American securities regulators vote to ditch their own accounting standards
美国证券监管者表决放弃其自己的会计准则

SCORE a point for globalisation. In a landmark vote on Wednesday August 27th America’s financial-markets watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), paved the way for its companies to switch from America’s Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) to international accounting standards. In a field that is, by reputation, notoriously dull, this looks like something to get genuinely excited about.

这为美国的全球化进程又得了一分。本周三（8月27日），在一项有着里程碑意义的投票中，美国金融市场监管者-证券交易委员会为美国公司由美国的公认会计准（GAAP）则转换到国际会计准则铺平了道路。在这个异常枯燥呆板的领域，这看起来确实值得高兴。

GAAP was the beancounter’s gold standard for decades, but it is now widely seen as cumbersome. Most other countries have embraced the international rules, known as International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The regulators’ plan envisages American-based multinationals switching to the standards voluntarily in 2010. The SEC would then vote on whether to require all other companies to do the same, starting in 2014. The commission has already cleared the way for overseas firms to use IFRS when doing business or listing securities in America.

公认会计准则（GAAP）是会计领域数十年来的黄金准则，但是现在却被普遍地认为笨重异常，运转不灵。许多其它的国家都采用了国际标准-国际财务报告准则（IFRS）。美国监管者的计划是使总部位于美国的跨国公司在2010年自愿转换成国际财务报表准则。证券交易委员会到那时投票决定是否要求其它公司也从2014年开始采用国际财务报表准则。证券委员会已经为海外公司在美国做生意或者上市时候使用国际财务报表准则扫清了道路。

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Technology, business and the law
科技、商业和法律

The big data dump
巨大的数据转储

Aug 28th 2008 | SAN FRANCISCO
From The Economist print edition

A deluge of electronic information may overwhelm American civil justice
排山倒海的电子信息也许会压倒美国的司法公正

DAWN BEYE’S teenage daughter suffers from anorexia nervosa and had to be treated in hospital at a cost of about $1,000 a day. Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, the Beyes’ insurance company, covered one month of the bills but then balked, demanding evidence that the affliction was “biologically based” rather than psychological. So Ms Beye got together with parents of other anorexic and bulimic teenagers and sued. Horizon immediately asked to see practically everything the teenagers had said on their Facebook and MySpace profiles, in instant-messaging threads, text messages, e-mails, blog posts and whatever else the girls might have done online.
DAWN BEYE未成年的小女儿患有神经性厌食症，在医院接受治疗时每天的开销接近1000美元。位于新泽西的Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield是Beye的保险公司，在给付了一个月的医疗费用后突然中止了保险责任，并且要求Beye举证说明病痛具有”生物学基础”而不是心理学问题。于是Beye女士联合了其他厌食症和食欲过剩症患儿的家长进行起诉。保险公司则要求审阅这些女孩全部的在线叙述记录，包括在Facebook和 MySpace上的简介，即时信息记录，收集短信，电子邮件以及博克。

The Beyes’ lawyer, David Mazie at Mazie, Slater, Katz & Freeman, objected on the grounds that Horizon’s demands violated the girls’ privacy. He lost. So hard disks and web pages are being scoured in order for the case to proceed. Gathering and then sifting through all the electronic information that a few teenage girls have generated is excessive and daunting, says Mr Mazie.
Beye的律师Mazie则以保险公司的要求侵犯了客户隐私为理由提出了反对，但是没有成功。于是根据案件进程，硬盘以及相关网页都被详细搜索。通过收集和详审，Mazie律师表示由这几个小女孩所引发的相关电子信息多得令人畏惧。

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Barack Obama still has a lot to do
奥巴马仍然有许多工作要做

ON AUGUST 28th, barring some dark manoeuvre by seething Clintonistas, Barack Obama will accept the Democratic nomination for the presidency. Forty-five years to the day after Martin Luther King spoke of his dream, America will take a giant leap towards the realisation of that great call for justice. Hundreds of millions will watch, and be moved; Mr Obama seems to many, by reason of his race, his calm intelligence, his youthful good looks and his powerful oratorical skills, to be well suited to draw a line beneath the bitter Bush years and to repair America’s torn relationship with the outside world. One prominent pundit was much derided earlier this year for describing the tingle he got from listening to the candidate-but everyone knew exactly what he meant.
除非一些克林顿主义者暗中下绊,巴拉克奥巴马仍然会于8月28日接受民主党内的总统候选人提名。在马丁路德金发表关于梦想的演讲45年后的今天,美国向着他所呼唤的正义的方向又迈进了一大步。数百万人会目睹这一时候, 也一定会深深地受到震动.因为其自身的种族,冷静的智慧,年轻俊朗的外表,强有力的演说技巧,对于很多人来说,奥巴马是与辛酸的布什时代划清界线,修复美国与外部世界裂痕的合适人选。今年早些时候,某位著名专家说他听候选人演讲时的感受到某种刺痛感,他本人因此深受嘲笑–但所有人都知道他到底想说什么。
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