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A Sublime Way to Chill Out
Dry Ice pellets
Carbon dioxide gas is everywhere (a fact that sends Al Gore into conniptions) as the product of combustion and biological use of carbon sources like sugars and fats. This means it is easily available for scientific study. As scientists sought to chill this gas, they found that they could not liquefy it at atmospheric pressure, no matter how much they cooled it down. Liquid carbon dioxide only exists at high pressures. That means the solid left no liquid behind as it sublimed – thus the name dry ice.
Dry ice is in common use as the cheapest way to get temperatures well below freezing. Dry ice sublimes at −78.5°C (−109.3°F) which has a wide range of uses – including ice cream and fog machines. (Be careful with the fog – it has elevated CO2 levels and is dangerous without good ventilation.) Two of these uses are ones I encounter regularly in the lab.
For those of us who are pretty independent and don’t like anyone telling us what to do (I assume that is at least 75% of the people who follow Ricochet!), the idea of a Sabbath might be unattractive, to say the least, and distasteful at worst. But over the last couple of years, I’ve come to my own understanding about the Sabbath, how not only Jews and Christians can benefit from it, but everyone needs to have at least one Sabbath day each week. This is what I figured out:
time. With time on my hands, I applied for a part-time job as a bouncer in a large dive bar just across the state line in Tennessee. (Kentucky was dry.) I tried to look tough during the interview, but after thirty years of teaching, I probably looked as if I would try to scold a troublemaker into submission instead of tossing him out on his ear. The bar owner said I didn’t look intimidating enough for the job.
Leftist thugs bullied and threatened the life of an 8-year-old girl for daring to parody, to expose to laughter, their leader AOC. The leftists, who have so far faced no criminal or even social media company sanction, have proven, once again, that totalitarians cannot tolerate laughter at them or their ideas. Yet, if AOC could only chill out and seize the obvious pop-culture reference, couldn’t she gain a broader and deeper cultural cool cred?
Two and a half years ago, I shared how my father acquired a cannon for holiday noisemaking and celebration in the story “