Thursday, August 07, 2008

Carl Sagan had no idea....

This landed in my inbox this afternoon. It is a sobering thought (true or not).

This is too true to be funny.

The next time you hear a politician use the word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about whether you want the 'politicians' spendingYOUR tax money. A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of it's releases:

A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it!

While this thought is still fresh in our brain... let's take a look at New Orleans. It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division. Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D) is presently asking Congress for 250 BILLION DOLLARS to rebuild New Orleans. Interesting number... what does it mean?

Well... if you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, and child), you each get $516,528.

Or... if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans , your home gets $1,329,787.

Or... if you are a family of four...your family gets $2,066,012.

Washington, D.C.! Are all your calculators broken??

There's more - a list of various taxes and the closer that states: Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago...and our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt... We had the largest middle class in the world... and Mom stayed home to raise the kids. What happened? Can you spell 'politicians!'

But you know? In spite of the people who bitch and moan about politicians and the way the world is today... who put those politicians there? Who demanded so many services be provided by the government? People who don't do their homework before they vote, that's who.

I had a video of the Paris Hilton rebuttal ad for John McCain up here, but it has apparently been removed due to a copyright dispute. If you would like to see it, go to http://www.funnyordie.com/.

As crazy as things are these days, I might just vote for Paris... and move to New Orleans.

4 comments:

SwampAngel65 said...

That's insane!!!

BTW that video is no longer there!

That girl said...

billion - what a powerful word!

karisma said...

Hmmm! And finally a billion seconds later the masses awaken! Food for thought! Love ya!

Anonymous said...

Small correction. in 1908, the USA was not the most prosperous nation on the face of the earth, Great Britain was. Ture we had very little national debt, but we were still paying off the Civil War which was financed on credit. And Mommas stayed home because it was expected, but if you'll look at the sociology of the working people, she was out there, working in the mills, laundries and as a household servant.
I hope the ":billions info" is correct, becasue some of it certainly was wide of the mark.

Sorry--I have a BS in history.

dad