Posted by Florrie Horn on November 19, 2004 at 00:51:34:
In Reply to: Lime Pickles posted by sherry on September 17, 2001 at 10:20:35:
Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios, mixers,
etc., for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not have any of these
things, which is just as well because there was no place to plug them in.
Then along came the first Electrical Pioneer, Benjamin Franklin, who flew a
kite in a lighting storm and received a serious electrical shock. This
proved that lighting was powered by the same force as carpets, but it also
damaged Franklin's brain so severely that he started speaking only in
incomprehensible maxims, such as "A penny saved is a penny earned."
Eventually he had to be given a job running the post office.
-- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
generic viagra cheap generic viagraTwo things are certain about science. It does not stand still for long,
and it is never boring. Oh, among some poor souls, including even
intellectuals in fields of high scholarship, science is frequently
misperceived. Many see it as only a body of facts, promulgated from
on high in must, unintelligible textbooks, a collection of unchanging
precepts defended with authoritarian vigor. Others view it as nothing
but a cold, dry narrow, plodding, rule-bound process -- the scientific
method: hidebound, linear, and left brained.
These people are the victims of their own stereotypes. They are
destined to view the world of science with a set of blinders. They
know nothing of the tumult, cacophony, rambunctiousness, and
tendentiousness of the actual scientific process, let alone the
creativity, passion, and joy of discovery. And they are likely to
know little of the continual procession of new insights and discoveries
that every day, in some way, change our view (if not theirs) of the
natural world.
-- Kendrick Frazier, "The Year in Science: An Overview," in
1988 Yearbook of Science and the Future, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
buy generic viagra order generic viagra onlineYour digestive system is your body's Fun House, whereby food goes on a long,
dark, scary ride, taking all kinds of unexpected twists and turns, being
attacked by vicious secretions along the way, and not knowing until the last
minute whether it will be turned into a useful body part or ejected into the
Dark Hole by Mister Sphincter. We Americans live in a nation where the
medical-care system is second to none in the world, unless you count maybe
25 or 30 little scuzzball countries like Scotland that we could vaporize in
seconds if we felt like it.
-- Dave Barry, "Stay Fit & Healthy Until You're Dead"