ok, at least there is someone from the US authority willing to open his eyes and ears.
http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2011/05/17/veteran-u-s-diplomat-we-are-becoming-the-ussr/
24 Comments • Related Topics: china, military, national security, navy, pentagon, politics , chas freeman, naval war college
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/idiom
In the English expression to kick the bucket, a listener knowing only the meanings of kick and bucket would be unable to deduce the expression's true meaning: to die. Although this idiomatic phrase can, in fact, actually refer to kicking a bucket, native speakers of English rarely use it so. Cases like this are "opaque idioms."
Literal translation (word-by-word) of opaque idioms will not convey the same meaning in other languages – an analogous expression in Polish is kopnąć w kalendarz (“to kick the calendar”), with “calendar” detached from its usual meaning, just like “bucket” in the English phrase. In Bulgarian the closest analogous phrase is da ritnesh kambanata ("да ритнеш камбаната", “to kick the bell”); in Dutch, het loodje leggen (“to lay the piece of lead”); in Finnish, heittää lusikka nurkkaan (“to throw the spoon into the corner”); in German, den Löffel abgeben (“to give the spoon away”) or, closer to the English idiom, im [contraction of in dem] Eimer sein ("to be gone into the (waste)bucket"); in Latvian, nolikt karoti (“to put the spoon down”); in Portuguese, bater as botas (“to beat the boots”); in Danish, at stille træskoene ("to take off the clogs"); in Swedish, trilla av pinnen ("to fall off the stick"); and in Greek, τινάζω τα πέταλα ("to shake the horse-shoes"). In Brazil, the expression “to kick the bucket” (chutar o balde) has a completely different meaning (to give up something complicated, as a bucket kicked makes too much noise, demonstrating impatience).
Some idioms, in contrast, are "transparent idioms" [5]: much of their meaning does get through if they are taken (or translated) literally. For example, "lay one's cards on the table" meaning to reveal a secret. Transparency is a matter of degree; "spill the beans" and "leave no stone unturned" are not entirely literally interpretable, but only involve a slight metaphorical broadening.
Another category of idioms is a word having several meanings, sometimes simultaneously, sometimes discerned from the context of its usage. This is seen in the (mostly un-inflected) English language in polysemes, the common use of the same word for an activity, for those engaged in it, for the product used, for the place or time of an activity, and sometimes for a verb.
SOURCE http://chinese.wsj.com/big5/20110408/bas145440_ENversion.shtml
Japan's government said it is considering extending the evacuation zone around its hobbled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, as the government recalculates the risk of radioactivity that continues to issue from the plant four weeks after the huge earthquake and tsunami.
Later on Thursday, Japan suffered its strongest temblor since the March 11 quake, highlighting the ongoing uncertainty over whether further aftershocks could damage the reactors further and release more radiation, or put other nuclear plants at risk. Some other plants were running on emergency generators but no operating problems were reported in the hours after the 7.1-magnitude quake.
The government's top spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, said Thursday the current 20-kilometer (12-mile) evacuation zone around the Fukushima Daiichi plant may need to be enlarged, because the original parameters were established to protect against too much exposure in the short term and radiation continues to emanate from the complex.
Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s disaster plans greatly underestimated the scope of a potential accident at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, calling for only one stretcher, one satellite phone and 50 protective suits in case of emergencies.
Disaster-response documents for Fukushima Daiichi, examined by The Wall Street Journal, also contain few guidelines for obtaining outside help, providing insight into why Japan struggled to cope with a nuclear crisis after an earthquake and tsunami devastated the facility.
The disaster plans, approved by Japanese regulators, offer guidelines for responding to smaller emergencies and outline in detail how to back up key systems in case of failure. Yet the plans fail to envision the kind of worst-case scenario that befell Japan: damage so extensive that the plant couldn't respond on its own or call for help from nearby plants. There are no references to Tokyo firefighters, Japanese military forces or U.S. equipment, all of which the plant operators eventually relied upon to battle their overheating reactors.
On Wednesday, the president of plant operator Tepco was hospitalized for dizziness, offering the latest sign of leadership trouble. Earlier in the disaster, Tepco was faulted for a sluggish initial response; now it appears that its written emergency plans were themselves inadequate.
'The disaster plan didn't function,' said a former Tepco executive. 'It didn't envision something this big.'
Dear Diary
received comments from S today. loads of them lacking a clear and coherent vision, as before. missed the wood for the trees, some might say. should step up for myself next time we meet and ask:
please, can you try commenting on the overall quality (god knows what that means!)
so i know where i am going and won't be led astray by trivialities. something like blinders (or blinkers if i may) is what i need. thank you very much.
ykm