Nov
18
NEED SOME TALK POINTS FOR THANKSGIVING DINNER?
Posted by William (Bill) Ford, III
One can always start with this: A Trillion dollars is a “thousand billion.” Right? It looks like this (write it on a napkin):
$1, 000, 000, 000, 000.
Most phone number numbers have fewer digits than a trillion. For example:
1- 818- 343- 2648
OK, wait! Now that phone number thing was just an inexcusable, semi-subliminal marketing ploy. We sure won’t be doing anything that whacky again—not even to make you laugh over the holidays.
There are maybe nine galaxies for each of us—that’s eighty billion galaxies. Each galaxy harbors at least one hundred billion suns. In our galaxy, the Milky Way, there are four hundred billion suns—give or take 50 percent—or sixty-nine suns for each person alive. The Hubble space telescope shows, said an early report, that the stars are “not 12 but 13 billion years old.” Two galaxies, nine galaxies . . . one hundred billion suns, four hundred billion suns . . . 12 billion years, 13 billion years. .
These astronomers are just “nickel-and diming” us to death!
Look at our national deficit. In May 2011 it was this big:
$10, 888, 422, 676, 652 .89.
Really? Eighty-nine cents?
Have a Happy Thanksgiving. Be a hugger.
{All the funny and interesting stuff came from Annie Dillard, For the Time Being, p.72-73, the cheesy subliminal plug is ours.}
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