富兰克林认为“世间有两种爱好对人间的事情有着强有力的影响，那就是野心和贪心，也就是权和钱。如果把它们拆开，那么两爱之中的任何一爱都会成为发挥人们干劲的强大动力。如果他们看到一个位置既带来权力又带来金钱，那么他们就会不顾一切地去谋取这个位置。

正因为英国有大量这样的位置，所以英国的派系林立，国家长期陷于分裂，政府不能集中精力，在仓促间就发动战争，常常还要迫使国家接受不光彩的媾和”。

“那些投身阴谋诡计、百般争夺、结党营私、不顾廉耻来谋得这种名利双收的位置的人将是些什么人呢？他们不是明智和稳健的人，不是爱好和平和安定的人。他们是胆大和狂暴的人，他们是一心求成为一己私利不辞辛劳的人”。

“我担心这样一个既带来权力又带来金钱的位置，会使占据这个位置的人有朝一日成为君主，我们的政府，有朝一日会成为君主政府”。

“就近而论，难到我们没有看到这样一个事实吗？我们的一位最重要的官员，我们全军的总司令，一位我现在不愿用任何其他的颂辞来触犯他的爱国者，他负责军队作战八年之久而未取分文。

他与英勇作战的战友备尝艰苦和危难，还有这个职务带来的日以继夜的忧心。难道我们不相信可以在合众国内找出三到四个这样的人吗”？

“对我来说节省薪俸并不是我的目的。我所担心的是支取巨额薪俸所带来的后患。正因为如此，我才提出了修正案。如果没人附议，我也心安理得，因为我说出了我的意见，尽了我的责任”。

Adaptedfrom Marcus Stern, “How to Prevent an Oil Train Disaster” ©2015 by The New YorkTimes Company. Originally published May 19, 2015. 

1 The Obama administration recently issued new safety rules for oil trains, to take effectin October. But it didn’t do the one thing many independent petroleum engineers say could immediately reduce the risk of a deadly disaster: require energy producers to remove more of the volatile gases that the oil contains when it comes out of the ground, before they load the crude into rail tankers.

2 This can bedone easily at most wells. North Dakota recently required producers to extractsome of these gases, which include propane and butane. The state is thee picenter of the new oil boom and was the departure point for most of the more than 400,000 oil tank cars that rolled across the United States in 2013.

3 But the North Dakota rule is still too lax, and instead of toughening it, the new federal rules focus on strengthening the tankers that carry the oil. That is a long overdue step that will take five years to complete. And already, the oil industry, which owns many of the tankers and will bear much of the cost of upgrading them, has sued to extend the deadline.

4 Oil companieshave a financial stake in keeping the volatile gases in the oil. When thegas-laden oil arrives at refineries, the gases can be separated, processed and sold for added profit. The gases can even be sold overseas, something that can’t be done with the oil because crude oil can’t be exported.

5 If producers are forced to remove these lucrative gases at the well, that significant additional revenue would be lost. North Dakota doesn’t have the degasification plants and pipelines needed to process the gas and get it to market.

6 ….. As the trains rumble along, the gases begin separating from the oil, forming an explosive blanket of vapors on top of the roughly 30,000 gallons of flammable oil that a single tanker usually contains.

7 If aderailment occurs and the tanker ruptures, a spark could ignite those vaporsand send a mushroom-shaped fireball hundreds of feet into the sky, and flaming oil in all directions. A burning tanker could ignite the next one.

8 That’s what happened in Lac-Mégantic. It has also happened innine other places in North America in the past two years, including Alabama,Virginia, West Virginia, Illinois and twice in North Dakota. Fortunately,nobody died in those other accidents because they occurred in rural, isolatedareas. But oil trains also run through crowded urban and suburban neighborhoods. Albany is a major hub for oil shipments by trains from NorthDakota, with trains traveling south along the Hudson River toward mid-Atlantic refineries.

9 The Obama administration is well aware of this risk. After the earlier oil train explosions, the administration issued a series of emergency orders and safety alerts stressing the oil’s volatility and the “imminent hazard” it posed to communities along the tracks.

10 But after almost two years of orders, alerts and testing, the 395-page final rule offered no explanation for why the trains were exploding and took no steps to requireoil developers to reduce the oil’s volatility before shipping it by rail. Instead, the administration said it planned to spend up to two more years studying whether — and perhaps how — to regulate oil’s volatility.

11 Some have suggested that federal action was unnecessary because on April 1 North Dakota began requiring oil companies to reduce their oil’s vapor pressure to no more than 13.7 pounds per square inch. But this is clearly inadequate. Some of the oiltank cars that have ignited have had vapor pressures well below that.

12 The new rules have other short comings. No disclosure is required to alert the general public that oil trains will be passing through their borders. Emergency responders canget the information, but wider distribution raised security concerns. Andrailroads are not required to have comprehensive emergency plans, as recommended by the National Transportation Safety Board and Canada’sTransportation Safety Board.

13 The new rules on oil trains don’t go nearly far enough to protect the town centers, schools and homes that these trains pass by with increasing regularity. The Obama administration should quickly enact an aggressive interim volatility standard while it searches for a more durable solution.

奥巴马政府最近发布了新的石油列车安全规则，将于10月生效。但很多独立石油工程师说，这并不可以立即降低致命灾难风险:要求能源生产商在将原油装上铁路油轮之前，去除更多石油从地下开采出来时所含的挥发性气体。

这在大多数井里都能很容易做到。北达科他州最近要求生产商去除其中一些气体，包括丙烷和丁烷。该州是新一轮石油热潮的中心，也是2013年全美40多万辆油罐车的起点站。

但是，北达科他州的规定仍然过于宽松，联邦政府的新规定并没有使之更加严格，而是把重点放在加强运输石油的油轮上。这是一个姗姗来迟的步骤，需要五年时间才能完成。拥有许多油轮并将承担大部分升级成本的石油业已经提起诉讼，要求延长最后期限。

石油公司保留石油中的挥发性气体会给他们带来经济利益。当富含天然气的石油到达炼油厂时，这些气体可以被分离、加工并出售，从而获得额外的利润。这些气体甚至可以销往海外，而石油却不能，因为原油不能出口。

如果生产商被迫从油井中移除这些利润丰厚的气体，那将会损失可观的额外收入。北达科他州没有处理天然气，并将其推向市场所需的脱气工厂和管道。

.....当火车隆隆驶过时，这些气体开始从石油中分离出来，在一辆含有大约3万加仑易燃石油的油罐车上，形成了一个爆炸性的蒸汽层。

如果发生脱轨，油轮破裂，火星就会点燃这些蒸汽，并将一个蘑菇形状的火球抛向数百英尺高的空中，四下都是燃烧的石油。一艘燃烧的油轮可以点燃下一艘。

这就是在拉克-梅甘蒂克发生的事情。在过去两年中，这种情况在北美其他九个地方也发生过，包括阿拉巴马州、弗吉尼亚州、西弗吉尼亚州、伊利诺伊州和北达科他州。幸运的是，没有人在其他事故中死亡，因为这些事故发生在偏远的农村地区。但是，石油列车也会经过拥挤的城市和郊区社区。奥尔巴尼是北达科他州火车运输石油的主要枢纽，火车沿着哈德逊河向南驶向大西洋中部的炼油厂。

奥巴马政府很清楚这种风险。在早些时候的油罐车爆炸事件之后，政府发布了一系列紧急命令和安全警报，强调石油的挥发性，以及它对沿线社区构成的“迫在眉睫的危险”。

但是，在近两年的调查、警报和测试之后，这份长达395页的最终规定并没有解释火车爆炸的原因，也没有采取任何措施要求石油开发商在通过铁路运输之前降低石油的挥发性。相反，奥巴马政府表示，计划再花两年时间研究是否——或许是如何——监管油价的波动。

有些人认为联邦政府的行动是不必要的，因为从4月1日起，北达科他州开始要求石油公司将石油的蒸汽压降低到每平方英寸不超过13.7磅。但这显然是不够的。一些已经点燃的油罐车的蒸汽压远远低于这个数值。

新规定还有其他缺点。不需要披露任何信息来提醒公众，石油列车将会通过他们的边境。应急响应人员可以得到这些信息，但更广泛的分发引起了安全方面的担忧。铁路也不需要像美国国家运输安全委员会(National Transportation Safety Board)和加拿大运输安全委员会(Canada 's Transportation Safety Board)建议的那样，制定全面的应急计划。

关于石油火车的新规定远不足以保护这些火车越来越频繁地经过的城镇中心、学校和家庭。奥巴马政府应在寻求更持久解决方案的同时，迅速制定一个激进的中期波动性标准。

Looking out across Los Angeles from Mt. Wilson Observatory at night, the hills andmountains look like islands in a sea of light. It was here that Edwin Hubblefirst proved our universe was expanding at a rapid pace. From this vantagepoint you can still make out the major constellations, but drive into the light bubble and suddenly the cosmos feels awfully far away. The city shines sobright it blocks out the stars, a phenomenon known as "skyglow."

Light seeps into the sky from stadiums, malls, parking lots, offices and billboards. But streetlights, with their harsh bulbs, are the worst offenders.

The215,000 streetlights in Los Angeles are meant to thwart more than fumbled keys and stubbed toes — they're a luminous security blanket, or so the Los Angeles Bureauof Street Lighting would have you believe. The bureau's slogan: "Bright Lights, Safe Nights." Other cities use the motto too.

We intuitively assume that more lights mean less crime. Indeed, police are often taught that, second to more cops, good lighting is the best crime deterrent. 

Yet decades of research show there's no scientific reason to believe that darkerstreets are inherently more dangerous. And, increasingly, researchers arefinding that excess light is toxic for both humans and wildlife.

In onestudy, published July 28 in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health,researchers examined 14 years of data from 62 local authorities across Englandand Wales, hunting for crime and collision trends among agencies that reducedtheir lighting.

England'scouncils — local governing bodies — have sought to slash costs and carbonemissions in recent years under pressure from the national government. Inresponse, 106 councils either dimmed or turned off some streetlights, affectingan estimated 750,000 lamps altogether.

Noteveryone is happy about the darker skies. The "great streetlight switch-off" has sparked a political debate, with the country's automobile association asserting that six people have died since 2009 as a direct resultand opposition politicians rushing to lay blame.

But the health researchers found no link between collisions and lighting despite studying about 14,500 miles of roadways where streetlights were dimmed, lightedfor only part of the night or shut off entirely. They also examined lighting'seffect on crime and similarly found no increase in burglary, auto theft,robbery, violence or sexual assault in areas where lighting policy had changed.

Thescientists published a companion study based on surveys of 520 people living indarkened areas. Many residents said they didn't even notice the dimming, letalone feel threatened by an uptick in crime.

Other studies back up these results. In 1998, for example, Chicago tried to fight crime with a three-phase plan that included upgrading 175,000 streetlights, aswell as lights in transit stations and alleys around the city. The city kept experimental control areas unchanged and found that crime consistently increased in both the well-lighted and the control areas. Illinois criminal justiceofficials concluded that strolling down a dark alley was no more dangerous thandoing so in a well-lighted one.

All this should make taxpayers uneasy. Last week, the Cities at Night project released areport estimating that the European Union alone spends about $7 billionannually to power streetlights.

But there's something much more troubling than wasted money about losing the night.A growing body of biological research suggests that night time lighting messeswith the circadian rhythms of humans and other animals, wreaking havoc oneverything from sleep patterns to DNA repair.

Studies have shown that nighttime light exposure is a risk factor for some cancers,diabetes, heart disease and obesity. As scientists continue to gather evidence,the American Medical Assn. has already recommended that cities reduce light pollution and that people avoid staring at electronic screens after dark.

LEDs areof particular concern. Cities around the world are converting from traditional yellow sodium-vapor lamps, which cast their light in a narrow range, tobroad-spectrum LED streetlights. Los Angeles has installed 165,000 LEDs inrecent years, slashing streetlight energy use by 60% and netting $8 million inenergy savings annually.

Theproblem is that these bright lamps increase skyglow by emitting more blue light than the older technology. They also could have unintended effects on wildlife.Artificial lights can disrupt navigation, mating and feeding among the manynocturnal animals that share our cities.

A University of Bristol study published this month showed that certain mothscan't perform evasive maneuvers against predatory bats under LEDs. And recent research in New Zealand shows some insects are 48% more attracted to the newLEDs than they were to the old-fashioned lights. The researchers worry thatwidespread use of the new technology will create a "white-lightnight" that intensifies light pollution's pressure on ecosystems.

The psychological loss is less measurable.

When the 1994 Northridge earthquake hit, some area residents actually called 911 toreport a strange cloud hovering overhead — it was the Milky Way, the nebulousand star-rich center of our galaxy.

What happens when people grow up without stars? Do they lose their connection to the cosmos that our ancestors tracked so carefully, night after night?