假設 what if

假設 (hypothesis)
假 (false) 設 (establish)
Simplified, 假设, 仮设

What if Spider-Man Had Joined the Fantastic Four? ... What if Captain America became President? ... What If, sometimes rendered as What If ...?, is the title of several comic book series published by Marvel Comics, exploring "the road not traveled" by its various characters. Events in the series are considered separate from mainstream continuity in the Marvel Universe. - Wikipedia

In a worst-case scenario, a hole in the side of a plane could lead to a sudden loss of pressure—the cabin may tear open, and passengers may get blown out.The risk of rapid decompression is greater the higher the plane is off the ground and the bigger the gash in its side. - What if the Christmas Bomb Had Exploded?, Slate

Then one day about a year and a half ago, Hantz had a revelation. "We need scarcity," he thought to himself as he drove past block after unoccupied block. "We can't create opportunities, but we can create scarcity." And that, he says one afternoon in his living room between puffs on an expensive cigar, "is how I got onto this idea of the farm." ... "What if we had seven lakes in the city?" he wondered. "Would people develop around those lakes?" - Can farming save Detroit? CNNMoney

說唱歌手 rapper

說唱 (rap) 歌手 (singer)
說 (talk) 唱 (sing) 歌 (song) 手 (-ist)
Simplified, 说唱歌手

“TIK TOK,” a zippy and salacious celebration of late nights and mornings-after by a new artist named Ke$ha, has spent the last few weeks zooming toward the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Along with “Rapture,” the 1981 hit by Blondie, it’s one of the most successful white-girl rap songs of all time ... “TiK ToK” is something of a milestone in contemporary pop: the complete and painless assimilation of the white female rapper into pop music. Changing the Face (and Sound) of Rap, The New York Times

Three 6 Mafia's Juicy J has clarified his reason for altering the duo's music from typical hip-hop to a more universal sound with more pop and rock tracks. According to J, moving past rap has allowed them to gain a larger following. ... " 'Lolli Lolli,' that was really different for us but it sold over 2,000,000 digital downloads, it actually put us on an international level, we've been doing stuff overseas, we've been to Germany twice, we've been to Italy, Japan, Taiwan, Canada, we got a lot of other shows coming up overseas," Three 6 Mafia On Stepping Outside Rap, "Times Change, People's Ears Change", sohh.com

No, fans, I don't mean Em, Fitty, Yeezy or Weezy -- Flo Rida actually now holds the records of the last ten years -- and of all time! His single "Low" off his debut album Mail on Sunday was just named the top-selling song of the digital decade with over 5.2 million downloads sold, per Nielsen Soundscan. - Ian in Your Ear: Flo Rida Breaks Records! US Magazine

TiK ToK, Lolli Lolli, Low ♪♪♪

短消息 SMS/text messaging

短 (brief) 消息 (news)
短 (brief) 消 (vanish) 息 (rest)
also 手機短消息 (cellphone text message), simplified 手机短消息

"After Thanksgiving dinner, Tiger was watching a football game on TV, while exchanging text messages with Rachel Uchitel. A friend called to invite him to a poker game at the Isleworth club house, and Tiger left home around 7:30 pm. He left his cell phone behind with a text message from Rachel that he forgot to delete." Tiger Woods - What REALLY happened - an inside source tells all - part 2 Examiner.com

The message alleges Woods' wife, Elin Nordegren, found a text message from supposed Woods mistress Rachel Uchitel ... Florida Highway Patrol spokeswoman Kim Montes told WESH - Channel 2 on Wednesday that two captains and a trooper met with Woods Dec. 1, four days after the wreck, and reported Woods had only "a fat lip." Woods' neighbor, Javier Lavar Adams, helped Woods and his wife immediately after the crash. In an interview with troopers obtained by the Sentinel, Adams said Woods was bleeding He added, "Not a lot of blood … nothing on his shirt, nothing on his hands." Popular e-mail alleging to tell real story behind Tiger Woods crash full of holes, Orlando Sentinel

The government took more drastic measures when ethnic violence erupted in Xinjiang in July, and panic spread in part through rumors dispersed in text messages and in social media that a spate of syringe stabbings were an effort by Uighurs to infect Han Chinese with HIV. - China Is Losing a War Over Internet, The Wall Street Journal

溫蒂漢堡 Wendy's ("Old Fashioned Hamburgers")

溫蒂 (Wendy) 漢堡 (burger)
溫 ("wen") 蒂 ("di") 漢 (Han) 堡 (burg)

Wendy’s closes its doors in Japan today after almost 30 years as queues spill onto the sidewalk at some of the hamburger chain’s 71 restaurants. Wendy’s/Arby’s Group Inc., the third-largest U.S. fast-food restaurant company, was unable to renew a franchise agreement with Tokyo-based Zensho Co. this month. The Atlanta-based company hasn’t ruled out re-entering the world’s second-largest economy if it finds a suitable new partner. - Wendy’s Burger Chain Exits Japan as Customers Queue on Sidewalk, Bloomberg

Despite last week's announcement that Wendy's/Arby's Group Inc. (WEN) would withdraw from Japan, the third largest burger chain in the U.S. isn't ready to give up on Asia altogether. ... Atlanta-based Wendy's/Arby's also said its looking for in-roads into China, Hong Kong and South Korea. - Wendy's isn't giving up on Asia, BloggingStocks

R u redy 4 hotnjuicy txt coupons? Wendy's fast food chain announced a new cell-phone text-message coupon program in the Northeast. To take advantage of the program customers just sign up, then discounts with a UPC bar code will flash onto their mobile devices. Customers can then show the bar code on their cell phones to a Wendy's cashier to redeem the offers, reports say. - Wendy's new ad sizzle: Text-message coupons, WalletPop

恐怖分子 terrorist

恐怖 (terror) 分子 (-ist)
恐 (fear) 怖 (frighten) 分 (fraction) 子 (element)

Because a lone terrorist tried long ago to explode a shoe bomb aboard an airliner, millions of travelers today must remove their shoes before boarding planes. Because a plot was uncovered to use liquid explosives on airliners, passengers now must put all lotions and toothpaste in clear bags ready for inspection. - Editorial: Inconvenience the terrorists, not passengers, The Dallas Morning News

The TSA's behavioral detection measures also fall well short of what a country like Israel has pioneered. As a longtime terrorist target, Israel is renowned for its aggressive airline security. ... But Israel has a mere handful of airports, while TSA screeners are deployed at some 450 commercial U.S. airports, where they screen about 2 million passengers a day. The Israeli procedures also run up against U.S. anti-discrimination laws. "One of the major differences between us and Israel is that part of their profiling does include nationality, national origin, race, religion, age and physical appearance," says Schiavo. "We do not include those things, because we are the United States of America and we have different standards." - New Focus For Airport Screening: Strange Behavior, NPR

On the third day after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, President Barack Obama finally interrupted his Hawaiian vacation to announce that our government "will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable." But how are we going to do that now that the terrorist is lawyered up and is even challenging what should be a legal gimme: giving the government a DNA sample? - Questions for Abdulmutallab, The Wall Street Journal

無線寬帶 wireless broadband

無線 (wireless) 寬帶 (broadband)
無 (no) 線 (wire) 寬 (broad) 帶 (band)
Simplified, 无线宽带

The sophistication of touchscreen technology, the spreading availability of wireless broadband and the increasing selection of film, television and music streaming services have helped to create a gap in the market for a multimedia device without a physical keyboard. - Investors rush for feelgood factor of Apple tablet, The Times

Of course, Wi-Fi isn't the only wireless way to get on the Internet. All of the major cell phone carriers offer wireless broadband access via their data networks, but it's not cheap. The going rate for a 5-gigabyte-a-month wireless broadband plan for PCs is $60 a month. It's worth it if you travel a great deal but not if you're just an occasional user. Verizon offers a 250-megabyte-a-month plan for $40, but you can quickly exceed that amount of data if you use the service to download music or video. - Will Free Wi-Fi Become the Norm?, CBS News

Sprint's official company line is that it doesn't support tethering now and won't ever do so, and Palm has discouraged Pre hackers from developing tethering apps. If you want official mobile broadband support, you'll have to go for the carrier's wireless broadband options. - Use Your Cell Phone as a Wireless Modem, Washington Post

外國軍事銷售 Foreign Military Sales (FMS)

外國 (foreign country) 軍事 (military) 銷售 (sales)
外 (outside) 國 (country) 軍 (military) 事 (matter) 銷 (market) 售 (sell)
Simplified, 外国军事销售

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) notified the US Congress of a number of possible foreign military sales (FMS) to countries from the Middle East amounting to some $2.224 billion (€1.56 billion). Egypt has dangled the most contract opportunities requesting the sale of air-to-surface missiles, anti-ship missiles, aircraft engines, and Fast Missile Crafts (FMC) worth a total or some $1.186 billion (€830.94 million). In addition, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait as well as the United Arab Emirates may be potential export customers for US-built military equipment. - Foreign Military Sale Opportunities in the Middle East, The Tolerance Webzine

Raytheon Co. said Wednesday it has received Foreign Military Sales contract awards totaling $1.1 billion to fund new production of the Patriot Air and Missile Defense System for Taiwan. - Raytheon wins $1.1B in contract awards, BusinessWeek

USAF FMS programs are assigned two-word codenames beginning with the word PEACE, indicating oversight by USAF Headquarters^[1]. The second word in these codenames is often chosen to reflect some facet of the customer, such as MARBLE for Israel or ONYX for Turkey. Codenames appear in all capital letters. - Foreign Military Sales, Wikipedia

pictured: 全球霸王 C-17 Globemaster (spottedred.com)

变化和恢复 change and renewal

变化 (change) 和 (and) 恢复 (recovery)
变 (change) 化 (-ize) 和 (and) 恢 (restore) 复 (return)
Simplified, 变化与恢复

"This photo represents the renewal that is going on now only at the physical site of Ground Zero, but in the hearts and minds of those who remember the day. Like the actual construction, the renewal is in early stages with hints of what was and only promises of what there is to be in the future. In the surrounding buildings are ghostly images of what are almost indelible views of the Twin Towers and wisps of clouds linger, caught by nearby domes." photo by Jill Foster, for Documenting the Decade, The New York Times

Obama stood for change, for rebuilding the economy from the bottom up, with "an economic recovery plan not just for the CEOs but for the secretaries and the janitors." He gave a worried and anxious America hope and a plan that called for restoring America's middle class. Remind yourself, Democrats: That was the winning agenda; that was what attracted independents and base Democratic voters in record numbers to the polls to vote for Democrats in 2008. - Five steps to recovery for Dems, The Politico

Time magazine named Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke "Person of the Year," a sign of support at a time he seeks to repel proposals that would erode authority and independence of the central bank. Time credited Bernanke with creative leadership that ensured 2009 would be a year of recovery, however weak, rather than a catastrophic second Great Depression. Bernanke was named "Person of the Year" by Time magazine, ECommerce Journal

核電站 nuclear power plant

核 (nuclear) 電 (electric) 站 (station)
Simplified, 核电站

The United Arab Emirates said Sunday that it had chosen a South Korean-led consortium for a $20 billion contract to create the first nuclear power reactors in the Middle East. The Korean consortium beat out a General Electric-Hitachi team and a French consortium that included Électricité de France and Areva. - South Korea to Build Reactors in Middle East, The New York Times

The deal between Areva and the Fresno Nuclear Energy Group faces regulatory hurdles. Early plans call for building at least one 1,600-megawatt plant using European pressurized reactor technology. - French firm, California investors sign letter of intent to build nuclear power plant near Fresno, Los Angeles Times

Lithuanians are braced for a devastating increase in energy prices when the struggling Baltic nation shuts down its main nuclear power station to comply with EU demands on New Years Eve. Lithuania power crisis looms as nuclear plant shuts, the Daily Telegraph

刺激政策 stimulus policy

刺激 (stimulus) 政策 (policy)
刺 (stab) 激 (bold) 政 (govern) 策 (plan)

The government carried out a package of stimulus policies to invigorate ten key industries, namely steel, automobile, shipbuilding, petrochemical, textile, light industry, non-ferrous metal, equipment manufacturing, information technology and logistics industries, to cope with the global financial crisis. An annual economic growth of around 8 percent is expected to be achieved. - top ten news events of 2009, Xinhua

China's shares ended higher Monday after Premier Wen Jiabao said this weekend Beijing will maintain its accommodative policies to ensure the economic recovery takes hold, even though the government is concerned about inflation and the rapid rise in property prices. - China Shares End Up On Premier's Remarks About Stimulus Policy, The Wall Street Journal

A moderate level of stimulus will still be needed in 2010 until recovery takes a firm hold, said Belka (Marek Belka, Director of the International Monetary Fund's European Department) Europe Needs Moderate Stimulus In 2010: IMF's Belka, RTT News