Barack Obama's Stimulus Plan - Who Will Pay?

On Feb. 17, 2009 Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary said that the $787 Billion recovery package President Obama signed into law would "set our economy on a firmer foundation." At the same time, the President proudly announced that the massive tax cuts would begin in April, allowing the typical American family to gain at least $65 a month, while in the same breath, he pledged to cut America's $1,3 trillion-dollar deficit.

How?

Despite the grandiose plans to trim the defense budget etc. and somehow turn the US treasury into a lean, mean saving machine, unless the President is a reincarnated Genie able to manufacture wealth out of thin air, one has to wonder… Could the unthinkable be happening?

Is it remotely possible that the President is using words and economic sleight of hand to fool us into believing that $787 billion will not translate into extra trillions if dollars worth of debt that our children and our children’s children will have to bear?

It all reminds me of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale about The Emperor’s New Clothes...

I have an idea! Shouldn’t he also be looking at the billions and billions of dollars being squandered on useless scientific disciplines such as SETI?

But why should SETI be a useless waste of time, resources and money? Let me explain:

In 1950, Enrico Fermi, a renowned physicist and professor at the Institute for Nuclear Studies of the University of Chicago, said, “Where is everybody?”

He was referring to his famous paradox, which states: “The size and age of the universe suggests that many technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations ought to exits. However, this hypothesis seems inconsistent with the lack of observational evidence to support it.”

Ten years later Dr. Frank Drake (now Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz) presented the famous Drake Equation, taking into consideration eight factors in a formula that all present agreed was logical.

Despite the fact that there are between two hundred and four hundred billion stars in our galaxy, Drake calculated that there could only be a maximum of ten civilizations in existence that have the ability to communicating with us! However, in spite of these staggering odds, government backed funding has since poured untold billions, plus an astonishing amount of resources into this seemingly futile search.

Since 1960, hundreds of powerful radio telescopes, including the Allen Telescope Array, The very Large Array, Big Ear, MOP, Project Phoenix and many others, have been listening for signals. On top of that, SETI @home, a world–wide volunteer group consisting of over 5 million computer users, have contributed over 19 billion hours analyzing signals from the SERENDIP II project.

What have they found?

Nothing… apart from the controversial WOW signal received back in 1977.

The only positive spin-off has been to the entertainment industry and pop culture. I refer to films such as 2010: The Year WE Make Contact, Independence Day, 2010: Odyssey Two, Contact, and the final scene of Arrival. There was also Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series together with a number of video games and pop records.

And yet, the spending frenzy continues!

Everyone seems to have ignored one tiny irrefutable fact … time!

Let me explain. According to the geological clock, the earth is about 4.5 billion years old. If this is broken up into 12 segments and represented as a clock, the ice age began 17 seconds ago. In other words, since the beginnings of the universe, we have only had a 70-year window of opportunity to communicate with extraterrestrial life.

Just suppose for a moment that those ten advanced civilizations in our galaxy actually exist, or did exist at some time or other. If we take our own behavior into consideration, we can probably assume that civilizations tend to destroy themselves rather quickly, either by hostile means or by technological means. I hold up global warming, pollution, the rape of natural resources, plus several near misses from a nuclear holocaust as examples.

How many of those aliens exist at this moment?

Now, let’s take a closer look at time.

Many scientists agree that the closes habitable planet system may be located near a white star called Antares. This particular star is 2,110,000,000,000,000 miles away. If we sent a manned spaceship, traveling at 25,000 miles per hour, it would take us 9,6 million years to get there. The time taken to receive a radio signal from them would be 360 years and our reply would only reach them 720 years after they called us.

What if they tried to contact us 750 years ago and hung up the phone because there was no reply?

Bear this in mind: Antares is probably the closest place for an alien civilization to emerge, so what are the odds of ever being able to contact someone or something out there?

And if we did manage to reach another civilization or two, would it be wise to shout in the jungle? What if they were hostile towards us?

Here’s the big question:

Isn’t it time for us to cut out this childish behavior? Shouldn’t the President start thinking about eliminating, or at least postponing this huge drain in order to ease the present economic burden?

Not only would he be lightening the crushing debt that we and our descendants face, but he could also channel some of those funds and scientific know-how into a concerted effort to save our own planet.