Note: The "D.E.T.s" were originally identified as "D.E.S.s", for no clear reason. I've taken the liberty of correcting this.

Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology
From: mmcirvin@world.std.com (Matt McIrvin)
Subject: Re: Burger King is Trying to Devour My Childhood
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 05:40:01 GMT

nickb@primenet.com (Nick S Bensema) wrote:

I think if you rolled a vibrator and an Oreo cookie down a hill, they would be about the same speed.

JULY, 1653.

Intrepid scientist Nick Bensema
sets out to disprove the dogma of the ages!

[NICK BENSEMA stands at the top of a hill, dressed in puffy, brightly colored Renaissance Faire-type duds. He holds a vibrator in his right hand and an Oreo cookie in his left. Two DOGMATIC ECCLESIASTICAL TYPES appear over the crest of the hill to mock and suppress him.]

D.E.T. 1

Ye men of Bensema, why stand ye gazing into heaven?

D.E.T. 2

What is the point of this mummery? For all know that a vibrator and an Oreo cookie will roll downhill at different speeds, according to their impetus and choleric humors.

D.E.T. 1

Indeed, since Aristotle has written so, in the Bible!

NICK

Nay, I say, nay! For I have invented Empiricism, and from this day forth questions of natural philosophy shall be answered not by reference to authority, but by Experiment!

[A shadow starts to encroach upon the scene, stage left.]

D.E.T. 1

Says you!

NICK

Simply look upon my vibrator and my Oreo cookie, and all shall be revealed.

[NICK drops the vibrator and the Oreo cookie. The vibrator rolls about halfway down the hill, then hits a rock and stops. The rock jars its ON switch and, being battery-operated, it starts working, making a faint buzz against the rock. The Oreo cookie lands face-down at NICK's feet and doesn't budge.]

D.E.T. 2

See, it didn't work at all.

NICK

Wait, no! We merely have to make the appropriate idealizations to extract the correct answer! If only the vibrator and Oreo cookie and the hillside were perfectly smooth, they would have rolled down the hill at the same speed.

[All this time, the shadow has been getting longer.]

D.E.T. 2

If they were perfectly smooth, there would be no rolling, would there?

NICK

Well, OK, make them rough enough for some traction.

D.E.T. 1

[hauls out Ohanian's Physics, which up to this point has been making a large rectangular bulge under his dogmatic ecclesiastical robe, and thumbs through it on hands and knees until he gets to the bit on moments of inertia] No, actually, it says here that in that case...

[We see the origin of the shadow: the Leaning Tower of Pisa is tilting gradually into view.]

NICK

Look how, even now, the dead hand of dogma weighs upon me as others refuse to admit my empirical evidence! E pur si movie! Quot est demonstrantabulum! I refute it thus!! [Kicks the copy of Ohanian savagely, then jumps up and down in evident discomfort, grabbing his toe.]

[D.E.T. 1 and 2 get bored and wander off.]

NICK

You'll rue the day! You haven't heard the last of me! Future generations will know the truth about a vibrator and an Oreo cookie!

[The Leaning Tower of Pisa topples. Tremendous crash. Curtain.]

-- 
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