Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

So many bastards, so little time.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson: the bland and smiling face of evil.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickle?”

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

You are here: Home / Peak Wingnut is a Unicorn, The Loch Ness Monster, and Bigfoot All In One

Peak Wingnut is a Unicorn, The Loch Ness Monster, and Bigfoot All In One

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I’m watching CNN, and I am not making this up, someone paid to have a commercial state the following (and I paraphrase):

“Congress just spent 800 billion dollars. To get an idea how much that is, imagine if you spent a dollar every day since Jesus was born…”

I stopped what I was doing. I wonder how much it cost to air that commercial- should I start counting a dollar every day since Martin Luther was born? Or was it cheaper than that and I should start counting a dollar every day since Pope John Paul II was born?

*** Update ***

Not the only one to notice this:

Now, there’s a bit about this that renders it disingenuous…which is the whole thing. The American economy is massive – $14.28 trillion, in fact. If you started the day Jesus Christ was born and spent $1 million every day since then, you wouldn’t reach the size of the American economy by the year 10,000. Or 20,000. This is why we don’t measure the size of our economy in Jesus Money, despite the declaration of such in the RNC platform.

To put this in further context – over the course of Jesus’ life, at $1 million a day, and presuming his death at the age of 33 (including leap years), the value of Jesus’ life would have been $12.053 billion.

Microsoft’s yearly revenue last year was $60 billion, meaning they earned five Jesuses in a year.

Apparently the ad said a million a day, and not a dollar a day as I thought I had heard.

Reader Interactions

50Comments

  1. 1.

    matt

    This has been around for a couple of weeks now. I wish I could remember who did it, but there was a great take down/mocking of this nonsense recently.

  2. 2.

    Napoleon

    Matt, the same group that ran the smear ads during the election featuring the Rev. Wright are responsible for that ad.

  3. 3.

    KG

    um, there’s yet to be a Pope John Paul III, though I suppose that makes your point even better, since there probably wasn’t a Jesus either.

  6. 6.

    DonkeyKong

    …..the stack would be sooooo high it would fall off the edge of the flat earth and poke God in the eye!

  8. 8.

    Dennis-SGMM

    And if you went back a day for every dollar that Bush raised the National Debt after taking office you’d only have to go back 10,958,904,109 years. Why, the universe would have already been in business about two billion years by then.
    What, exactly, is their fucking point?

  9. 9.

    matt

    Jesse at Pandagon. He measured the worth of various companies in Jesus dollars.

    Yes! Thanks, Incertus.

  10. 10.

    Andre

    IIRC TPM did a pretty funny takedown where they calculated how tall a tower of the projected number of unemployed people standing on top of each other would be in comparison to this.

  11. 11.

    El Cid

    But what if Jesus spent a dollar for every single day since he was born, then he’d still have a dollar, ’cause he would just make the dollars multiply or turn bread crumbs into dollars. And then he could hypnotize Romans into taking the dollars and say it was for Caesar.

  12. 12.

    KG

    I’ve got a friend from law school that used this line recently. I couldn’t stop laughing long enough to ask these questions:

    1. What day was Jesus actually born? Because I never remember that coming up in Bible Study.
    2. Did you factor in the change to the Gregorian Calendar from the Julian?
    3. WFT is the point of this exercise?

  13. 13.

    TenguPhule

    Peak Wingnut is a Unicorn, The Loch Ness Monster, and Bigfoot All In One

    Some will be remembered for greatness.

    Some will be remembered for infamy.

    John Cole will always be remembered for calling Peak Wingnut.

  14. 14.

    DonkeyKong

    …………call the White house and tell the Obamafraud that if he doesnt appoint Sarah Palin as his replacement. Eric Cantor will lead a tea bagging party on the white house steps!

  15. 15.

    cleek

    if we spent $800,000,000,000 every single year, we could almost afford the military we have now.

    Jesus would be so proud. Washington, too.

  16. 16.

    lutton

    Way to conflate two unrelated things. Of course, Jesus said, "render unto Caesar…" so maybe they are related.

  17. 17.

    MikeJ

    At the Sermon on the Mount, the disciples all chipped in and came up with twenty bucks for lunch. Jesus(pbuh) still gave everybody there a fiver.

  18. 18.

    AhabTRuler

    @Incertus: That was hilarious.

    I’m streaming CSPAN, and Floyd Norris from the NYT told me that "the estate tax is going to come back the year after next at a high rate, and that nobody wants that…"

    I’m I do! First, I ain’t inheriting F’all from my parents (who are both credit whores), ’cause you can’t inherit debt (I’m looking at you BOA). Second, I think that people should pay high rates of taxes for inherited wealth.

  20. 20.

    Genine

    Jesse mentioned it at Pandagon and I think Steve Benen had a quick piece on it. He mentioned TPM’s take on it.

    Unfortunately, I think the insanity will get worse before it gets better. I just hope it serves to open people’s eyes.

  21. 21.

    Chi-city

    I forgot what douche bags the Repubs would be in the minority. I don’t know how their behavior is beneficial to their constituents. But gosh darn it…….country first.

  22. 22.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @El Cid

    But what if Jesus spent a dollar for every single day since he was born, then he’d still have a dollar, ‘cause he would just make the dollars multiply or turn bread crumbs into dollars. And then he could hypnotize Romans into taking the dollars and say it was for Caesar.

    Jesus was way cool
    Everybody liked Jesus
    Everybody wanted to hang out with him
    Anything he wanted to do, he did
    He turned water into wine
    And if he wanted to
    He could have turned wheat into marijuana
    Or sugar into cocaine
    Or vitamin pills into amphetamines

    He walked on the water
    And swam on the land
    He would tell these stories
    And people would listen
    He was really cool

    If you were blind or lame
    You just went to Jesus
    And he would put his hands on you
    And you would be healed
    That’s so cool

    He could’ve played guitar better than Hendrix
    He could’ve told the future
    He could’ve baked the most delicious cake in the world
    He could’ve scored more goals than Wayne Gretzky
    He could’ve danced better than Barishnikov
    Jesus could have been funnier than any comedian you can think of
    Jesus was way cool

    He told people to eat his body and drink his blood
    That’s so cool
    Jesus was so cool
    But then some people got jealous of how cool he was
    So they killed him
    But then he rose from the dead
    He rose from the dead, danced around
    Then went up to heaven
    I mean, that’s so cool
    Jesus was way cool

    No wonder there are so many Christians

  23. 23.

    JGabriel

    Dennis-SGMM:

    And if you went back a day for every dollar that Bush raised the National Debt after taking office you’d only have to go back 10,958,904,109 years. Why, the universe would have already been in business about two billion years by then.

    Er, um, actually … at approximately 15 billion years old (= about 5.475 trillion days) the universe wouldn’t be born for another 15 billion years – if one can meaningfully hypothesize a length of time preceding the birth of time.

    Which, by the way, only strengthens your point.

    .

  24. 24.

    Comrade Stuck

    I think some democrat countered this a while back with a comparable comparison to the money spent on Iraq/

  25. 25.

    John S.

    Roger Wicker(Retard-MS)

    This is an absolute affront to people with mental retardation.

    Special needs folk are born with developmental delay, and work very hard to reach their potential. Whereas Roger Wicker, presumably, was not born with any developmental impairment and yet chooses to behave in a manner that suggests he has serious cognitive functioning challenges.

    So in my opinion, Wicker isn’t even good enough for a term that isn’t appropriate for the people it is meant to impugn.

  26. 26.

    TenguPhule

    Special needs folk are born with developmental delay, and work very hard to reach their potential. Whereas Roger Wicker, goes through the same process, only backwards.

    Fixed.

  28. 28.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    John you are so calling peak wingnut way to early again, just imagine (for a second) when in 2012 a serious contender for the GOP nomination for POTUS is an Indian Muslin/Hindu/Heathen not a real AMURICAN. "He was RAISED a Hindu therefore he MUST be a Hindu, he won’t take the oath on the AMURICAN bible he don’t love Jeebus" (insert cheeto spittle here). Seriously, I cannot believe that after what the wingnuts spouted about Barack they are seriously considering putting "Piyush Jindal" up as a contender cause he won’t be taking no oath as "Bobby" folks. It would be comic theatre the like of which we have never seen before. I am buying stock in popcorn. (Oh and as an aside according to the birthers Bobby isn’t a "natural born citizen" cause his parents weren’t – just sayin)

  30. 30.

    SpotWeld

    Trillions, billions, the size of the US economy, the size of the US population: these are all numbers of vastly huge magnitude.

    It’s rare that anyone ever has to be in a position to really contemplate what they represent. Astronomers get it, they consider the Sun to be pretty close (only 8 light minutes away).

    Of course, Astronomers also have the bright idea of using measurements that can scale to work within the framework they are using. AUs (the distance from the earth to the sun), parsecs, lightyears. etc….

    We are forced to continue representing the economy in dollars, which makes it difficult to get a proper scale of things.

    I would suggest a unit of monetary measure that is roughly the GNP of the US. as it would normally be used to scale the amount of money being spent by the government I woudl call this unit a "Regan".

  32. 32.

    JGabriel

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    John you are so calling peak wingnut way to early again…

    LittleBrit, check the title again. I think it’s John’s admission that Peak Wingnut doesn’t exist; i.e., that its peak shall never be reached.

    .

  34. 34.

    TenguPhule

    Is there a reason why those who buy the Republican ideology are always so bad at math?

    Yes. Same reason why they only pay the minimum balance on their credit cards.

  39. 39.

    John S.

    Whereas Roger Wicker, goes through the same process, only backwards.

    Ok, that seriously made me LOL.

    Well played, tenguphule.

  40. 40.

    skippy

    and i beleive david schuster of all people, on msnbc, pointed out that the bush deficit and the cost of the iraq war was way more than jesus dollars for obama.

    plus, someone else (i forget who) pointed out that the math was actually wrong, and jesus dollars wouldn’t be more than the stimulus cost.

  41. 41.

    Bob In Pacifica

    Now imagine if Jesus took that 800 billion and did that loaves of bread and fish trick with it. And if he didn’t charge America usury fees on it.

    Now imagine if Jesus turned raw sewage into Pinot Grigio.

    Now imagine if Jesus actually got a camel through an eye of a needle. Squish.

    Now imagine if everyone who got a death sentence rose up three days later.

  42. 42.

    Martin

    The reason this resonates is that a shocking percentage of the US population thinks that ‘since Jesus was born’ represents 1/3 of the age of the universe.

    Translate that as ‘$333K per day since the start of the universe’, and suddenly it means something quite a bit different.

    Don’t miss the code there.

  43. 43.

    JasonF

    As I said when Senator McConnell first floated this ridiculous comparison a few weeks ago, if you took a trillion dollars and divided it into piles the size and shape of Mitch McConnell on the day Jesus Christ was born, then stacked those Mitch McConnell-shaped piles straight up toward the moon, then wrapped that pile around the Earth’s equator, none of it would have fuck-all to do with whether the stimulus package is sound fiscal policy.

    Also, the $800 billion stimulus bill was roughly 50% tax cuts. Since when did Republicans start opposing $400 billion tax cuts? After all, if we cut Jesus’s taxes by a million dollars a day starting on the day he was born …

  44. 44.

    jcricket

    Math and I parted amicably right after Trig. My brain sees numbers above a certain size as "a lot."

    Isn’t that one of Palin’s kids? Right after Michael, Frito, Geronimo, and Algebra?

  45. 45.

    El Cid

    If you took all Republicans, shot them into orbit, and tied them head to toe, it would be very much appreciated.

  46. 46.

    PaulW

    Thanks to the Republican Party, we now have Jesus dollars.

    1 Jesus dollar = 1 million Obama dollars

    Our entire economy can be measured in Jesus dollars. Our stock markets now measured by Peter points. Our commodities exchange measured by Joseph of Arimathea… oh dammit I can’t keep going with this line of thought.

    I thought Jesus said to let Caesar keep the dollars.

  47. 47.

    Nazgul35

    Is a "Jesus" the new "Friedman" unit for money?

    Total spending / $33 million (equals one Jesus)

    Therefore Sarah Palin’s budget for the campaign = a three month old baby Jesus?

  49. 49.

    MNPundit

    Yeah but that billion is in AD 33 money, not AD 2008 money. Have to take into account inflation.

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