I read that letter once and got all excited in a bad way. On a second reading, I start to question if it's really real, but sadly I suspect it is.

Not my representative, but she is a representative in the local area. Missouri isn't supposed to be like this, this is supposed to be a Kansas sort of thing.

actually the lathe bugs me. It is cool, but I'm not really sure how it changes anything. sped things up, but change?

I think there's bunches and bunches of far more complex machinery that cannot be made without metal lathes. So, you know, leading to the industrial revolution and all that....

chisels - think of them as non powered routers. tthey take away controlled amounts of materials - so better joints can be made - slideing panels- and shapeing things like musical instruments . they are a major step up from a a saw, ax or hammer. However, on the list? not so sure.

metal lathes - didn't think of that

I think I'd have put waterwheel or Archimedes' screw above chisel.

Closest to death: Birth.(I wonder if my fascination with murder could be that "simply" explained.) Second closest: Almost got hit by a car in my electric chair in the street.(My life passed in front of me, but too small and fast to be...illuminating and shit. Which I'm still disappointed about; it was like holding a slide to the light without a projector.)

my electric chair

Considering I was watching Prison Break just the other day, I find this phrase inappropriately hilarious.

Ooh, another thing they left off the list! Controlled electric current.

That's a very strange list. What about the screw? The moldboard plow? The dynamo?

So, a church in Alabama that was flooded during Hurricane Katrina now has a section of buckled drywall that people are saying is the < a href="http://www.wltx.com/fyi/fyi.aspx?storyid=36295">spitting image of Jeezy Creezy, so now people are flocking to the church to pray to the buckled drywall, and some people are claiming that they were healed by the buckled drywall....

Fer cryin' out loud. Seriously, I mean, I know I'm not a believer, but COME ON. IT'S A PIECE OF BUCKLED DRYWALL. And it's not even like it's a friggin' mystery how the drywall got all waterlogged.

The Forbes piece on their methodology says:

For our purposes, we decided to define a tool as a material device that provides an advantage in accomplishing a task. That eliminated things like language and software.

We decided to exclude the traditional list of "simple machines," which includes the lever, pulley, wheel and wedge, since most other tools employ some form of simple machine--a hammer is basically a lever, and an axe is essentially a wedge.

We tried where possible to limit the list to handheld or easily portable objects, eliminating most heavy machine tools, like hydraulic jacks.

We also decided to eliminate complex machines capable of essentially running themselves. That means things like cars, windmills and computer networks don't qualify.

They also explain what good lathes and chisels are.