2016年1月18日 星期一

volatile, periphery, sap (WEAKEN), heartland, heroin, screenplay, drawdown, cheesehead, bread・basket 


Heroin is tearing through America's heartland—and health figures say doctors are to blame



Swing states: Of beer and bikers John McCain faces a tough fight among Wisconsin's cheeseheads

WAR WITHOUT BORDERS
In Heartland Death, Traces of Heroin’s Spread
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
A heroin overdose in Ohio highlights how Mexican drug cartels have pushed heroin sales into America’s suburbs.

Cheeseheads are passionate fans of the Green Bay Packers. This term is said to have originated in 1987, when fans of the Chicago Bears started ridiculing the fans of their rival from Wisconsin, the heartland of America's dairy industry, by calling them "Cheeseheads." In response, the Packers fans decided to wear the epithet with pride. Not only did they adopt the appellation themselves, but they began to wear huge yellow foam hats shaped like cheese to the games that they attended. Today the Cheesehead hat has become the trademark of fans of the Packers, and a great variety of hats and other cheesy foam accessories are commercially available for them and other lovers of cheese.

"Cheesehead" hat
"Cheesehead" hat


Wikipedia article "Cheesehead".




Economic Storm Batters Argentina's Breadbasket
ALFONZO, Argentina -- When Héctor Farroni married a few years back, he took his new bride for a swing through Iowa. The silos and windmills, the spider-like combines, the wide, flat fields all reminded him of this region of eastern Argentina, part of a fertile farm belt that has propelled the...
(By Juan Forero, The Washington Post)


Political Screenplay at Center of Lawsuit 
By JULIE BLOOM
A former White House operative filed a federal lawsuit over the movie “Swing Vote,” which he claims is based on a screenplay of his own.

Volatile Day Ends With Stocks Up
U.S. stocks rose as unexpected resilience in General Motors' June sales saved the Dow Jones Industrial Average from the bear market in a near-200-point swing.




Ballmer Tells Seattle Times Microsoft Stock Has Been `Volatile'

By Peter J. Brennan
June 29 (Bloomberg) -- Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp., said his company's shares have been ``volatile'' during the past decade rather than flat, the Seattle Times reported, citing an interview.
Ballmer compared Microsoft's stock performance over a 10-year period to General Electric Co., Hewlett-Packard Co., Cisco Systems Inc. and Intel Corp., said the newspaper, which called the performance ``flat.''
``You can see everybody's been kind of highly volatile,'' Ballmer told the newspaper in a June 18 interview published today. He didn't compare the stock to Apple Inc. or Google Inc. ``because they've really exploded in the last few years,'' he said.
When Ballmer was asked by the newspaper what investors are ``missing'' about Microsoft, Ballmer said he couldn't comment. ``On any given day, even if we talk to investors all day, every day, you don't actually know why the stock went up and down,'' he told the Times.



Economic downturn hits Toyota harder than expected 

The world's biggest carmaker, Toyota, has forecast a far-bigger loss for last year's operations than originally expected. The Japanese car giant estimated that it lost nearly four billion dollars in 2008, nearly triple the original loss forecast made in December. The company blamed its troubles on tumbling auto sales, especially in the U.S. and Europe, as well as the strong yen, which is sapping its overseas earnings.



China Tensions Could Sway Vote in Taiwan

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Violent unrest in Tibet has created shock waves in another volatile region on China’s periphery, shaking up the presidential election in Taiwan and sapping support for the candidate Beijing had hoped would win handily.




periphery Show phonetics
noun [C usually singular]
1 the outer edge of an area:
Houses have been built on the periphery of the factory site.
The ring road runs around the periphery of the city centre.

2 the less important part of a group or activity:
Many women feel they are being kept on the periphery of the armed forces.

peripheral Show phonetics
adjective
1 describes something that is not as important as something else:
The book contains a great deal of peripheral detail.

2 happening at the edge of something:
A figure came into my peripheral vision.

peripheral Show phonetics
noun [C] SPECIALIZED
a piece of equipment, such as a printer, that can be connected to a computer

sap (WEAKEN) Show phonetics
verb [T] -pp-
to weaken someone or take away strength or an important quality from someone, especially over a long period of time:
Constant criticism saps you of your confidence.
Looking after her dying mother had sapped all her energy.

sapping Show phonetics
adjective
sapping heat/humidity
2007

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS
Bush Faces Pressure to Shift War Priorities
With violence on the decline in Iraq but on the upswing in Afghanistan, President Bush is facing new pressure from the U.S. military to accelerate a troop drawdown in Iraq and bulk up force levels in Afghanistan, according to senior U.S. officials.
(By Michael Abramowitz and Peter Baker, The Washington Post)

drawdown

(drô'doun'pronunciation

n.
  1. The act, process, or result of depleting: the drawdown of oil supplies; a drawdown of investment capital.
  2. A lowering of the water level in a reservoir or other body of water.
volatile Show phonetics
adjective
1 likely to change suddenly and unexpectedly or suddenly become violent or angry:
Food and fuel prices are very volatile in a war situation.
The situation was made more volatile by the fact that people had been drinking a lot of alcohol.
He had a rather volatile temper and can't have been easy to live with.

volatile

(vŏl'ə-tl, -tīl'pronunciation
adj.
  1. Chemistry.
    1. Evaporating readily at normal temperatures and pressures.
    2. That can be readily vaporized.
    1. Tending to vary often or widely, as in price: the ups and downs of volatile stocks.
    2. Inconstant; fickle: a flirt's volatile affections.
    3. Lighthearted; flighty: in a volatile mood.
    4. Ephemeral; fleeting.
  2. Tending to violence; explosive: a volatile situation with troops and rioters eager for a confrontation.
  3. Flying or capable of flying; volant.
[French, from Old French, from Latin volātilis, flying, from volātus, past participle of volāre, to fly.]






screenplay Show phonetics
noun [C]
the text for a film, including the words to be spoken by the actors and instructions for the cameras:
Who wrote/did the screenplay for/of/to the film 'Chariots of Fire'?


combine (harvester) noun [C]
a large farming machine which cuts the plant, separates the seed from the stem and cleans the grain as it moves across a field



bread・basket パンかご; (the ~) 穀倉地帯; 〔俗〕 胃袋.


"Cheesehead" can refer to:
  • A nickname (sometimes used derogatorily) referring to a person from either Wisconsin or the Netherlands, referring to the large volume of cheese production in those locales.


heartland
n.
A central region, especially one that is politically, economically, or militarily vital to a nation, region, or culture.

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