https://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen/2008/05/03/ice/feed/PJ Media is a leading news site covering culture, politics, faith, homeland security, and more. Our reporters and columnists provide original, in-depth analysis from a variety of perspectives.en-usSat, 13 Jun 2026 05:44:43 -0400<![CDATA[When I first came to Italy in 1965 (egad!) I went to Florence.  It was August.  No air conditioning.  Frightfully hot.  In piazza San Lorenzo, back of the Medici family church, they sold bottles of Coca Cola for some small number of lire, and it was hot Coke, because there wasn&#8217;t any ice.  Probably in the luxury hotels you could get some ice cubes in your coke, but out there in the streets and piazzas, no go.  Of course I asked, in my then-fractured pidgen Italian, and they all said that I really didn&#8217;t want ice in my coke because ice was so terribly dangerous to the liver.  Indeed, people drinking cold Coke were known to drop dead from it, as the liver went into total paralysis.]]>Sat, 03 May 2008 10:06:44 -0400<![CDATA[Michael Ledeen]]>https://pjmedia.com/michael-ledeen/2008/05/03/ice-n186013