clipped from: news.bbc.co.uk As the US is marking its 233rd anniversary of its independence, the BBC's Kevin Connolly gives his own list of reasons why America should be celebrated.
This is more about the American genius for making daily life more convenient, more entertaining or just more fattening.
Ice cubes, too, reflect the same happy knack for making light of the hostility of circumstance.
Every floor of every motel building in the country has an ice machine; every convenience store sells it by the sackful, and every drink you are served contains lumps of ice big enough to sink a battleship.
All cold drinks in America are served at a temperature which could cryogenically freeze human tissue. I know you find ice cubes elsewhere, too, but in Europe bar staff hoard them as though they were precious stones. In America, they flow in rattling abundance