1. Some have breathed sighs of relief, others, including churches, right-to-life groups and the Australian Medical Association, bitterly attacked the bill and the haste of its passage. But the tide is unlikely to turn back.
[参考译文] 一些机构终于松了一口气,但是其他一些机构,包括教堂,倡导生命之 权的团体和澳大利亚医学协会,尖锐地抨击这个法案,指责法案的通过 过于匆忙。但是大势已定,不可逆转。
2. In Australia- where an aging population, life-extending technology and changing community attitudes have all played their partother states are going to consider making a similar law to deal with euthanasia.
[参考译文] 在澳大利亚--人口老龄化,延长寿命的技术和变化看的社会态度,这 些因素都在发挥作用一一其他的州也会考虑制定相似的关于安乐死的 法律。
3. There are, of course, exceptions. Small--minded officials, rude waiters, and ill mannered taxi drivers are hardly unknown in the US. Yet it is an observation made so frequently that it deserves comment.
[参考译文] 当然,例外是存在的。在美国,心胸狭窄的官员,粗鲁的传者,和没有 礼貌的出租车司机也并不少见。然而人们常常得出这样的观察意见,这 使得它值得被讨论一下。
4. We live in a society in which the medicinal and social use of substances (drugs) is pervasive: an aspirin to quiet a headache, some wine to be sociable, coffee to get going in the morning, a cigarette for the nerves.
[参考译文] 我们生活在一种药品(毒品)的医学用途和社会用途都很广泛的社会里: 一片用来止头痛的阿斯匹林,一些用来社交的葡萄酒,早上自己提提神 所喝的咖啡,一支用来定神的香烟。
5. Dependence is marked first by an increased tolerance, with more and more of the substance required to produce the desired effect, and then by the appearance of unpleasant withdrawal symptoms when the substance is discontinued.
[参考译文] 对药品的依赖性首先表现为不断增长的耐药量,要产生想得到的效果所 需要的药品剂量越来越大,然后表现为当停止用药后,令人不快的停药 症状的出现。
6. "Is this what you intended to accomplish with your careers?" Senator Robert Dole asked Time Warner executives last week. "You have sold your souls, but must you corrupt our nation and threaten our children as well?"
[参考译文] 上星期参议员罗博特多尔质问时代华纳公司的高级管理人员们:"难道这 就是你们希望能够成就的事业?你们已经出卖了自己的灵魂,但是难道 你们还非要腐化我们的国家,威胁我们的孩子们吗?"
7. "The test of any democratic society, he wrote in a Wall Street Journal column', "lies not in how well it can control expression but in whether it gives freedom of thought and expression the widest possible latitude, however disputable or irritating the results may sometimes be..."
[参考译文] "对任何一个民主社会的考验,"他在《华尔街杂志》的一个专栏文章中 写到,"不在于它能够多有效地控制各种意见的表达,而在于这个社会是 否能给予思考和表达的尽可能广泛的自由,不管有时候这种结果是多么 的富有争议或令人不快…"
8. During the discussion of rock singing verses at last month's stockholders' meeting, Levin asserted that "music is not the cause of society's ills" and even cited his son, a teacher in the Bronx, New York, who uses rap to communicate with students.
[参考译文] 在-上个月的股东大会上关于摇滚歌词的讨论中,莱文宣称说:"音乐不是 社会问题的原因",他甚至还以他的儿子为例。他的儿子是纽约州布朗克 斯的一个教师,并用说唱音乐与学生们进行沟通。
9. Much of the language used to describe monetary policy, such as "steering the economy to a soft landing" of "a touch on the brakes" , makes it sound like a precise science. Nothing could be further from the truth.
[参考译文] 有很多用于描述货币政策的词汇,例如"轻踩刹车"以"操纵经济软着 陆",使货币政策听起来像是一门精确的科学。没有什么比这更远离实际 情况的了。
10. Economists have been particularly surprised by favorable inflation figures in Britain and the United States, since, conventional measures suggest that both economies, and especially America's, have little productive slack.
[参考译文] 经济学家们对英国和美国的有利的通货膨胀数据尤其感到惊讶,因为传 统的计量方法显示两国的经济,特别是美国的经济,几乎没有生产萧条 的时候。
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