  A gedanken experiment in which a black hole is pushed to spin at its maximal
rate by tossing into it a test body is considered. After demonstrating that
this is kinematically possible for a test body made of reasonable matter, we
focus on its implications for black hole thermodynamics and the apparent
violation of the third law (unattainability of the extremal black hole). We
argue that this is not an actual violation, due to subtleties in the absorption
process of the test body by the black hole, which are not captured by the
purely kinematic considerations.
