"This is how I did it, Anton.  I never saved anything for the swim back."  Ethan Hawke after outswimming his "perfect" brother in Gattaca.

This was sent to me by my friend Chris in Atlanta.  It's great....

An "A" in Chemistry

The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.
Bonus Question:

Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added. This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over. So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you, and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over.

The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct... leaving only Heaven thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God."

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A"

"Yes they deserved to die, and I hope they burn in hell!"--Perfectly executed by Mr. Samuel L. Jackson in A Time to Kill.

What are some of your favorite movie lines?

Driving into the parking lot at my designated voting location early this morning, I noticed how dark the sky was.  Not storming yet but threatening.  "How appropriate", I thought.  I hope it's a good omen.  Winds of change or whatever.  I don't remember ever seeing more interest in an election.  The bad weather certainly didn't deter the old folks from getting up at the crack of dawn and waiting in line to cast their vote.

From where I stand, I can only hope the rest of the country has some sense because too many people here in Alabama are voting for Bush "if for no other reason than I think he's a good Christian."  I can't tell you how crazy it makes me to hear that.  I shouldn't be surprised, though, as politics and religion are married here.  The Baptists vote for anyone who claims to be against abortion, whether they have any other qualifications or not.  The Church of Christ block vote.  Basically, the preacher tells them who or what to vote for and they all do it without question.  Like when they voted down the state lottery, even though at least half of them drive to Tennessee every week to buy lottery tickets.  In our local running for District Attorney, the Church of Christ candidate sent a letter to all the churches saying that they should vote for him because he's the only Christian in the race.  The other guy is (gasp) a Catholic.  I think the Methodists are a little more reasonable but they're too outnumbered  here to swing the vote either way.  It's not even about political parties, it's about religious demominations.

It's getting nasty, folks.  Here are some of the more ridiculous attempts I've seen to rock the vote:

My sister's friend told my 5 year old neice that no one should vote for Kerry because he likes to kill babies before they are born.

My partner's neice has a Sunday School teacher who harrassed the kids about who they would vote for if they were old enough (her father is a Union worker so she did know he would vote Democrat).  The teacher then told her that if Kerry were elected he would let two men get married just like everyone else, which is of course a sin.  She's 7 years old.  She doesn't even know what "sex" or "gay" means.  (to her credit, the neice replied, " I don't know about that, but I know Bush is a liar."  Ha!

My mother said her preacher said a Christian couldn't vote for Kerry because he drinks alcoholic beverages.  I said "Good God, mother, everybody drinks.  You think Bush doesn't drink or did he stick to snorting coke after college?" Also, the abortion argument came up.  I said "abortion is legal.  Do you think there were no abortions with Bush in office the first time?"

Unfortunately, these tactics work on the Southern population.  You'd think some of them would have more important things on their mind than trying to deny a woman the right to control her own body--like getting out of the unemployment line and getting a job, like being able to get medical insurance for their families, like wanting their children to have the best education possible, like not worrying about their sons and daughters being drafted into the military to try to fix this Iraqui mess we've gotten into.  But no, to them Kerry is a heathen who needs to repent because he doesn't believe in forcing his personal beliefs on the entire country (abortion, again) and because he, like my mother said about me, "just thinks those queers are okay."