Hell, as  explained by a Chemistry student:

The following is an actual question given on a University  of Arizona chemistry midterm, and an actual answer turned in by a student.

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, which is unlikely.. 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 that 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 two must be true, and thus I am sure that 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 AN A+.

What grade would you have given?

RFM

"I really haven’t seen this many people in one place since they took the group photograph of all the criminals and lawbreakers in the Ronald Reagan administration." I liked that one, because it was right on the mark and included, among many others, pointing a finger at the haughty Lt Colonel Oliver North who might well have received a hefty sentence as a convicted felon for the illegal Iran-Contra affair, and also for helping smuggle drugs into the US for an additional source of funds to support the Contras. According to North, he was supporting "Freedom Fighters" (this is the group of torturers who were trained by ex-Natzis, including Claus Barbi, who also murdered nuns and priests).

On the revival of the "war on terror" by GW Bush (Reagan was the first to mention a "war on terror," as a floater to see if he could come up with a new enemy should the Cold War end prematurely) and his insistence that he is supporting "Freedom Fighters," Carlin’s response to that assertion went like this (again from the Nichol’s article):

"Carlin echoed James Madison’s thinking with a simple question: "Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?""

The more you look at Carlin’s long history of political commentary, the more you realize that he didn’t miss much and was fearless in his ability to succinctly get at the real nature of our government and the continuous assault on our constitutional freedoms and our economic security. The right wing has always been obsessed with fighting communism and could always find them in places where most people didn’t care to look. Though Oliver North escaped imprisonment and a felony conviction (he was granted partial immunity to testify before congress, then his congressional testimony was foolishly used to convict him, so the ACLU assisted in getting his conviction thrown out), he failed in his bid for the US Senate in Virginia in 1994 (defeated by Charles Robb) and he is still banned from visiting Costa Rica for his apparent drug-running activity, some of which involved events in that country. North’s 2006 visit to Nicaragua to support Daniel Ortega’s opponent, Jose Rizo, may have been an appearance that helped elect Ortega, his sworn enemy, on the first ballot.

Carlin’s website has a fitting farewell description of how he wanted his remains to be handled. As Nichols put it "No one, not Obama, not Hillary Clinton and certainly not John McCain, caught the zeitgeist of the vanishing American dream so well as Carlin." I completely agree with Nichols when he said "In fact, George Carlin was, like the radicals of an earlier age, an idealist — and a patriot — of a deeper sort than is encountered very often these days." Carlin was the indispensable weather-vane of our fading culture. At least if our culture was going to disappear, Carlin made sure we would laugh about it. Whatever the future holds, for us, we have Carlin to thank for insisting that something important is going away and it will take great courage to get it back.
In one of Carlin’s last interviews, he said "There is a certain amount of righteous indignation I hold for this culture, because to get back to the real root of it, to get broader about it, my opinion that is my species — and my culture in America specifically — have let me down and betrayed me. I think this species had great, great promise, with this great upper brain that we have, and I think we squandered it on God and Mammon. And I think this culture of ours has such promise, with the promise of real, true freedom, and then everyone has been shackled by ownership and possessions and acquisition and status and power." George Carlin was indispensable and irreplaceable.

It was the first day of a school in USA and a new Indian student named Chandrasekhar Subramanian entered the fourth grade.

The teacher said, ‘Let’s begin by reviewing some American History..

Who said ‘Give me Liberty , or give me Death’?

She saw a sea of blank faces, except for Chandrasekhar, who had his hand up:

‘Patrick Henry, 1775′ he said.

‘Very good!’

Who said ‘Government of the People, by the People, for the People, shall not perish from the Earth?’

Again, no response except from Chandrasekhar.

‘Abraham Lincoln, 1863′ said Chandrasekhar.

The teacher snapped at the class, ‘Class, you should be ashamed.

Chandrasekhar, who is new to our country, knows more about its history than you do.’

She heard a loud whisper: ‘F**k the Indians,’

‘Who said that?’ she demanded. Chandrasekhar put his hand up.

‘General Custer, 1862.’

At that point, a student in the back said, ‘I’m gonna puke.’

The teacher glares around and asks ‘All right! Now, who said that?’

Again, Chandrasekhar says, ‘Al Gore to the Japanese Prime Minister, 1991.’

Now furious, another student yells, ‘Oh yeah? Suck this!’

Chandrasekhar jumps out of his chair waving his hand and shouts to the teacher , ‘Bill Clinton, to Monica Lewinsky, 1997!’

Now with almost mob hysteria someone said ‘You little shit. If you say anything else, I’ll kill you.’

Chandrasekhar frantically yells at the top of his voice, ‘ Michael Jackson to the child witnesses testifying against him- 2004.’

The teacher fainted. And as the class gathered around the teacher on the floor, someone said, ‘Oh sh*t, we’re f**ked!’

……………….

And Chandrasekhar said quietly, ‘I think it was George Bush, Iraq, 2007.’

]]> http://themillercircle.org/2008/06/the-story-of-a-student/feed/ 0 http://themillercircle.org/2007/06/bush-as-an-international-embarrassment/ http://themillercircle.org/2007/06/bush-as-an-international-embarrassment/#comments Fri, 15 Jun 2007 20:47:40 +0000 Robert Miller http://TheMillerCircle.org/2007/06/bush-as-an-international-embarrassment/ One heard very little about the G8 meeting last week in Germany, except, as usual, we heard about the things that George Bush derailed. German Chancellor Angela Merkel introduced her carbon limitation plan which had wide support and, most notably, strong support from Tony Blair, which was to be his last gesture to international progress and continuity. But of course Bush derailed this plan and brushed it aside with his usual flair for pithy comments and, in the process, once again pushed his friend Tony Blair into an elevated tier of insignificance. Blair is surely thinking that with good friends like George W. Bush, does one really need enemies? Angela Merkel must be saying pretty much the same thing and if you want to know what the Europeans really think of our president, our neocons and our silly Secretary of State, then consult the article by Sidney Blumenthal who made a trip to Europe before the G8 meeting and can fill you in on how our transatlantic partners feel about us, or more precisely him.

But even Bush can outdo himself sometimes and finally bring a great deal of pride to the electorate of America as in this exchange during his European trip:

“In Rome, on June 9, a reporter asked Bush about setting a deadline for Kosovo independence. “What? Say that again?” “Deadline for the Kosovo independence?” “A decline?” “Deadline, deadline.” “Deadline. Beg your pardon. My English isn’t very good.” Bush then declared, “In terms of the deadline, there needs to be one. This needs to come — this needs to happen.” The next day, asked when he would set a deadline, he replied, “I don’t think I called for a deadline.” Reminded of his previous statement, Bush said: “I did? What exactly did I say? I said, ‘Deadline’? OK, yes, then I meant what I said.”" It is good to know that while most Americans are not engaged in the World outside the U.S., at least are leaders are fully active.

In the meantime Condi Rice is surely elevating the rhetoric at State into something we should all pay attention to: here is her latest irrelevance which has come to a point of ad nauseum. While Bush was in Europe, Condi stayed home and delivered a speech at the Economic Club of New York, where she announced a new doctrine of, get this, “American Realism.” This is one grade up from her prior description of foreign policy under Bush as “Transformational Diplomacy.” No one of course, including Rice has any idea what these words mean, especially when they come from her. She has created her own version of Disney World and, although she has given free tickets to Bush and Cheney, they never attend. Cheney would come if there was hunting and Bush would come if there was some brush to clean up. But in the absence of both you get neither.

Rice and Bush together have permanently stalled peace talks in the Middle East by blocking a conversation with Syria and Bush has a fresh supply of stop signs that he has posted all over the Middle East. To give you some indication about where Rice sits with Bush, Blumenthal has put this together: “As she shuttles endlessly and meaninglessly, neoconservatives within the White House undermine her foredoomed initiatives. Elliott Abrams, the deputy national security adviser for policy, in briefing a meeting of Jewish Republicans, said that Rice’s “talks are sometimes not more than ‘process for the sake of process,’” the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on May 14. According to Haaretz, “Those attending the meeting of Jewish Republicans understood Abrams’ comments as an assurance that the peace initiative promoted by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice doesn’t have the full backing of President George W. Bush.” As she engages in an academic exercise to rebrand empty rhetoric with new empty rhetoric, the neocons continue to create a parallel foreign policy.” So there you have it in a nutshell. But add onto that the fact that Europeans are hoping that in the 18 months Bush has left to go in office, he will not bring down on them another disaster for which they will pay a heavy price. Europeans agree that the longer Bush stays in office and continues with his cowboy policies, the more Europeans will have to pay a price as Muslim fundamentalists in Europe, who have never been acceptably integrated into their societies, will be increasingly agitated and increasingly well-funded to support their Jihadist activities within Europe itself.

But Bush’s stupidity and his inability to identify with anything other than power, rather than rhetoric or diplomatic skill, fell victim to the much smarter Putin at the G8 meeting. As Bush was announcing his plan for a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, as if to try and restructure the Cold War, except pulling in Eastern Europe into the Western Alliance, Putin suggested that the system could use the radar installation already present in Azerbaijan and suggested that it could be jointly run by the Russians and Americans and…..duh…”well I’ll have to get back to you on that one.” So, for Bush’s G8 meeting, he went scoreless, Condi had a scoreless week, Cheney wasn’t visible and we are about to hear how we are going to invest $ billions to upgrade our nuclear weapons arsenal. Let’s say in unison, “awfully good work” to the executive branch of our government.

RFM

But apparently, we do not have to worry about Wolfowitz’s next path of destruction. Recently George Bush announced that he is nominating Wolfowitz to become President of Al-Qaeda and is doing so as the most effective manner available to him to control his version of terrorism. Bush is apparently trying to get Wolfowitz to move to Pakistan where he can manage his new assignment away from California’s bee pollinators. So, it appears that not everyone is convinced that Wolfowitz had nothing to do with the state of the nation’s bee colonies, which after all, are in a state of steep decline, Wolfowitz or not. Negotiations for his girlfriend Rasa are underway and could play a role in his housing situation and the benefits package he is seeking. The Nation will surely sleep better tonight.