The Cost of...

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
-Ben Franklin

I began writing this as a discussion of military spending vs. space exploration costs. I would have liked that to be a central theme, but my anger grew as I gathered more and more numbers until I decided to instead basically list a few interesting numbers to give a perspective on spending.

The general misconception is that NASA gets a bunch of money. It is then sometimes attacked as a waste. "We can spend that money on feeding the poor... etc," they exclaim. One thing I have personally come to dislike is military spending. Now, I enjoy the fact that our country has a large military, the largest. We account for close to half of the entire worlds military spending. What I think is that it is too large. Lets look at some numbers.

Now, to date, the Iraq war has cost approximately $515.75 billion. That is around 341 million dollars a day. The 2008 budget for NASA was $17.318 billion, or about 50 Iraq days (ID's). The highly successful Mars rovers cost around $820 million, 3 ID's. The Cassini Probe, another fantastic adventure, cost $3.26 billion, 10 ID's. The entire budget of NASA to date, adjusted for inflation totals to $618.412 billion. The cost of a meaningless war equals sending man into space, landing on the moon, building all the shuttles, a space station, sending countless probes and satellites and robots into space, and all the other stuff NASA does, all of which have added immensely to our base of knowledge.

I guess it just makes me a little sick.

Other numbers:
Yearly cost of nuclear weapons: $15.1 billion
Money spent on gambling in US, 2005: $84.65 billion
2008 Social Security: $608 billion
Money spent on pets in the US a year: around $40 billion
Nation Science Foundation 2008 budget: $5.9 billion

We need our priorities, but math and science and technology are taking a back seat to many other programs. Which of these programs are going to help our nation in the end? Which are going to keep us competitive in the global market? Which will inspire new technology and innovation, thus leading to a strong economy and more jobs and better education? I think it is easy to see.

Good Links: *(other data was collected easily using the Force =>Google)
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/
Death and Taxes Poster

Write Like No One's Reading

I was trying to think if that line made any sense. You should dance like no one is looking, and sing like no one is listening. I suppose you should write for yourself, like no one is reading. Now, doing that is all the easier when writing on an unknown blog.

I ran into Weldon Payne today. I good friend of mine and many others. He is a real writer. I told him that Josh (that is -=JR1=-, I hope I didn't spoil his alias) and I were writing on a blog and that I had one going for a while while I was in Germany. He said that he wished he had written more when he was younger, even 30 minutes 3 times a week. I enjoyed writing about my Germany adventures and now, taking his advice, I have chimed in on the blog.

The blog is supposedly going to have a more sophisticated tone, generally discussing topics in religion, politics, social observations and such. Unfortunately I don't have a clear topic to talk about right now. Although, I was just in the shower and since that is where I have discourses with myself and also where I think of things to write about - well... this is all I've got:

I checked my bank account today and I was happy to see that I got my tax return. In my current economic status, as quasi paid student, it was a pleasant bonus. Now this is mostly unrelated, but while I was in the shower I remembered a commercial for H&R block, or one of those tax places. They said that every year we, as a country, fail to receive over 1 billion dollars in tax returns. They play that up as a big deal. One whole billion dollars. It is a lot, until you remember that there are 300 million Americans. That is 33 bucks each. I bet a tax adviser is more than that.

On the other hand the US nation debt is $9,293,653,182,093.53 as I write. That is a bit more, it works out to about $30,000 a person. We could get a really good tax adviser for that. I actually wasn't trying to make a political statement there, but if there was one it is this: advertisers and politicians are stupid and manipulative.

Maybe next time I will write about something a bit deeper. Don't worry Mr. NoOne, I have ideas. -Eric