How Much Is A Billion? (Another email from the silly side)

How Much is a Billion? 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' spending YOUR 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. A billion seconds ago it was 1959. B. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive. C. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age. D. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet. E. 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? A. Well... if you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, and child) you each get $516,528. B. Or... if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans , your home gets $1,329,787. C. Or... if you are a family of four... your family gets $2,066,012. Washington , D. C. - **HELLO!** Are all your calculators broken?? Accounts Receivable Tax - Building Permit Tax - CDL License Tax - Cigarette Tax - Corporate Income Tax - Dog License Tax - Federal Income Tax - Federal Unemployment Tax(FUTA) - Fishing License Tax - Food License Tax - Fuel Permit Tax - Gasoline Tax - Hunting License Tax - Inheritance Tax - Inventory Tax - IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax) - IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax) - Liquor Tax - Luxury Tax - Marriage License Tax - Medicare Tax - Property Tax - Real Estate Tax - Service charge taxes - Social Security Tax - Road Usage Tax (Truckers) - Sales Taxes - Recreational Vehicle Tax - School Tax - State Income Tax - State Unemployment Tax (SUTA) - Telephone Federal Excise Tax - Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax - Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax - Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax - Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax - Telephone State and Local Tax - Telephone Usage Charge Tax - Utility Tax - Vehicle License Registration Tax - Vehicle Sales Tax - Watercraft Registration Tax - Well Permit Tax - Workers Compensation Tax STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY? 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!' And I still have to press '1' for English. I hope this goes around the USA at least 100 times. What the heck happened?????

I've been putting this off for a couple of months because, well, life was busy. But this email is too ignorant to let pass...

The first problem it has is that the math is wrong. A minute is 60 second, so and hour is 3,600 second (60 x 60) and there are 86,400 second in one day (60 x 60 x 24). That means there are 31,556,736 (thirty-one million, five hundred and fifty-six thousand, seven hundred and thirty-six) seconds in a year (60 x 60 x 24 x 365.24). If we take a billion (a one with nine zeros; 1,000,000,000) and divide it by 31,556,736 (the number of seconds in a year) we find out that a billion seconds is about 31 and two-thirds years (give or take a couple of weeks).

I got the email on June 9th. If I subtract 31 years and eight months from that, I don't get 1959. A billion seconds ago it was 1976. If you're going to walk around saying that ("A billion seconds ago it was 1976!") you'll have to change the date you use in another month or so; some time around September you'll have to start saying "...it was 1977!" Because time goes on...

The author doesn't do any better with minutes. There are 1440 minutes in a day. That means 525,669 minutes in a year (a year is 365 days, six hours, nine minutes and some-odd seconds long). Divide that into a billion and you find out that a billion minutes is 1902 years and (about) four months. Jesus wasn't walking around on the Earth in 106AD. By most accounts the resurrection occurred at least 70 years before that. Trajan was Emperor of Rome in 106AD. Ignatius (a student of the Apostle John) wrote his letter to the Christians at Smyrna. But Jesus had ascended into Heaven a while back.

So, question: do you really want to talk about taxes (which is what the email is about) with someone who can't do math?

I could throw in here that the line about how nothing walked on two feet a billion days ago is also debatable. A billion days is about 2.74 million years. That many years ago Australopithecus had been around for perhaps more than a million years (if you believe the time line most archaeologists subscribe to).

Having failed miserably at the basic math involved in this email, the author goes on to murder politics. The Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act was focused on the whole state of Louisiana, along with other parts of the Gulf Coast. If you divided the money up among those people it would come out to more like $55,000 each. When you consider the infrastructure involved (roads, bridges, levees, and such), that sounds more reasonable than if you talk about giving the money away (which the bill didn't suggest).

Finally, the author rattles off a long list of taxes (some state, some local, some redundant, and some that I think are made up) that he says we didn't have one hundred years ago. He talks about how great life was back then. One reason I know a man wrote this is that part of his idea of how great America was back then included Mom getting to stay home.

How great was life 100 years ago? Well for starters, the average life expectancy was about 47 years. Today it's over 69 years. Those taxes (among other things) might have bought you an extra 22 years of life. Since I'm 48, I like the present better than the past.

The average wage in 1908 was under a quarter an hour and a teacher made about $325 a year. Women didn't vote and black people didn't drink from the same water fountains as white people.

The only reason I can think of to throw in the line about "press '1' for English" is to push buttons and create emotions to attach to this warped message.

Does anyone really want to go back to 1908? Give me a break...

This Year's Visit to Pawleys Island, Times Two...

We visited Pawleys Island last year and liked it. So during our visit to South Carolina last month we decided to visit the beach there again.

If you're not actually renting a house on the island, the best spot on Pawleys Island is the beach at the south end. There's plenty of parking there (parking is at a premium on the island elsewhere). Last year there was a nice area of beach about the size of a football field. Of course, it grew and shrank with the ebb and flow of the tide. It was rather scenic and not particularly over populated. It's a nice place to hunt for shells.

Cheryl and I got up early on Tuesday (June 24) with the idea that we could be out there shortly after low tide. We arrived at about 8am and were surprised at the change since last year. Evidently the inlet behind the island was dredged. The sand was dummped on the south end of Pawleys Island and the beach has now grown to the sized of five or six football fields. It was beautiful and spacious. The channel was shallow enough to walk across at low tide, so we were able to search the other side of the inlet for shells.

We liked it so much, we went back on Thursday morning.

Two warnings. First, there are no facilities of any kind. You cannot change at the site. There are no restrooms. There's no shower. There's no water. Nothing. A few miles away there are gas stations out on Highway 17, and they have restrooms. But that's as good as it gets.

Second, if you cross the channel at low tide (or I suppose at high tide) be forewarned that some powerful currents develop pretty quickly as the tide begins to flow in. It would not be hard to get trapped on the wrong beach. And even for the best swimmers, the current is dangerous. There are a couple of hours around low tide when the water is not a problem.

I'm sure we'll be back there again next year...

Pictures of Brookgreen Gardens

Just a few pictures of Brookgreen gardens near Myrtle Beach. I loved the place. More to come about it...

Hugo's New Book

I have a review of Hugo Kerr's new book, The Cognitive Psychology of Literacy Teaching: Reading, Writing, Spelling, Dyslexia (& a bit besides) available at Suite101. You can read it here...

Back from the Beach (Our Stay at South Beach Resort)

Cheryl and I just returned from a week in Myrtle Beach, S.C. We stayed at South Beach Resort, where we own a time share. It was our first time staying there; we bought the time share at the end of the summer in 2006 and missed out on staying there last year.

The resort is quite nice. Our room was small and a little cramped, but that was mostly our fault. We reserved a studio. Next time we'll get a larger pad...

Other than the size of the room, it was really pretty had to find anything at South Beach to complain about. We tried (since I knew I'd be writing about the place) and came up with almost nothing.

Check-in and check-out were both a breeze. The staff at the place was very friendly. The Owners' Club at the resort entrance had a concierge's station and the three or four people who worked there were very helpful. They were there from at least 8:00am until 8:00pm. You could ask them where to eat, or for directions to some place. They would get you show tickets if you wanted. And much more...

The Owners' Club housed a number of attractions. In the front area you have the concierge's station and the Front Desk. There's a DVD library, a few dozen books to pick over if you want something to read, a couple of computers for Internet access, a few items for sale with the resort logo on them (golf shirts, etc.), and brochures on Myrtle Beach's attractions. Further back in the club there is an exercise room (which I didn't use), an arcade area and a pool table (you buy tokens to play), a sauna, some offices, and an indoor-outdoor pool. As you walk out the back you find the pool area; there are a couple of hot tubs (who needs that in June?), a small baby pool, and a lazy river.

There were a number of activities based at the Club. We didn't take advantage of any of them, but if you had young children the activities would be great.

There was a second pool facility. The Lagoon Pool had a sloped, easy access entrance, a safety rope at about the three foot level, and a deep end that only went to 4 feet 9 inches. There's a waterfall at the deep end. The pool wraps around a small bar (open from 4pm to 9pm, I think) and there's live music most afternoons.

Landscaping at the resort was very nice. There were Palmetto trees everywhere and a variety of flowers and ground cover plants along the edges of the manicured lawns. It's well lit at night. And the grounds are populated by a few dozen squirrels (which were fun to watch). Everything seems wheelchair accessible.

The room itself was pleasant and well furnished. We had a half-kitchen (no stove in the studio units) with a fridge and microwave. There was a TV (complete with VCR/DVD player), a sound system, iron, coffee maker, toaster, and probably a few other things I'm forgetting. In the studio we had a four-place setting of Fiesta dishes. There were knives and a cutting board, flatware, wine glasses - even a corkscrew. Best of all, it was clean.

The air conditioning looked much like what you find in most hotels; but it lacked the musty smell that almost every hotel from Super 8 on up to the Marriott seems to have. There was also a ceiling fan.

Life in a time share is a little different than at a hotel. No one comes in to clean up after you (you can get that for a fee, if you want). We had access to a washer and dryer that we shared with the guests next door.

One of the nicest surprises in our stay was the free tickets. We got eight tickets that let us in to a variety of attractions. They included an all day wrist band at the NASCAR park, free admission to five of the area's mini-golf courses, admission to two of the area's golf courses (I don't golf), and admission to a nearby water park.

On top of that, we got tickets to see the "Good Vibrations" show at the Carolina Opry for sitting down with our Owner Rep.

Because we'd never stayed at the resort before, we didn't actually have an Owner's Rep until now. Our Rep is Mike Meeks (a nice guy who moved down there from the mountains not too far from here). We met with Mike on Saturday morning and went over some of the services South Beach offers its owners.

I'll throw in a plug here: if you're interested in seeing South Beach, give Mike a call. His number is 843-913-5306. He can probably set you up with a tour of the place and talk to you about buying in. Mention my name to him. And if you don't want to talk to him, email me.

If I had to whine about something it would be Internet access. Almost every hotel up and down Ocean Blvd has free wireless access in the rooms. At South Beach Resort it was $4.99 for half an hour, $9.99 for the day, and $49.99 for the week. I thought that the price was kind of steep; but more to the point, I guess, I thought that at a place like South Beach I ought to be able to get the same kind of Internet access that comes free at most Best Westerns. And that was really my only complaint...

All in all our stay at South Beach was a great experience and we'll definitely be back there next year.

Finishing Up in Myrtle Beach

Well, after six days here on the Grand Stand (the long stretch of beach along South Carolina's north shore), Cheryl and I are about ready to check out and go back home.

It's been a fun week. We've been to Pawley's Island twice, walked around the gardens of Brookgreen, eaten out a few times, played some mini-golf, been to the Good Vibrations show at the Carolina Opry, and done a little shopping.

Pictures to come next week...

Did You Hear Michelle Obama Talk Trash About "Whiteys?"

Did you hear the news about Michelle Obama using the word "whitey" from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago? The news about it is out there in the blogosphere and on the radio waves. It supposedly happened on July 1, 2004 in at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition Conference in the Women’s Event.

There's only two problems:

1. That meeting wasn't at the church; it was at the Chicago Sheraton.
2. Michele Obama wasn't there.

So, back to the question in my title: Did you hear Michelle Obama talk trash about "Whiteys?" No. No one did, because she didn't. It's just part of the smear campaign...

Heard some other rumor? You can probably find the truth here: Fight the Smears


© My Hobo Soul

Visit to Redhouse, Md.

We got up Saturday morning (June 14th) and drove to Redhouse, Md., where Cheryl's Dad lives. Cheryl finished work for the year on Friday. I was out of school but still working on a graduate course.

On June 13th the Bluebirds started their second nest of the season. When we got home yesterday they'd finished the nest and had one egg in it. They laid a second egg last night. We'll see if they make it to five again...

We drove through heavy rain in a few spots to get to Redhouse. Benny (Cheryl's Dad) has been working on his garden. He picked a pint and a half of strawberries on Monday. And we made a couple of trips down to look at the orchard and garden in between the thunderstorms that hit while we were up there. The weather was generally cool and wet.

While we were there we got word that my cousin, Chase Stillwell, was killed in a motorcycle accident. Chase was almost 20. It was sad. We went to his wake at the funeral home tonight. Tomorrow is the funeral. My daughter, Hannah, should be here this evening late and will go with us tomorrow before returning to Asheville.

Then Friday we leave for Myrtle Beach.

I finished the graduate course today and I am now more or less free until July 7th when I start a second class.

Arianna Huffington on John McCain...

I saw Huffington on Jay Leno last week and enjoyed what she had to say so much that I decided to look around for more stuff by her.

Huffingtn was promoting her new book: Right Is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe. She offered a money back guarantee on the book on Leno: if you're a McCain supporter, and you read the book and you're still a McCain supporter, she says she'll give you your money back.

Here are two YouTube videos of her talking about McCain and about politics.

Arianna Huffington on John McCain - "Hijacked" by the Right?


Arianna Huffington - The Problem with Polling

A Plague of Locust

Okay, it's not quite a plague, but the hills are alive here - with locust. We have a species of 17-year-locust (or cicadia) that's been underground now since 1991. Now that they're up, they're making noise!

The Logan Banner has an article on them. Click on the picture and you'll get a few more shots of them.

I hear they're good with honey. I just don't know whether you're supposed to cook them or eat them raw...