THE election date had been an open secret for so long that its announcement this week might have come as an anticlimax.

选举的日期成为一个公开的秘密如此之久以致于这星期正式通告可能没那么大的反响。

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So Ireland has long been flirting with a debt crisis of its own.

因此长久以来，爱尔兰一直与自己的债务危机暧昧不清。

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Why is it taking so long to shut off the flow of oil? What methods have been tried to stop the oil flow at its source?

为什么需要花这么多的时间才能止住漏油？在这个过程中，我们都尝试了那些方法？

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"For me,the best health news of the previous decade is the fact that the long overdue influenza pandemic has been so moderate in its impact .

VOA: standard.2010.01.18

And its stock has been a winner for so long, it defies reason.

FORBES: Connect

The merchandising team has been doing its job so well for so long that it can just look at an item and know it's going to be a winner with SkyMall's audience, O'Donnell said.

CNN: Need a garden zombie? SkyMall has it

In one editorial, Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Eric Topol , who was the first to raise the alarm about Vioxx three years ago, calls for a formal government investigation into how Merck (nyse: MRK - news - people ) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration left Vioxx on the market for so long after concerns about its possible heart risks had been raised.

FORBES: Top Doctor Calls For Vioxx Investigation