Godfrey Hounsfield

The periods between my 11th and 18th years remain the most vivid in my memory because this was the time of my first attempts at experimentation, which might never have been made had I lived in the city. I made hazardous investigations of the principles of flight, launching myself from the tops of haystacks with a homemade glider.

Aeroplanes interested me, and at the outbreak of the Second World War, I joined the RAF as a volunteer reservist. I took the opportunity of studying the books which the RAF made available for radio mechanics and looked forward to an interesting course in radio.

Well, there's no question that the law passed in 1996 was flawed. It deregulated the wholesale market, meaning the price that the utilities had to pay energy companies for power, but not the retail market.

Having a Congress with a more diverse educational and professional background would serve the country well. And given the budget challenges facing America today, we might benefit from a few more cold, calculating problem solvers, and fewer courtroom impresarios.