European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 01, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Last laugh / a space station that stands for Freedom to Dave Barry in today s edition of  Nook we redoing to discuss exciting developments in Thefield of putting portholes in cows. But first behave a news update concerning space station Freedom. As you May recall space station Freedom was one of several excellent science ideas that Ronald Reagan had Back in the 1980s, when the Federal government had big piles of spare Money lying around. The space station s scientific purpose was to pro vide a place where astronauts with nicknames like Hoot and a Keezer could float around and con duct vital experiments to determine what happens when you expose plants and animals to Zero Gravity. Actually we already know what happens to them. They throw up. Even the plants throw up. But that is not the Point. The Point is that space station Freedom through a Complex scientific process that is not understood by Ordinary civilians such As your self dumps Money into the districts and states of influential members of Congress thereby enabling them to claim that they have created jobs which is the fundamental purpose of the Federal government. This is Why we still pay subsidies to beekeepers. This is Why we still have military bases whose Pri Mary purpose is to prevent the British from Captur ing Pittsburgh. This is Why when we build a major weapon rather than build it All in one place we As semble it from tiny Chi lets sized pieces each one manufactured in a key District or state always including West Virginia Home of sen. Robert i m not a Large Albino ferret but i play one on c Span Byrd a pork. So the members of Congress were All for building a major space station along the lines of the one featured in the movie 2001 a space Odyssey. They rejected the option of simply Pur chasing the station used in the movie which was actually filmed in outer space on the grounds that it would not create enough jobs so far we be spent around $9 billion on space Sta Tion Freedom and we be made tremendous Progress by every conceivable Standard of measurement except the Standard of having a station that we could put up in space. To do that we d have to spend a lot More Money something like $20 billion not including the outdoor space Barbecue Grill option. Ordinarily our elected Congress hurrian would think nothing expending another $20 billion but recently they  to discover during a Rou Tine audit that a Gigantic Federal budget deficit had somehow developed without anybody knowing about it or being responsible for it or anything. So now they re cutting spending Ike crazy. They even stopped funding the $11 billion superconducting super Collider which was going to Benefit science by causing protons to Whiz around in Texas until they smashed into each other thereby setting off a Suba Tomic reaction that physicists believe would create thousands of tiny jobs. There was talk of cutting the space station too. Fortunately the project was saved when president Clinton endorsed a plan for a scaled Down version sort of a space station Freedom Lite which will Cost Only another $10 billion. Take that or. Pesky deficit the size reduction will require certain com promises. Well have to use Small astronauts with Short nicknames and no More than two pieces of carry on Luggage and they la have to restrict their weightlessness experiments to tiny organisms such As germs. Houston Mission control How re they do into astronaut squinting into Microscope they re thrown up Houston. So space station Freedom has been spared for now but it still has Many critics who wish to kill it Al together. We cannot allow this to happen if we Are to remain a first rate nation defined As a nation that spends Way More Money than it  we must keep up the pressure on Congress to keep space station Freedom alive. Even if it turns out to be too costly to launch into actual orbit we should go ahead and build it to create jobs. We could then put it in some area that could use a space station such As West Virginia. " q. O60h1 it meanwhile we should All be thinking about the scientific implications of putting portholes in cows. This is going on at Washington state University according to a Seattle times article written by Bill die Trich and sent to the science Nook by Many Alert readers. The article states than an agriculture pro Fessor named Roger Calza has installed a six Inch wide tube in the Side of a cow so that he can study what happens to undergraduates when they peer directly into a cow. They re throwing up  Roger Roger.". No that s not the reason. Professor Calza in stalled the portholes so that he can determine for agricultural purposes exactly what goes on in the Interior of a working cow s stomach. It turns out that the scientific answer is you Don t want to know. Here at the science Nook we Are very excited about this discovery and we think Congress should give professor Calza several billion dollars so that he can create jobs by installing portholes in other types of organisms including cars snakes boats Etc. Maybe we could even gain important scientific in sights into the legislative process by installing a port Hole in the head of a member of Congress. Speaking of space. The Miami Herald  military life in Europe by Charles Kaufman the Laws of lines frustrated about All the time you waste standing in endless military related lines memorize these Laws that Rule standing in lines they could save your nerves. Law #1 if there is More than one line the line you Are in will always be the slowest moving line. Law #2 the Speed of the line is inversely proportional to the urgency of your need to Complete your business i a. The More in a hurry you Are the slower the line. Law #3 if you see a that the line is too Long and decide to come Back later the lint will invariably be longer when you come Back Law #4 9 if you change to the faster line the line you we re in will suddenly  and move faster than the line you moved into. See Law of lines #1 age 23 sunday August 1, 1993