Our era witnesses many cases where our own liberty

contradicts with others’. Here is an example to show this delicate issue.

An old lady was walking down the middle of a street in Petrograd

to the great confusion of the traffic and with small peril to herself. 【M1】__________

This was pointed out to her that the pavement was the place for 【M2】__________

pedestrians, but she replied: “I’m going to walk where I like. We’ve got

liberty now.” It did not occur to the lady that if liberty entitled the

pedestrian to walk down on the middle of the road, then the end of such 【M3】__________

liberty would be universalchaos. Everybody would be getting in

everybody else’s way and nobody would get nowhere. Individual liberty 【M4】__________

would have become social anarchy.

There is a danger of the world getting liberty-drunk in these days

like the old lady, and it is just as well to remind ourselves of which the 【M5】__________

rule of the road means. It means that in order that the liberties of all

may be reserved, the liberties of everybody must be curtailed. When the 【M6】__________

policeman, say, at Piccadilly Circus steps into the middle of the road

and puts out his hand, he is the symbol not of tyranny, or of liberty. 【M7】__________

You may not think so. You may, being in a hurry, and seeing your car

pulling up by this insolence of office, feel that your liberty has been 【M8】__________

outraged. How dare this fellow interfere with your free use of the public

highway? Then, if you are a reasonable person, you will reflect that

when he did not interfere with you, he would interfere with no one, and 【M9】__________

the result would be that Piccadilly Circus would be the maelstrom that 【M10】_________

you would never cross at all.

Some try to reason with the police officer who has pulled them over

for some real or imagined traffic offense. But when law enforcement is

represented by a computer-driven camera that has immortalized your

violations in film, it is hard to talk your way out of a heavy fine. Yet 【M1】__________

that is precisely what some 300 motorists in San Diego succeeded in

doing last week that a superior court judge rules that pictures taken by 【M2】__________

the so-called red-light cameras were unreliable and therefore unacceptable.

The first US court decision to reject all the traffic violations

catching on camera, the ruling by judge Ronald Styn has fueled debate 【M3】__________

over the growing use of the devices. Police departments swear, and

studies indicate that the robot cameras deter people in speeding and 【M4】__________

running red lights. Yet at least seven states have blocked proposals to

implement them, but opponents—ranging from House majority leader 【M5】__________

Dick Armey to the American Civil Liberties Union—argues that the 【M6】__________

cameras violate privacy and place profit above public safety.

Part of the problem is that virtually all the devices in the place are 【M7】__________

operated by private firms that handle everything from installing the

machinery to identifying violations—often with maximal police 【M8】__________

oversight—and have an incentive to pull in as many drivers as they can.

The companies get paid as many as $ 70 a ticket, and the total revenue 【M9】__________

is hardly chump change. “It’s all about money,” says Congressman Bob

Barr, a leading critic. Not so, insists Terrance Gainer, Washington’s

executive assistant chief of police. “We have reduced fatalities. If some

company is making money for that, that is American way. “ 【M10】_________

A long winding road climbs into a gathering dusk, coming to an

abrupt dead end in front of a house. Here, a solitary flickering flame

casts out a warm glow, illuminated the nearby ridge line of the Malvern 【M1】__________

Hills.

Below the light sit a mysterious green contraption resembling a cross 【M2】__________

between a giant washing machine and a weather station. This is the

UK’s first dog poo-powered street lamp, and it is generating light in

most ways than one. 【M3】__________

The idea seems simple enough: dog walkers deposit the product of a

hearty walk into a hatch and turn a handle. The contents are then

broken by microorganisms in the anaerobic digester, producing methane 【M4】__________

to fuel the light, and fertiliser. Brian Harper, started work on the 【M5】__________

machine three years ago after becoming fed up of seeing plump little

bags hung in trees and on grass verges, reckons that 10 bags will power 【M6】__________

the light for two hours each evening.

“The gas light captures people’s imagination and shows it dog poo 【M7】__________

has a value,” says Harper, who developed the system with funding from

the Malvern Hills Area. “As a result, we get it off the ground, into a

receptacle, and produce something useful.” The next step is try to 【M8】__________

interest managers of urban parks in the technology.

Humans have used animal dung as fuel since the neolithic period,

and have known how to get nonflammable gas from decaying organic 【M9】__________

matter since the 17th century.Small-scale anaerobic digesters are

commonplace in many developing countries, while larger plants are 【M10】_________

producing heat and electricity from animal manure and human sewage

have long been used in the west.