habitual nappers suffer from this more often than those who siesta regularly. It may be that those who have a tendency to wake up groggy are choosing not to siesta in the first place. Perhaps, though, as in so many things, it is practice that makes perfect.

因午睡而引起的不清醒状态被称作“睡眠惰性”，发生在大脑从深睡中醒来之时，这个时候，脑细胞仍然在慢节奏律动，大脑温度低，血流速度缓慢。位于圣迭戈的加利福尼亚大学的萨拉·麦德尼克说，没有午睡习惯的人和有规律午睡的人比起来更容易发生这种情形。这可能是因为那些醒来容易头脑晕沉的人平时很少午睡的原因。但是，也许只有多多午睡，才能少少头晕。熟能生巧嘛！万事同理。

译者：eastx
欲与译者本人对该文进行切磋，请到如下链接：http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=31458&highlight=

A country’s agonising birth

备受苦难而生的国家

Feb 25th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

Ready to die for freedom 准备为自由献身

“If You Leave Us Here, We Will Die”: How Genocide Was Stopped in East Timor. By Geoffrey Robinson. Princeton University Press; 317 pages; $35 and £24.95. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

《你们走了，我们会死的！——东帝汶种族灭绝终结记》，杰弗里•鲁滨逊著，普林斯顿大学出版社出版，317页，售价35美元或24.95英磅，可从Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk网站购买。

FEW countries have suffered as much, merely to be counted as countries, as did Timor-Leste, the former Indonesian province of East Timor. Under the Indonesian occupation from 1975 to 1999, perhaps one-third of the population died before their time. Survivors suffered hunger, deprivation, torture and systematic terror. Against the odds, on August 30th 1999 the East Timorese found themselves with the chance of a vote to choose between independence or autonomy under Indonesian rule. Turnout was 98.6%. Of those, four in five voted for independence.

很少有什么国家，只不过为了要（被人们）当做国家（看待）， 就像东帝汶（前印尼的东帝汶省）那样， 遭受过那么多的苦难。在1975年到1999年印尼占领期间，大约三分之一的人死亡。幸存者遭受饥饿、贫困、酷刑和有组织的恐怖袭击。临此困境，1999年8月30日，东帝汶人利用公投机会作出抉择——是独立为一个国家还是成为印尼统治下的一个自治省。投票率达到98.6％，其中，五分之四赞成独立。

The author of this fine book, Geoffrey Robinson, was there that day, as a member of the United Nations mission that organised the poll. Before that, as an academic and human-rights researcher, he was one of a small doughty band of foreigners who helped keep East Timor alive as an international issue, at a time when most governments preferred to cultivate good ties with Suharto, Indonesia’s dictator.

本佳作的作者杰弗里•鲁滨逊，作为联合国主持全民公投特派团成员之一，当时就在东帝汶。此前，他作为一位学者和人权研究员，曾是一个勇敢的外国人小团体的成员，在那时大多数政府都宁愿与印尼独裁者苏哈托建立良好关系[的背景下]，他为将东帝汶持续作为国际关注的重大问题提供了积极的帮助。

Mr Robinson was also there in the nightmarish aftermath of the referendum: as Indonesian-sponsored militias trashed the country, hundreds died and terrified refugees took shelter in the UN compound in Dili. That period provides the book’s title. “If you leave us here, we will die,” was what a Timorese woman in the compound told a visiting UN delegation.

在全民公投所招致的恶梦般创伤期间，罗宾逊先生也在东帝汶：亲印尼民兵组织捣毁了这个国家、成百上千的人死亡、恐惧的难民们涌到联合国在帝力的避难营避难。这一时期为本书提供了书名 “你们走了，我们会死的”——这是在避难营的一位东帝汶妇女向到访的联合国代表团诉说时的一句话。

But in fact the title sells both East Timor and the book seriously short. That a second genocide was averted in the country should not conceal the ugly truth that the outside world ignored and connived at the first, in the terrible years after Indonesia’s invasion. And the title misrepresents the book because, though enlivened by the narrative of Mr Robinson’s own time as a participant in and eyewitness to the events described, it is also a subtle and nuanced work of history and analysis.

其实，这本书的书名不仅对东帝汶而且就是对这本书本身都作了低估。该国第二次种族灭绝得以幸免这一事实不应当（用来）掩盖（此前）在印尼入侵之后那些恐怖的岁月里，外间的世界是如何对这第一次种族灭绝视而不见（甚至）默许纵容的丑陋真相。因为该书是讲究微妙曲折的历史之作，理论分析之作， 所以该书书名配不上书中的内容， 尽管作者亲历其境，目击暴行， 描写生动。

It contrasts the way the world looked the other way in 1975 with the swift intervention by an Australian-led peacekeeping force in 1999. That was in part a consequence of press attention, the courage of the East Timorese and a unique, brief period in history when “liberal interventionism” seemed to have a future. It also owed something to a collective sense of guilt over past atrocities in Srebrenica, Rwanda and East Timor itself.

本书比较了1975年世界对[暴行]视而不见和1999年澳大利亚为首的维和部队实施的快速干预方式。[认为]该快速干预在某种程度上说，是媒体关注、东帝汶人民的勇气和“自由干涉主义”似乎有了前途这一空前绝后、稍纵即逝的历史时刻共同作用的结果，该快速干预也部分地归因于外间世界的一种集体负疚感， 这种负疚感来自过去对发生于斯雷布雷尼察、卢旺达和东帝汶本身的罪行视而不见。

As for Indonesia, the behaviour of its soldiers and their local allies was sadly not an aberration. The outcome was predictable as soon as the flawed UN mandate put the security for the referendum in the hands of the main threat to it: the Indonesian army. Mr Robinson traces the violence back to the Suharto regime’s original sin, the massacre of hundreds of thousands as it took power in 1965-66.

可悲的是， 就印尼而言， 其士兵及当地盟军的暴行并不是什么脱离常轨的行为。一旦联合国那份有缺陷的训令把公民投票的安保权力交给对公民投票构成主要威胁的印尼军队手中，这个血腥的结果就完全可以预见了。罗宾逊先生追溯[印尼]暴力，直至苏哈托政权的原罪上——1965年至1966年苏掌权时期对数十万人的大屠杀。

The strategies of violence, he notes, were “implicitly legitimised”,not just because of the state’s involvement, but because the criminals were never punished. Ten years on not a single Indonesian official has been convicted of any crime in East Timor, and the idea of an international tribunal has been, in effect, ditched.

罗宾逊指出：那一次暴力所采取的策略已经被“暗暗地合法化了”，——不仅是因为插手是以国家的名义，还因为罪犯从未受到惩罚。 在长达10多年时间里，在东帝汶没有一个印尼裔官员因任一犯罪行为被判决有罪，而关于建立国际法庭的想法在事实上已束之高阁。

译者：微言大义
欲与译者本人对该文进行切磋，请到如下链接：http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=31401&extra=page%3D1

Tech.view
科技视角

World Wide Wait
全球等待

The faster the internet becomes, the slower it loads pages
网速越高网页加载速度反而越慢

Feb 12th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

EVER noticed how long it takes for web pages to load these days? You click on a link and wait and wait, and then wait some more, for the content to trickle in. If nothing has happened after ten seconds or so, your impatient correspondent hits the browser’s stop button followed by the reload key. In desperation, he sometimes loads the link into a second or even a third browser tab as well, and bombards the website’s server with multiple requests for the page. If that fails, he gives up in disgust and reads a newspaper instead.
你是否留意过，如今打开网页需要多长时间？点击某个链接，你就开始等待，等了好久。看看，不行，还得再等一会，等着网页的内容姗姗来迟。如果等了10秒左右，仍然什么都没有，不耐烦的用户就会点击“刷新”键后面的“关闭”按钮。有时用户感觉十分不爽，“唰唰唰”，一下把这个链接点开两三个窗口，同时发出多个网页请求，对网站服务器进行“轰炸”。如果还是打不开，用户就会一脸厌恶地走开，转而去读报纸了。

Back in the early days of the internet, when most web users relied on dial-up connections, browsers were crude and web graphics were clumsy GIF files, eight seconds was considered the maximum people would stick around for a page to load. To increase “stickiness”, web designers pared their HTML code to the bone, collated their style-sheet data and JavaScripts into single files for more efficient caching elsewhere on the web, used fewer graphics and embraced the PNG and JPEG picture formats, with their smaller file sizes, as soon as they became available. Compared with text, pictures really were the equivalent of 1,000 words, at least when it came to the time taken to transmit them.
在因特网发展初期，大多数用户使用拨号连接，浏览器功能简单，网页图像都是粗糙的GIF文件。8秒，被视作用户打开网页的最大等待时间。为了让用户们不轻易关掉网页，网页设计人员将HTML编码大幅精简，将网页样式表和Java脚本文件整合成单个文件，以求浏览其它网页时有更高效的预读缓存技术。此外尽量少使用图像，而PNG和JPEG图形格式一经问世，就因其较小的文件规模而受到设计人员的青睐。同文字相比，图形就相当于1000个单字（至少在传输时间上如此）。

When your correspondent hand-coded The Economist’s first website back in 1994, a typical web page was about 50 kilobytes in size and dial-up modems could transfer no more than three kilobytes a second. To stay under the “eight-second rule”, pictures were kept to a minimum, so no page took more than three or four seconds to begin loading and never longer than 20 seconds to complete. The irony is that, with broadband nowadays more or less everywhere, overall connection speeds have gone up by leaps and bounds, yet the time taken to load web pages seems only to have got longer.
1994年设计人员手工编码完成了经济学人的第一个网站，当时的网页一般都大约50KB，而拨号调制解调器的传输速率不过3KB/s。为遵循“八秒准则”，图片都压至最少，所以网页不到三四秒就能开始加载，完成不超过20秒。具有讽刺意味的是，如今宽带基本实现普及，整体连接速率的提高更是一日千里，然而打开网页的等待时间却不减反增。

Your correspondent is admittedly near the end of the road for a digital subscriber line (DSL) connection. But even at three miles (5km) from the local telephone exchange, the speed of his broadband connection has inched up over the past few years from 65 kilobytes a second to more than 90 kilobytes a second—as the local line has been tweaked and legacy equipment like echo-cancelling coils removed from its junction boxes.
一般而言，客户都靠近数字用户线路（DSL）的末端。经过当地电信局信号转换后，即使再传输到3英里（5千米）之外，得益于当地线路微调，以及分线箱中回音消除器等陈旧设备的淘汰，宽带连接速度仍能从原来的65KB/s小幅增加到90KB/s。

Sure, he could get 650 kilobytes a second or more from a cable connection. But that would mean ditching his otherwise excellent satellite-TV service. Besides, optical fibre is slowly working its way up his hillside. He could soon have access to the internet at more than six megabytes a second—providing he is prepared to pay $140 a month instead of $21 for his existing DSL connection.
当然客户如果家里装了有线电视，速度会达到650KB/s甚至更高，那样家里原有的卫星电视也就形同虚设，用不上了。更何况，光纤正慢慢地向客户家所在的小山铺设，很快客户将能用上带宽高于6MB/s的因特网——前提是他放弃当前每月费用21美元的DSL连接，而每月交纳140美元享受这高带宽。

A 70-fold increase in speed for a sevenfold increase in price would seem a bargain. But your correspondent is not sure that more raw speed will solve the glacial loading problem. Even with his wimpy DSL connection, pages are rendered quickly enough once the website’s servers (and all the other computers along the route, plus those used to host adverts, graphics and miscellaneous layout bits) start giving his browser’s request some attention. The trouble is getting their attention in the first place.
速度增加70倍，价格才涨了7倍，似乎很划得来。可是客户心里没底儿：单纯的提速能否解决网页加载慢这个大问题？虽然DSL的速度很窝囊，一旦浏览器请求信息被服务器（也包括传输路线上的其它计算机，以及提供广告、图片以及页面上各种小版块的主机）受理，网页仍可以很快打开。问题就在于，如果让它们快速受理。

Before two computers can exchange information, they have to agree to talk to one another. Under normal conditions, this requires the user’s computer to send a request to the host computer, which then sends a response back to the user. Only after this “handshaking” is complete can the exchange of data commence. The time taken for this round-trip of request and acknowledgment determines the network’s latency.
两台计算机进行信息交换，首先他们要达成协议。一般而言，用户向主机发送请求信息，主机收到后向用户回复。只有经过这样一个“握手”后，数据交换才能开始。这个过程中请求信息和确认信息来回所花费的时间决定了当前网络的延时。

The latency cannot be less than the distance the electromagnetic signal has to travel divided by the speed of light. For instance, your correspondent’s home in Los Angeles is 400 miles from a colleague’s in San Francisco. In theory, then, the shortest round-trip between the two locations is 4.3 milliseconds. But if you “ping” the other computer, you’ll get a round-trip time of typically 700 milliseconds. That is still pretty quick, but it shows just how much time is spent waiting around for the various servers involved to handle the request.
延时势必大于等于电磁波以光速在这段距离上传输所需的时长。举个例子，客户家住洛杉矶，距旧金山一个同事400英里。理论上讲，电磁波在两个地点往返最短时间是4.3毫秒。而如果你使用ping命令测试网络连接，得到的延时一般都是700毫秒。尽管延时已经很小，这表明了信息传输时，在各个处理请求信息的相关服务器上等待所花费的时间。

There are many places along the way where the message can get bogged down. Queues can build up at routing servers that switch data packages along different routes to their destinations depending on the traffic. Worst of all, the DNS (Domain Name Server) computers used by your ISP can be overwhelmed as they try to translate the names of all the websites subscribers want to visit (say, www.economist.com) into their actual internet addresses (216.35.68.215). If you know it, try using the website’s numerical address rather than its verbose URL (Universal Resource Locator) name. That can sometimes halve the response time.
信息在传输线路中很多地方都会发生拥堵。路由服务器依据信息拥塞情况，为数据包选择不同的路径，最终都能到达目的地址。这样一来，路由器可能会有数据包大排长龙等待处理。客户的网络提供商使用的域名服务器（DNS）主机把用户访问的网站名（比如ww.economist.com）解析成实际的网络地址（216.35.68.215）。最坏情况下，解析信息过多会使解析服务器主机发生拥塞。如果你了解了这一点，以后上网时可以使用网站的数字地址，不要再罗罗嗦嗦地敲URL（统一资源定位器）名了。这样可能节省一半的响应时间。

The bottlenecks—whether at the DNS translators, the routing computers or the host’s own servers—stem largely from the way the mix of internet traffic has changed faster than the infrastructure used to carry it. Websites that were once just 50 kilobytes of text and tiny pictures now come with music, video and animated graphics. YouTube, Hulu, iTunes and BitTorrent have much to answer for.
不论是DNS解析器，路由选择主机抑或是主机自带的服务器，其瓶颈不在于信息传输的网络基础设施，而皆在于，当前网络传输信息组合方式的变动步伐日益加快。曾经只有50KB的文本外加一丁点图片的网站如今已是音乐、视频、动画，样样俱全。youtube，Hulu，iTunes和比特流等大型网站花样更多。

It is even worse on the mobile phone companies’ proprietary networks. Carriers are struggling to keep up with demand as subscribers use their smart-phones to check Facebook, stream videos from YouTube and play interactive games. Where a mid-range smart-phone would consume about 100 megabytes of data a month, more advanced models like the Apple iPhone or Motorola Droid, with fully fledged browsers and access to thousands of downloadable applications, tend to consume over 500 megabytes a month. With the imminent arrival of tablet computers like the iPad, which come with wireless modems, the appetite for downloadable data could hit a gigabyte a month (see the lead story in this week’s Business section).
移动电话公司的专用网络情况更差。用户们通过智能手机上Facebook，在youtube上看视频，玩在线游戏等，公司则尽力满足客户们的网络需求。一个中等的智能机每月使用流量约100M，而更高级的智能机，比如苹果的iPhone和摩托罗拉的Droid，配备有功能完备的浏览器和数千个应用程序的下载链接，这样一来，每月浪费的流量将超过500M。随着iPod等平板电脑以及无线调制解调器呼之欲出，每月下载的数据量将突破1G大关（详见本周商业板头条）。

And this is just the beginning. On the internet, the average latency for corporate websites in America is currently around 350ms, according to the Network Weather Report operated by the University of California, Los Angeles. Google’s latency is 150ms, Facebook’s 285ms and YouTube’s 515ms. Such latencies will have to come down considerably if the next generation of internet applications, such as telepresence, high-definition video streaming and remote surgery, are to fulfil their promise.
这还仅仅是问题的开始。根据洛杉矶加利福尼亚大学的网络情况报告，在因特网上，美国的企业网站目前平均延时约350毫秒，谷歌为150毫秒，facebook为285毫秒，youtube为515毫秒。如果网真技术，高清视频，远程手术等下一代因特网应用真能做到“名符其实”，那么还应该进一步大幅降低这些网络延时。

The future is beckoning. Netflix has just announced an on-demand video-streaming service offering full high-definition picture quality (so-called 1080p, which has 1,080 lines in its picture) with 5.1-channel surround sound. Each stream being watched will require a megabyte a second of bandwidth and a latency of less than 60ms if it is to deliver crisp, pin-sharp video and pristine sound.
未来在向我们招手。Netflix公司最近宣布提供一项按需订制的视频流服务，提供高清画质（即1080p，显像行有1080行 ）和5.1声道环绕声。每个放映的视频流要求带宽1M/s，延时60毫秒以下，才能提供流畅清晰、音质纯正的视频。

For the internet service providers, that means stepping up investment substantially. But adding a lot more routers to the internet would complicate matters hugely and do little to solve the latency problem. If anything, it would actually increase the number of potential bottlenecks.
对因特网服务提供商而言，那意味着增加大量的投资。通过增加路由器的方式只能使网络结构更加复杂，对解决延时问题于事无补。这样做只能增加潜在瓶颈的数量。

A better solution might be to light up more of the “dark fibre” installed during the heady days of the dotcom boom, but left lying unused beneath the streets since the bubble burst nearly a decade ago. That is what a number of securities firms have been quietly doing. When shaving a millisecond off the time needed to execute automated trades can increase revenue by $100m, there is plenty of incentive to build private optical networks with latencies approaching zero.
更好的解决方案或许是，重新利用过去铺设的直驳光纤。近十年前，网络迅速发展，当时铺设了大量的直驳光纤，却一直弃在街道下面无人问津。一些证券公司就在暗中利用这些光纤。执行股票自动交易时每减少一毫秒的延时，公司收入就能增加一亿美元，所以铺设延时近乎零的私人光纤网络，不乏动力。

Indeed, Google said this week that it was not going to hang around waiting for the telecoms industry to build the new optical web. The company is planning a low-latency fibre network that will be capable of delivering speeds of over 100 megabytes a second for communities of 50,000-500,000 people. With luck, other internet service providers everywhere will get the message.
事实上，谷歌这周表示将不再等待电信公司铺设新的光纤网络，而是打算自己铺设低延时的光纤网络，届时能为5万到50万的用户提供超过100M/s的带宽。一切顺利的话，其它的因特网服务提供商都会心领神会的。

译者：czechoslovakia
欲与译者本人对该文进行切磋，请到如下链接：http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=31294

Private-sector space flight
私人公司的太空旅行

Moon dreams
奔月之梦

The Americans may still go to the moon before the Chinese
也许美国人仍会比中国人更早登月

Feb 18th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

Can you direct me to reception, please?
请您告诉我服务台怎么走，好吗？

WHEN America’s space agency, NASA, announced its spending plans in February, some people worried that its cancellation of the Constellation moon programme had ended any hopes of Americans returning to the Earth’s rocky satellite. The next footprints on the lunar regolith were therefore thought likely to be Chinese. Now, though, the private sector is arguing that the new spending plan actually makes it more likely America will return to the moon.

当美国宇航局在二月份宣布预算案时，一些人担心“星座计划”的取消会熄灭美国人重返地球卫星的希望。所以有人认为下一个在月壤留下脚印的可能会是中国人。但现在，私有企业辩称，新的预算案实际上更可能使美国登月。

The new plan encourages firms to compete to provide transport to low Earth orbit (LEO). The budget proposes $6 billion over five years to spur the development of commercial crew and cargo services to the international space station. This money will be spent on “man-rating” existing rockets, such as Boeing’s Atlas V, and on developing new spacecraft that could be launched on many different rockets. The point of all this activity is to create healthy private-sector competition for transport to the space station—and in doing so to drive down the cost of getting into space.

新计划鼓励私人公司通过竞争来提供近地轨道的运输服务。预算案意图在五年内花费60亿美元来刺激国际空间站的商业载客与载货服务的发展。这笔资金将用于现有的波音阿特拉斯五号等火箭的“载人改造”以及可以被不同火箭搭载的宇宙飞船的研发。所有这些举措都是为私人公司竞争国际空间站的运输服务创造一个良好条件，并以此降低进入太空的成本。

Eric Anderson, the boss of a space-travel company called Space Adventures, is optimistic about the changes. They will, he says, build “railroads into space”. Space Adventures has already sent seven people to the space station, using Russian rockets. It would certainly benefit from a new generation of cheap launchers.

“太空探险”旅行公司的老板埃里克•安德森对于所发生的变化持乐观态度。他说，他们公司将修筑“太空轨道”。该公司利用俄罗斯运载火箭，已将七人送入国际空间站。他们肯定会从新一代廉价发射器中获益。

Another potential beneficiary—and advocate of private-sector transport—is Robert Bigelow, a wealthy entrepreneur who founded a hotel chain called Budget Suites of America. Mr Bigelow has so far spent $180m of his own money on space development—probably more than any other individual in history. He has been developing so-called expandable space habitats, a technology he bought from NASA a number of years ago.

另一个潜在的受益者，也是私人公司运输的拥趸，就是创建了“美国廉价套间”连锁旅馆的大亨罗伯特•比奇洛。比奇洛目前已经花费了1.8亿美元用于太空开发，堪称前无古人。他一直在开发所谓可伸展的太空屋，这是他几年前从美国宇航局购买的技术。

These habitats, which are folded up for launch and then inflated in space, were designed as interplanetary vehicles for a trip to Mars, but they are also likely to be useful general-purpose accommodation. The company already has two scaled-down versions in orbit.

这些太空屋，可以在发射时折叠起来，在太空中打开。它们曾被设计成火星之旅的星际车辆，但它们也可能成为多用途的住房。比奇洛的公司已经有两个缩小版在轨道上运行。

Mr Bigelow is preparing to build a space station that will offer cheap access to space to other governments—something he believes will generate a lot of interest. The current plan is to launch the first full-scale habitat (called Sundancer) in 2014. Further modules will be added to this over the course of a year, and the result will be a space station with more usable volume than the existing international one. Mr Bigelow’s price is just under $23m per astronaut. That is about half what Russia charges for a trip to the international station, a price that is likely to go up after the space shuttle retires later this year. He says he will be able to offer this price by bulk-buying launches on newly man-rated rockets. Since most of the cost of space travel is the launch, the price might come down even more if the private sector can lower the costs of getting into orbit.

比奇洛准备建造一个空间站，向其他国家提供廉价进入太空的机会，他相信此举会引起许多国家浓厚的兴趣。现阶段的计划是2014年发射首个实际比例的太空屋（阳光舞者），更多舱室将在一年之内添加完毕，完成后将比现有的国际空间站拥有更多可使用面积。比奇洛太空旅馆的价格仅为每人不到2300万美元，该价格仅是俄罗斯为国际空间站旅行定价的一半，而且这个定价还有可能由于航天飞机在今年退役而水涨船高。比奇洛称，它将向大量购买使用新载人火箭升空的旅客提供这个价格。因为太空旅行最大的开销就是发射，一旦私人公司可以降低发射成本，旅行价格甚至可能会下降得更多。

The ultimate aim of all his investment, Mr Bigelow says, is to get to the moon. LEO is merely his proving ground. He says that if the technology does work in orbit, the habitats will be ideal for building bases on the moon. To go there, however, he will have to prove that the expandable habitat does indeed work, and also generate substantial returns on his investment in LEO, to provide the necessary cash.

比奇洛称，他所有投资的最终目的是登月。近地轨道飞行只是他的试验田。他说，如果这项技术可以在轨道上成功实施，可伸展太空屋将是建立月球基地的理想材料。然而为了达到那个目标，他将要证明可伸展太空屋确实能用，而且需要他在近地轨道飞行的投资产生大量的回报来提供必需资金。

If all goes well, the next target will be L1, the point 85% of the way to the moon where the gravitational pulls of moon and Earth balance. “It’s a terrific dumping off point,” he says. “We could transport a completed lunar base [to L1] and put it down on the lunar surface intact.”

如果一切顺利，下一个目标将是第一个拉格朗日点（这个点在到月球路程的85%处，该点地月引力平衡）。比奇洛称：“这是一个完美的安置点，我们可以将一个完整的月球基地运到那里，然后将它完好地放在月球表面。”

There are others with lunar ambitions, too. Some 20 teams are competing for the Google Lunar X Prize, a purse of $30m that will be given to the first private mission which lands a robot on the moon, travels across the surface and sends pictures back to Earth. Space Adventures, meanwhile, is in discussions with almost a dozen potential clients about a circumlunar mission, costing $100m a head.

其他人也对登月抱有雄心壮志。20多只队伍正在角逐谷歌月球X大奖，谷歌出资3000万美元用来赞助首个让无人探测器登上月球，在表面漫步一段距离，拍摄图片传回地球的私人公司。与此同时，“太空探险”公司正在与十多位潜在客户商谈环月旅行，价格为每人1亿美元。

The original Apollo project was mainly a race to prove the superiority of American capitalism over Soviet communism. Capitalism won—but at the cost of creating, in NASA, one of the largest bureaucracies in American history. If the United States is to return to the moon, it needs to do so in a way that is demonstrably superior to the first trip—for example, being led by business rather than government. Engaging in another government-driven spending battle, this time with the Chinese, will do nothing more than show that America has missed the point.

阿波罗计划最初只是为了证明美国资本主义比苏联社会主义更优越而进行的竞争。资本主义取得了胜利，但代价是造就了美国历史上最大的官僚机构之一——美国宇航局。如果美国重返月球，就需要用明显优于第一次的方式来完成，例如由企业主导而不是政府。而如果美国再次卷入由政府主导的军备竞赛的话，一切只会表明美国必输无疑，因为这次的对手是中国。

译者：schalke
欲与译者本人对该文进行切磋，请到如下链接：http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=31261

The Dead Sea scrolls
死海古卷

Voice of reason
理性的声音

Feb 18th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

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

《古卷的故事：死海古卷的神奇发现和真正意义》。格左•维尔麦希著，企鹅出版社出版；260页；9.99英镑。可从Amazon.co.uk购买。　

The power of the written word
文字的力量

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.

在基督教出现后一个世纪左右的时间里，犹太教徒和基督徒们[注１]就希伯来语圣经中某些预言性的章节进行了激烈的辩论。他们不仅就那些经节的意思，也就那些经节准确的字词进行争论。每一方都怀疑对方篡改了手稿以便支持自己的阐释。

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?

起码在二十世纪晚期以前，现代的学者们几乎不可能弄清这些争论的实质内容：换句话说，几乎不可能断定哪一方对于哪一个用词最为古老的看法是否正确。大部分犹太人使用了至少1400年左右的希伯来语圣经――即马所拉本圣经――和七十士希腊文圣经之间显然有一些细微但重要的不同之处。（七十士本圣经是为讲希腊语的在埃及的犹太人所作的希腊语翻译，成书时间较马所拉本圣经早大约800年，其所用的希伯来语原文现已失传。）但没人真能解释这些不同之处的来源。是翻译者们有意去误导读者，还是后来的编辑者改动了希伯来语圣经？

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.

关于这一点和其它许多微妙问题的争论因为将近900份文件从1947年开始陆续被发现而改观。发现这些文件的地点是位于耶路撒冷以东荒凉地带的一组岩洞。最先发现其中一册古卷的是一个年轻的羊倌。古卷中既有圣经上的文本也有类似圣经的文本，还有一些先前不为人所知的著作；这些卷册显然是由一个持异见的犹太人群体拥有(或许也制作)，拥有(制作)的年代略早于并贯穿耶稣基督的时代。

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.

分析这样极度敏感的材料需要心平气和的判断――而在专事研究死海古卷并与他人分享见解的学者中，格左•维尔麦希这位牛津大学的退休教授被广泛的认为是头脑最为冷静的一位。他所写的文字有的也具争议性。比如，他对“历史上的耶稣”持有强烈的个人观点；和其他任何进入该领域的人一样，他也吸引了崇拜者和诋毁他的人。但在这本短小的个人回忆录中，他基本上只讲述了关于那些古卷已知的事实和古卷所引起的争论。在这件事上，他小心谨慎，公平持正。

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.

他亲身经历了基督教和犹太教在二十世纪悲剧性的关系，这可能对他有所助益。现已85岁的维尔麦希回忆说，他匈牙利裔的犹太双亲都死于大屠杀，虽然他们一家――他们并不笃信宗教――之前在一九三十年代都皈依了天主教。年轻的格左被其家庭交往的天主教徒所救，接着去了西欧学习。他被授予了天主教神父的职务，也在不同的天主教大学受过教育，但后来他还是回归了他的犹太传统。作为一位毕生分析死海古卷的专家，他努力让尽可能多的学者能够接触这些文本――比他年轻的圣经学者们（比如英国的菲利普•戴维斯）回忆起他的这些努力时都心存感激――由他来剖析这一独特发现的精确意义和评价这一发现所引发的多个理论非常合适。

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.

根据一个流传甚广的阴谋论的说法，对死海古卷进行了最初分析的天主教学者们对他们的结论秘而不宣，因为该结论挑战了基督教的信仰。维尔麦希先生对于那次研究有近距离的了解，他有理有据的对该次研究的缓慢和粗疏做了批评，但他不认为阴谋论的说法有根据。他也不接受那些把留下了死海古卷的群体和基督教的出现直接联系起来的过于简单化的理论。那些手稿对关于基督教起源的研究有用，但它们并非事情的全部。

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.

在维尔麦希先生看来，死海古卷对于虔信的基督徒和犹太教徒来说，都是既安顿了他们的信心，也提出了不易回答的问题。让犹太教徒安心的消息是这些古卷包含了大约两千年前人们所用的不同版本的希伯来语圣经，而这些版本和后来的马所拉本圣经大体上相当接近。

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.

虽然维尔麦希先生没有细说，关于死海古卷也有对基督徒来说颇有意思的消息：“旧约”[注２]中某些他们珍视的段落――但是这些段落却神秘的没有出现在马所拉本圣经中――确实在死海古卷中就有了。它们看上去不像是基督徒后来编造的。上述两个宗教可能都难以接受的是希伯来语圣经的多个版本看来都已经流传了很长时间，以致于让人怀疑是否真的存在一个原初的文本。其实，就如维尔麦希先生让人信服的论证的那样，认为先有一个单一的原始文本，后来的版本或多或少的脱离了该个原始文本的这一想法是难以站住脚的。

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.

许多相信启示宗教的人们，尤其是那些把文字视为启示之主要媒介的信徒，会觉得这难以接受。但是如果他们真的接受了这个观点，不同宗教的信徒间将更容易进行文明的争论而不用彼此挥拳相向。作为有力的推动了这一事业的人，维尔麦希先生的生命没有虚度。

[注１]：本篇译文将Christianity译为基督教，将Christian译为基督徒。之所以说到这看似无需说明的一点，是因为国内有些人用“基督教”来指Protestantism（新教）。那种翻法是不准确的。

[注２]：基督徒一般称希伯来语圣经为“旧约”，是相对“新约”而言，因为按照基督徒一般都接受的观点，神在“新约”圣经里和人定立了一个新的约，即主耶稣为人赎去了罪过，人可以（也只能）通过主耶稣得到神的拯救，从而得进神的国度。“旧约”中的约是神和神的选民以色列人之间的约－－以色列人应该守神定的律法，作为回报，神则应该佑护以色列人（换句话说，连神都是有义务的）。“旧约”似乎不属于别的人群，但“新约”中的救赎和永远的生命却可以属于来自任何一个族群的人。犹太人对基督徒把他们读的圣经称作“旧约”是不满意的（which can be an understatement)，所以若要公允，“旧约”一词确实是应该加上引号的。

译者：Uniquorn
欲与译者本人对该文进行切磋，请到如下链接：http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=31276

Capital controls 资本控制

Fundamental questions 极其重要的问题

The IMF changes its mind on controls on capital inflows 国际货币基金组织在控制资本流入的问题上改变想法。

Feb 18th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

LEFTOVER piles of slushy snow from the heaviest snowfall in over a century make it hard to take sharp turns on the roads of Washington, DC, these days. But the past couple of weeks have seen plenty of ideological swerves at the IMF’s downtown headquarters.
百年不遇的特大暴雪袭击华府过后，现在的街道上残留着成堆的雪泥，如此路况驾车，要是来个急转弯，可不够呛？但是过去几周，在华府商业区的IMF总部中，却发生了许多观念的转变。

Earlier this month the fund’s chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, questioned the focus of modern macroeconomic policy on keeping inflation low, arguing that central banks should aim at an inflation rate of 4%, rather than the conventional goal of 2%. Now a paper* by a group of IMF economists suggests that the fund has substantially rethought its position on the use of restrictions by emerging markets on capital inflows. It concludes that controls are sometimes “justified as part of the policy toolkit” for an economy seeking to deal with surging inflows.
这个月的早些时候，国际货币基金组织的首席经济学家Olivier Blanchard对现代宏观经济政策的重心——将通胀维持于低水平——提出了质疑，并认为中央银行应该将目标定在4%的通货膨胀率，而非作为传统目标的2%。如今，一篇报告——由IMF的一群经济学家撰写——这样认为，国际货币基金组织在关于新兴市场国家对资本入境的限制措施如何使用的问题上已经切实再三思考其立场。文章结论道，资本控制有时是一经济体政策工具组合中的合理一部分，它使该经济体摸索出如何去处理海量外资入境的方法。

This is surprising. The fund has historically opposed capital controls, even trying in 1997 to amend its articles of agreement to allow it explicitly to promote capital- account liberalisation. Its economists have argued both that capital controls are costly because they induce distortions to resource allocation and that they are not effective because they are easily evaded. But there is a contradiction between these arguments: if controls have no effect, how can they be distortionary?
这令人吃惊。从历史的角度来看，国际货币基金组织一贯反对资本控制，在1997年亚洲金融危机时，它甚至尝试修改该组织协议中的一些条款，好使其公开倡导资本性账户自由化。该组织中的许多经济学家一直认为资本控制代价高昂（因为这样做会导致资源分配扭曲）并且毫无效果可言（又因为可以轻易地避开资本控制）。但是上述观点中确有一矛盾之处，即：如果资本控制没有效果，那它们是怎样造成资源分配扭曲的呢？

The new paper provides some welcome clarity on the effectiveness of inflow controls. Its authors find that GDP fell less sharply during the financial crisis in countries that already had such policies in place. Prior research has shown that the maturity structure of a country’s external liabilities gets longer as a result of capital controls. The composition of inflows also seems to matter. Countries with a larger overall stock of debt had bigger credit booms and suffered bigger growth collapses during the crisis. So too did countries with more foreign direct investment (FDI) in the financial sector. Unlike other types of FDI, these flows contribute to debt growth because they include lending from parent banks to local subsidiaries. “The use of capital controls,” the fund’s economists write, “was associated with avoiding some of the worst growth outcomes.”
刚出炉的报告在外资控制是否有效的问题上提供了一些可喜的澄清。报告的作者们发现，资本控制政策到位的许多国家在金融危机期间，其GDP的缩减并不严重。先前的研究一直表明，由于资本控制，一国的外债到期结构可以延续较长的时间。外资的构成也显得十分重要。承担着更为庞大债务的国家会出现更大规模的信贷激增并且在经济危机期间蒙受更为巨大的增长崩溃。同样，金融领域中出现更多境外直接投资的一些国家也会产生类似的结果。与其他类型的境外投资不同，这种资金流入会助推债务的增长，因为这种资金流动包括总行（指外国银行的总行——Y版主注）向国外地方银行注资。“使用资本控制，”国际货币基金组织的经济学家们写道，“与避免一些最为严重的经济衰退后果有关”

The economists are also candid about situations in which capital controls may be needed. In the past the fund has urged countries facing surging capital inflows to allow their exchange rates to appreciate or to accumulate reserves. But exchange rates can overshoot, with consequences for the competitiveness of a country’s exports. And if reserves are adequate, then further accumulation is not optimal.
关于怎样的局面下需要采取资本控制，经济学家们也有清楚的交待。在过去，IMF常常敦促面临海量境外资金流入的国家要么升值本国货币，要么积累（本国货币）准备金。但是汇率工具用得过头，其结果是伤害本国的出口竞争力。接着，如果准备金充足，那么进一步增加（准备金）就不是最优选择。

If allowing exchange rates to adjust is not a viable option, the fund has typically advocated cutting interest rates to make the country less attractive to foreign funds. One reason for the resurgence in capital flows to emerging markets—which the Institute of International Finance, a financial-industry association, thinks will rise to $721.6 billion in 2010 from $435.2 billion last year—is the difference between their interest rates and the very low rates of the rich world. But some countries would risk overheating if they cut any further.
如果调整汇率政策不是一个可行的选择，那么IMF一般就会建议削减利率来使该国避免成为境外资金的垂涎之地。资金再次流入到新兴市场的原因之一——国际金融研究所，一家金融产业协会，认为流入（新兴市场的）资金额将会从去年的4352亿美元上升至2010年的7216亿美元——是富裕国家的利率呈超低之势而新兴市场则并非如此。但是，如果削减利率过了度，那么一些国家可能会出现经济过热。

The fund’s reconsideration of capital controls suggests that it is trying to adapt its advice to global economic realities. That is welcome. But the paper has little to say about what an effective and non-distortionary system would look like. Now that the IMF views controls on inflows more kindly, perhaps it could help countries to design them more cleverly.
国际货币基金组织对资本控制的再思考表明它正在力图使其建言同全球经济现状相适应。那值得称赞。但是这篇报告却对有效并且未被扭曲的（或“公正有效的”——译者注）系统是何等模样只字不提。既然IMF以更为赞许的态度看待“境外资金流入控制”，那么这或许有助于世界各国更为灵活地去规划它们的经济政策（控制资金流入政策——译者注）。

* “Capital Inflows: The Role of Controls” by Jonathan Ostry, Atish Ghosh, Karl Habermeier, Marcos Chamon, Mahvash Qureshi and Dennis Reinhart.

译者：intel英杰
如想与译者本人对该文进行切磋，请到如下链接：http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=31204

New Orleans
新奥尔良

Back in the game
阴影消散，活力重现

Feb 11th 2010 | NEW ORLEANS | From The Economist print edition

Two sorts of good news from an unhappy city

来自一个不高兴城市的两条好消息

Something to celebrate at last
终于有值得庆祝的事了

NEW ORLEANS is used to big weekends, but the last one stood out. On February 6th voters elected a new mayor, Mitch Landrieu, in a landslide more dramatic than any in memory. The next day the city’s beloved football team, the Saints—famous mostly for bumbling—won the Super Bowl for the first time in their 43-year existence.

每逢周末，新奥尔良总是很热闹，最近这个周末尤其热闹。2月6日这天，米奇·兰德鲁以压倒性优势被选为新任市长，如此戏剧性的结果在新奥尔良历史上还未曾有过。次日，该城备受宠爱的橄榄球队——“圣徒”——主要靠掉链子闻名于世——建队43年以来首次赢得了超级碗冠军。

To those monumental happenings the annual bacchanal of Carnival, now in full swing, seemed an appropriate backdrop. 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!” All this has given the city a dose of optimism it sorely needs. A bit of the old swagger is back.

在这些具有纪念碑意义的事件发生的同时，一年一度的狂欢节正如火如荼地举行着，似乎是一道很合适的背景。球队问鼎的第二天，新奥尔良人走上了街头，街上充满喜悦的气氛，学校、法院以及其它工作场所此刻都是半歇工状态，陌生人遇见会拥抱，并且高唱代表球队的标记性口号：“Who dat!” 这些东西对于这座城市来说是一剂快乐良药，而快乐正是它迫切需要的东西。原来的那个神气活现的家伙又回来了。

It is hard to know how much to connect the Saints’ success to that of Mr Landrieu, the state’s lieutenant-governor, who snapped up 66% of the vote. But there is a common theme to both results: cross-racial unity in a city that was once staunchly segregationist, and which in more recent times has experienced an uneasy detente between wealthy whites who control most of the city’s economic affairs and powerful blacks who run its politics.

兰德鲁此次以路易斯安那州（首府是新奥尔良）副州长的身份参加竞选，斩获66%的选票。虽然很难搞清“圣徒”队的成功和兰德鲁获胜有多大关联，但是两个结果有一个共同的主题：跨种族融合。该城曾是支持种族隔离的顽固派，在更近的时期还经历了一次艰难的关系缓和：一方是控制城市大部分经济事务的富有白人，另一方是掌控政坛的强势黑人。

The election of Mr Landrieu, a scion of Louisiana’s most prominent political clan and a surprise late entry into the race, may signal a departure from all that. Mr Landrieu is white. But his family has always been popular across racial lines, in part because his father, Moon Landrieu, was the first mayor to put blacks in positions of real power at City Hall. (Moon Landrieu was also the city’s most recent white mayor; he left office in 1978. One of his daughters, Mary, is Louisiana’s senior senator.)

兰德鲁的当选可能意味着与此种状况的远离，他是路易斯安那州最有名的政治宗族里的一个分节点，而且最近才加入这场政治角逐，是一匹黑马。兰德鲁是白人，但是他的家族一直以来都是黑白通吃，部分原因是他的父亲穆恩·兰德鲁是第一个给予黑人在市政厅实权职位的市长（穆恩·兰德鲁还是该城最近一位白人市长；他于1978年离职。他的一个女儿——玛丽——是路易斯安那州的参议员。）

Still, the latest election was uncharted territory. 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 verdict considering that New Orleanians have historically voted along racial lines. Just over a year earlier, of course, Americans had elected a black president, a result that clearly shook up the old patterns.

此次选举仍然是不分黑白：兰德鲁在黑人和白人中间都获得了压倒性胜利；前期分析指出他获得了70%的白人选票和63%的黑人选票。鉴于该城有依据肤色不同而进行投票的传统，如此统一的意见可以说是不寻常的。当然，就在一年之前，美国刚刚选了一个黑人总统，该结果很明显动摇了旧有的模式。

It is hard not to read Saturday’s results as a rebuke to Ray Nagin. The outgoing mayor was barred from running by a term limit, but he was certainly on voters’ minds. Four years ago Mr Landrieu lost to Mr Nagin in a tight election after Mr Nagin made a naked appeal to black voters’ racial loyalties. In that election, Mr Landrieu managed to get only about one in five black votes.

很难不把周六的结果解读为对于雷·奈根的指责。这个即将离职的市长因为在任期上的限制而不能参选，但是他当然在选民的心中。奈根在四年前的竞选中通过赤裸裸地投合黑人选民的种族忠诚，以微弱优势打败兰德鲁，当上了市长。在那次选举中，兰德鲁仅仅得到了黑人选票中的两成。

Since then, however, blacks and whites alike have become increasingly dissatisfied with Mr Nagin. His approval rate was recently estimated at a dismal 20%. These low numbers have several causes. They stem partly from the city’s halting recovery after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But they are also a result of Mr Nagin’s habit of dividing his constituents. He tends to suggest that any criticism of him is racially motivated; he mutters darkly about a “shadow government” and a conspiracy 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. That is reason for celebration.

但自那以后，黑人和白人都对奈根越来越不满。他最近的支持率估计只有可怜的20%。有几个原因：部分是由于2005年卡特里娜飓风过后步履蹒跚的复苏。但是同时也是奈根习惯于分裂自己选民的结果。他喜欢把任何对于自己的批评都看作出于种族动机；满腹牢骚地抱怨“影子政府”的存在，还有在办公室安插白人的阴谋，而这些位置原先都是由黑人占据。上个周末，各种肤色、各行各业的新奥尔良人都好像在说：咱们继续前进吧。这个就值得庆祝。

译者：eastx
如想与译者本人对该文进行切磋，请到如下链接：http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=31196&highlight=