Ethiopian ancestors of today's Oromo people were believed to have been the first to recognize the energizing effect of the coffee bean plant.
エチオピアの先祖であるオロモ人は最初にコーヒーに精力向上効果を発見したとされています。
Coffee consumption has been shown to have minimal or no impact, positive or negative, on cancer development.
コーヒーの飲用による発がんあるいはその防止効果は認められていません。
Ethiopian shepherds first noticed the effects of caffeine when they saw their goats appearing to become frisky and "dance" after eating coffee berries.
エチオピアの羊飼いたちは、コーヒーの実を食べたヤギたちがはしゃぎまわって踊るのを見て初めてカフェインの効果に気付いたと言われています。
Originally, coffee was eaten. African tribes mixed coffee berries with fat which formed edible energy balls!
当初はコーヒーは飲み物ではなく食べ物でした。アフリカの部族はコーヒーの実を脂肪と混ぜた「エナジーボール」を作って食べていたそうです。
The rise of isam contributed greatly to the popularity of coffee. The religion prohibited drinking alcohol, but coffee was considered and acceptable drink.
イスラム教の登場がコーヒーの普及に大きく貢献しました。イスラムの教えは飲酒を禁止しましたが、コーヒーは容認されていたためです。
All coffee in the world grows in the "Bean Belt" (The "bean belt" is the area between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn). Hawaii is the only state in the US that grows coffee.
世界のすべてのコーヒーは北回帰線と南回帰線の間の「ビーン・ベルト」で生産されています。アメリカではコーヒーが育つのはハワイ州のみとのこと。日本では北回帰線が通るのは南鳥島と沖ノ鳥島の間なので、コーヒーは当然輸入に頼っています。
In 1675, the King of England banned coffee houses, claiming they were places where people met to conspire against him.
1675年にイングランド王（チャールズ2世）は「謀反を企てる人々が集まる場所」としてコーヒー・ハウスを禁止しました。
70% of the world consumes Arabica coffee, which is mild and aromatic. The remaining 30% drinks Robusta, which is more bitter-tasting but has 50% more caffeine than Arabaica.
世界で消費されるコーヒーの70％はマイルドで香り豊かな「アラビカ種」、残り30％はアラビカ種より苦くカフェイン含有量が1.5倍の「ロブスタ種」です。
Coffee grows on trees. They can grow to be up to 30 feet tall, but aer cultivated to be around 10 feet (3meters) tall for easy-picking.
コーヒーの木は放っておくと30フィート（約9m）の高さにまで育つのですが、収穫しやすいよう10フィート（3m）程度の高さに栽培されています。
The bean is actually a seed inside of a bright red berry.
コーヒーの「豆」は実際には赤いベリーの果肉に包まれた「種」の部分です。
Coffee is the 2nd most traded commodity on earth. (Oil is the first)
コーヒーは世界で2番目に多く取引される貿易財です。ちなみに1番は石油。
Coffee Berries are picked, dried, and stripped down until all that's left is a green bean.
収穫されたコーヒーの赤い実は乾燥し、むき、緑の豆（種）だけの状態にします。
Once shipped, the beans are roasted at around 500F(260C). After a few minutes, the bean will "pop" and double in size. A few minutes after than, the bean will "pop" once more. The 2nd pop means the bean is done.
この緑の豆の状態で輸送されたコーヒーは華氏500度（摂氏260度）でローストされ、数分後にポップコーンのようにポンとはじけ、2倍くらいの大きさになります。それからさらに数分後にもう一度はじけたら、お店で売っている「コーヒー豆」の状態になるというわけです。
A belgian man living in Guatemala by the name George Washington invented it in 1906.
インスタントコーヒーは1906年にジョージ・ワシントンという名のグアテマラ在住のベルギー人によって発明されたそうです。
Espresso is not a paricular type of bean, roast, or blend. It is just a way that coffee is prepared: shooting pressurized, hot water through finely ground coffee.
「エスプレッソ」は特定の豆の種類やロースト、ブレンドの名ではなく、「細かくひいた豆に加圧した熱湯を通す」というコーヒーのいれ方の名です。
Americano comes from America GIs during WWII. They would order espresso with water to dilute the strong flavor. Furthermore, the term "cup of joe" comes from American serivceman (GI Joes) in WWII being seen as big coffee drinkers.
エスプレッソを薄めた「アメリカーノ」は、第二次世界大戦中にヨーロッパの濃いコーヒーを飲み慣れない米軍兵士たちが頼んだのが始まり。1杯のコーヒーを「cup of joe」という表現もG.I.ジョーのような米軍兵士はコーヒーをがぶ飲みするという第二次世界大戦中に定着したイメージが由来とのこと。
How caffeine works: In one's brain there is somethnig called Adenosine and it only wants to hang out with certain receptors. When these two get together, one gets drowsy. When Caffeine shows up, it attaches the receptors so that Adenosine cannot. One's pitultary gland sees this and thinks there is an emergency, so it tells the adrenal glands to produce adrenaline. In addition, caffeine bumps up one's dopamine levels, which results in a caffeine high.
カフェインが「効く」仕組みを解説。脳の中に住むアデノシンは特定のレセプター（受容体）としか付き合わないのですが、このアデノシンとアデノシンレセプターがくっつくと人間は眠くなります。しかしそこへカフェインが現れると、「あんなつまんないやつのこと忘れろよ」とそそのかされたレセプターは「あいつのことなんかもともと好きじゃなかったし」と言ってアデノシンを見捨てカフェインとくっつき、アデノシンは独りぼっちに……。これに気付いた下垂体は「非常事態だ！」と勘違いし、副腎髄質に「アドレナリン出せ、どんどん出せ」と指令を出します。ついでにドーパミン濃度も上がるようです。その結果訪れるのが「カフェイン・ハイ」というわけ。
（2017年9月11日追加）
参考リンク[4]のClinton criticizes Trump for using race to win electionの先頭には以下の文章があります。
Declaring that she is done with being a candidate, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton looked back on the 2016 presidential campaign Sunday with a mix of regret and frustration over the way she thinks President Trump won election by stoking racial grievances.
TOM PEREZ, DNC CHAIR: What's clear from this administration, and what's clear throughout the entirety of his business practices, is that they will lie, cheat, and steal. They'll do anything to win. They have so eroded institutions of democracy, that is why there is health care on the ballot and we will continue to point out that the Democratic Party is the party fighting to save your health care. The Republicans are fighting to take it away. So many other things on the ballot. Our democracy is on the ballot. 」
(2020年1月15日追加）
日本経済新聞の「トランプ氏「緊急性どうでもよい」 司令官殺害めぐり」によると、「トランプ米大統領は13日、イランの司令官殺害の根拠をめぐり、司令官主導の米大使館攻撃計画などの「差し迫った脅威」があったかは「どうでもよい」とツイッターに書き込んだ。緊急性が低いにもかかわらず殺害を決めたとの疑念を生じさせかねない発言で、司令官殺害を自衛措置とする政権の主張をさらに揺るがしかねない。」
別の報道では、トランプ氏の決断は大統領選を有利に運ぶためのものだという分析もあります。
誰がどう言おうが、「Make America great again」というスローガンを軸とした姿勢は明確だろう。そのために、明確な理由がなくても人命を落とすまで行動するし、その弁明も民間人用のサービスで軽々と発表します。
これを単純に「有言実行」として評価されると、事件自身の合理性はともかく、ほかのことの重みも極端に減るかもしれません。それは本当の狙いではなかろうか。
(2020年3月3日）
[5]によると、
「トランプ大統領は政権1年目に早くも、現在のIT企業の収益や結果としての「テック相場」に大いに貢献する重要な政策を、抜群の実行力で成し遂げた。
それが、2017年12月に成立させた包括的税制改革法だ。最高法人税率を35%から21%へと大幅に引き下げる一方、米国の高い税率ゆえにアイルランドなど海外で税逃れ的に留保していた巨額の利益を米国に持ち帰る際の税率を、さらに低い15.5%にすることで、米テクノロジー企業の財政基盤を数兆億円規模で大いに強化した。
また、アマゾンが2017年と2018年に連邦法人所得税をまったく支払わず、内国歳入庁（IRS）から1億2900万ドル（約141億9千万円）の「過払い還付」さえ受けていた案件についても、同社やジェフ・ベゾスCEOを鋭く口撃するトランプ大統領でも、問題化させる気配すらない。」
確かに、GAFA等が業績アップし、株式相が高騰すれば、「Make America Great Again!」という「マニフェスト」を実現することになり、再選に絶大な有利条件となるに違いありません。
しかし、Greatになったのは、GAFAのようなビッグカンパニーだけで、ごく一部の関連会社の社員を除いて、アメリカ国民はそれで豊な生活ができるかどうかははっきりしないでしょう。
Now it is the season of presidential election (2012) in the United States again.
What we can tell is that thousands of, if not millions, bright people are working theirs brains out to get one more ballot than their component, which fortunately is not much, but a single one.
To people of the third party, this election is nothing but a festival, carnival, a commercial war.
A festival in the sense of periodical event, once in four years, like that of Olympic, FIFA world cup etc..
A carnival in the sense of entertainment event, something to talk about, to be exited about, to participate, and nothing too harmful at the same time.
A commercial war in the sense of fund raising and spending. OpenSecrets.org gives very precise reports on residential fundraising and spending from 1797 to 2008. People can see their price of "democracy". A total of $1.3 billion has been spent by the presidential candidates!
Even in the purse sense of commercial, the one (above) for 1960 presidential campaign shows an explicit example of how similar it is to an advertisement for a product. No one can keep track of how many times "Kennedy" has been shouted in this short film. In fact, it is way more pushy, primitive and childish than any one of the modern commercial of any products. 2008 Presidential Election - Presidential Expenditures shows that 39.5% have been spent on "Media", the largest among all others. Coming to the 2nd is the "Administrative" (30.7%), of which about 1/3 is for salaries & benefits and the other 1/3 is for "travel".
A festival in the sense of a fun game. There is seldom a one side election in the history. Especially with the progress of communication, transportation, studies of all related theories, ballotors are more easily influenced by each party's brain-washing messages and strategies, so much so that there are always marginal differences in the number votes. This makes it a fun game to watch, to participate, with the climax always dragged to the last count. And it is a game without much harmful result to anybody. In other words, its harm, if there are any, cannot be felt upon the final judgment of the game. Plus there is never a "perfect" result anyway. Nothing is perfect, nothing can be perfect, nothing will be perfect. That is also the sole reason why people need an election. That is also what can make a presidential candidate different from the other. People can always find a new material to start his or her campaign with, to appeal with, to attack the opponent with, to attract the interests of the people. The map on the left is the famous map of vote results, also reminds people about many kinds of RPG games. Territory WAR, Romance of the Three Kingdoms are good examples. In Japan, Kunitori is one of the most famous mobile game.
A carnival for people to make fun of each other. Look back at the 2008 election, there are more talks about Palin than other candidates. Sensational mentioning to be precise. 2008 Election Cartoons in About.com shows how easily a woman can become a target of mocking, and how entertaining the presidential election can be for cartoonist and readers.
Some more fun facts. For Barack Obama, there are much more female fund contributors than those for John McCain (42.2% vs 28.0%). For the same 2008 election, there had been more contributions to Democratic than Republic from the sectors of communication/electronics (78%), lawyers/lobbists (77%). The later is the 2nd largest portion among the sectors.
When searching on google.com, "barack obama" has 435 million hits, whereas "sarah palin" 82 million. As comparison, among all other candidates of Republic, "george pataki" (857 million) is the only one that get more hits than "sarah palin", in fact, even more than "barack obama". Um...does this make Pataki a sure president? Let's see.
(.....Updating on Jan 24, 2012.....)
The big moment is getting closer, so is the battles between the politicians. There are also more fun stuffs in 2012 Presidential Election Jokes. In fact, the election itself is becoming a joke now. The opponents are attacking/mocking/insulting each other more and more viciously, and sometime even personally. The goal, although seemingly like for democracy or the american citizens, is becoming solely how to beat each other, taking any possible (or even seemingly impossible) opportunities.
How The 2004 Presidential Election May Have Been Hacked
GIZMODO 7/26/11 8:53pm
Ohio's 2004 presidential election is one many won't forget. Democrat John Kerry was the leader and exit polls pegged him as the winner. Defying explanation, a last-minute shift in votes favored Republican George W. Bush and propelled him to victory.
New filings in the King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell case sheds some light on how the 2004 election may have been hacked. The story starts with SmartTech, a Tennessee based hosting company with strong Republican ties.
SmarTech was hired by Ohio to provide a failsafe voting server for the rare occasion a network problem occurred. This isn't unusual. All properly managed networked systems have a backup in case of failure.
But in Ohio, there was no significant failure and voting data was unexpectedly switched over to SmarTech late in the voting process. This sudden shift coincides with an increase in votes favorable to Bush. Hmm, is there a mackerel in the room because something smells fishy.
IT security expert Stephen Spoonamore has studied newly released network maps and believes the SmarTech server was not a backup, but a man in the middle server that had the ability to input and alter voting data on the fly. Spoonamore is convinced the election was stolen,
"The computer system and SmarTech had the correct placement, connectivity, and computer experts necessary to change the election in any manner desired by the controllers of the SmarTech computers."
To make things even more intriguing, SmarTech was owned by Michael Connell who mysteriously died in a 2008 single-engine plane crash shortly after being served a subpoena in this case. His full testimony will never be heard. http://gizmodo.com/5825014/how-the-2004-presidential-election-may-have-been-hacked
参考リンク[1]はオーストラリアで行われている700による集団訴訟に関する記事です。同記事によると、「In 2014, Irish medical device maker Endo International said it would pay $830 million to settle more than 20,000 personal injury lawsuits related to its vaginal mesh implants.」
