$200,000 per MINUTE Spent in Iraq

A Letter to The Media & other truffles of bittersweet chocolate rage.

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Dear Media,

 

As I have been walking by myself with my now-battered teach peace sign in my local downtown for 1061 days in a row, I find the most jaw-dropping figure to tell people is to say that we are spending $200,000 per minute on the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Iraq war. (I’ll put the Math below.)

 

I tell them that the Far Loony Left Extremist Agenda is universal healthcare; a superb K-College education for every child; a treasured and revered environment; a robust living wage; and nationwide free wireless internet broadband. That $200,000 per minute would make a big dent in getting these well-started.

 

Now we have Katrina. The supposedly beneficent $10.5 Billion signed for by the 12ftTall Lizard Disguised as a Human Being Who Purports to Lead Us is only 1 ½ months of the quagsand in Iraq. Down-payment this, white boy. I am so rasputinally filled with rage that I fear spontaneous combustion.

 

I implore you to get this comparison out there. Even my fervent anti-war friends did not know the costs of that felonious folly Iraq. The word ‘billion’ is one of the best propaganda weapons the repulsive Karlsputin Rove et Ilk, the 12ftTall Lizards Disguised as a Human Beings, have. It’s a dirigible word – it floats above us vaguely huge but hollow. I always say ‘1000 Million’ instead of ‘Billion.’ Then when you chunk the Iraq costs down to the minute, people jerk their heads back and gasp. $200,000 per minute. On the street I can snap my fingers — $200,000, $200,000 — $200,000 per minute.

 

I think the figure of $200,000 per minute could be the skeleton key to unlock the dismay against this war for Middle America. They have a growing angsty distaste for the war already. They need a left-uppercut meme to set them back on their heels.

 

Sincerely,

pogblog

http://pogblog.myblogsite.com

pogblog@yahoo.com

 

    

The Math.

See most recently: More costly than 'the war to end all wars'; David R. Francis

August29, 2005 Christian Science Monitor

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0829/p15s01-cogn.htm

 

“In her estimate, Ms. Bilmes figures on $460 billion in military costs for the next five years, plus $315 billion in veterans' costs, $220 billion in added interest, and $119 billion for the economic impact of a $5 increase per barrel in the price of oil through July 2010. “I tried to be conservative,” she says.”

 

[I use / to mean ‘divided by’ so it’s easy on a calculator. The key to fitting this stuff on your hand or computer calculator is to remember that one Billion is 1000 Million.]

460 + 315 + 220 + 119 Billion = 1114 B / 5 = 222 B per year. 222,000 Million / 12 = 18,000 Million per month. 18,000 / 30 =  600 Million per day. 600,000,000 / 24 = 25,000,000 per hour.

25,000,000 / 60 = 416,666 per minute. I halved that to obviate carping.

///Those who own 8 Hummers (like Arnold Schwarzenegger) can’t imagine that people don’t have enough money for gas to evacuate. Or that they have cars too old to not quickly overheat in the slow slow going of the Evacuation Highways. (I myself would never take my old car on such an hejira – I know it wouldn’t make it.) That they have a parent too infirm to bear the journey in a car – a parent they care for at home because they can’t afford the $3000 per month fancy nursing home – or a nursing home at any price for that matter. Did the Supercilious Authorities provide public transportation out of the Killing Zone? Tut tut if only those beastly poor people would have done what they were told.

I wonder what psycho-illogical condition would cause someone to own a Humvee? I think it should be an automatic, one-way ticket to the Rubber Room, no questions asked, do not pass Go. Everything about owning a Hummer is disgusting.  Owning 8 of them would all but make me re-contemplate the possible justice of capital punishment. Certainly the stocks and shunning and the offer of seppuku.

///It’s interesting that when CNN & others want to make a moving remembrance of an unbearable event like Katrina’s wrath, they use still pictures.    

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