Well, we thought this was a good one to end on, unless someone calls in something so
amazing that we can’t live life without it, this is the grand finale of wackiness.
Another anonymous email submission from a Geologist. Thanks to all of your who have
called in your responses, we will have another exciting topic for you to contribute to soon!

Ok… so it’s looks like it’s back to the nonsense. Yesterday’s post was totally heavy.

Our very own robot enemy has resurfaced. it’s nice to see that he is paying attention.
his plan is a bit more fleshed out this time, but we’re still not too worried.

sarah WHO???

Apparently one person actually did their homework and sent in an email response of
their budget proposal, something to ponder reflectively while basking in the delight
of the Obama’s victory! Congrats to Bear for the longest response, and maybe even
the longest blog post in Blarg history.

Hello. This is Bear with an admittedly less humorous statement about how I would spend
700B dollars. OK, perhaps even a boring statement – planetary infrastructural repair.

The bad news is that we have a Herculean repair mission before us, because the human
species has fouled the global nest. Note, this is not a forecast, this has now become past
tense. The good news is that it is a matter of political will (translate financial will) rather
than missing know-how that is required to reverse several concurrent negative, and
powerfully reinforcing, exponential curves. Back in 1992 an incredible number of political
heads of state (114 of them) made appearances at the Earth Summit to at least show their
unwillingness to avoid being seen as irresponsible in backing Mother Earth. This international
ensemble of kings and queens, presidents, prime ministers, and dictators asked the planet’s
leading scientific experts and economists to come up with a price tag for “saving the planet.”

They obliged, addressing the whole ball of wax, from stemming overpopulation to halting
deforestation and desertification to implementing major conservation measures to averting
a biodiversity crash to cleaning the oceans to patching the ozone hole to derailing global
warming. 625 billion dollars. The environmentalists asked for 125B per year over 5 years.

The UN, the World Bank, and all of those leaders from the developed and developing nations
of the world stopped for a moment from posing for their photo opps. They all joined forces,
dug deep, and came up with 1 billion dollars per year – less than 1% of what was needed.
A billion dollars is 1/10 of 1% of the 1000 billion our planet spends on war every single year.
125B was the amount the US alone had shelled out in the Savings and Loan Bailout of the
late 80’s, a dangerous precedent that set the stage for the identical measure for the identical
reasons to be repeated 20 years later at a tune of 700B.

Capitalism, as currently practiced, is based upon exploitation of the environment and
inhumane and abusive treatment of the global work force. This system is corrupt, as in
defiled, and has fostered a culture of obscene greed and criminal waste. Our society is routinely
referred to as a consumption society. Metaphorically, that means our collective identity is
tied to a state of exhaustion, being spent, depleted, like the wasted victims of tuberculosis,
a disease that was also referred to as consumption. One thing the 1992 Earth Summit did
succeed in doing was to place the term sustainability in the planetary vernacular. Our current
trajectory is unsustainable. That means it will end. By repeatedly bailing out irresponsible
corporations, we are postponing the inevitable, and enabling a variety of addictive cycles.
Capitalism uses such concepts as standard of living and such carrots as luxury goods and
escapist entertainment to seduce us into continuing our complicity in planetary suicide.
We are asked to applaud unrestrained perpetual growth (one definition of cancer) on a finite
planet. We look on mindlessly as ill-won gains are increasingly garnered by a rapidly shrinking
upper class. Then, when the going gets tough, these very same cry-baby capitalists expect
us to pity Wall Street as it collapses under its own gluttonous weight. I have an idea.
Why don’t we privatize social security and give bankers and stock brokers full responsibility
over all our pensions? Let’s just get rid of the IRS and give all our tax money directly to the
CEOs. Or not. Maybe it isn’t too late to save the planet. Maybe we should give one dollar
to the environment for every dollar we send to Wall Street. I could live with 350 billion for
the bankers and 350 billion for Mother Earth. That would be more than a triple hundred-fold
increase over what was stingily offered in 1992.

Its too late for the icecaps.
It is too late for the polar bear.
It is still not too late for the humans.
You can’t eat money.
Use what you have now to save the humans.

Another e-mail budget proposal….
The calls are tapering off folks, call in now- or I’ll never speak to you again.
828.333.4802

Love,

- The Blarg

so i didn’t really know that we had an robot enemy to begin with, but i guess that 700 billion dollars
is enough to make all kinds of folks come out of the woodwork to try to get their cold metallic fingers
in the pie. click below to hear the threatening message:

it’s bad enough that he wants to use the money that would otherwise be used by other callers for
the good of all the world to destroy our favorite mode of mass transportation, but he selfishly
wants to somehow use his newfound wealth to woo the current governor of alaska, sarah palin.
whatever! as if ms. palin would be at all interested in him, i think that we all know how much
she loves flesh and fur. you never know though, 700 billion dollars is a LOT of dough.

Today we have an email response from an aspiring marine biologist…

Yes, you can email your responses to the $700 billion dollar question!
loveboundtrain at gmail.com

Keep up the good work!

Crack and Cherry Jolly Ranchers, a winning combination if ever there was one.

Click to play audio!

today’s 700 billion dollar suggestion comes from a caller who has relayed
to us his vision of what sounds like a pretty killer setup for himself on a private island.
however, as self serving as this might initially sound, this true gentleman sets the record
straight by stating that his family will be well taken care of EVEN before delving into his own wish list.
you can get filled in on the details here.

best to both him and his family, we hope that all their wishes come true.