Two seemingly unrelated tidbits of information I came across today:
One, in my ongoing Ingenuity series, is the dustpan with built-in vacuum, as seen on Boing Boing.
Two is this little thought experiment on the Boston Globe:
If the Bush administration succeeds in its latest request for funding for the war in Iraq, the total cost would rise to $611.5 billion, according to the National Priorities Project, a nonprofit research group.
The amount got us wondering: What would $611 billion buy?
For the lazy, here’s the kicker:
According to World Bank estimates, $54 billion a year would eliminate starvation and malnutrition globally by 2015, while $30 billion would provide a year of primary education for every child on earth.
At the upper range of those estimates, the $611 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world’s poor for seven years.
So next time you vote, or consider buying more useless crap, why not stop for a second and tap into those neurons up there?