"A trillion seconds is 31,688 years, 9 months, 5 days, 8 hours, 6 minutes, and 42 seconds ... It would take us to 29,708 B.C... I don't understand a trillion dollars any better than I do a trillion seconds. I simply know that we had better stop spending money we don't have if we want to avoid that Man on Horseback." Taken from "The Happy Days Ahead" in Heinlein's 1980 collection Expanded Universe.
I've been reading Expanded Universe, and I was amazed to realize that I had not read it before. I found it most interesting for the stunning prophetic things discussed in pre-1980 essays that directly address the current situation. It got me to thinking that I'd like to start a series of short posts called "Wisdom of Heinlein".
Here's the first: "Liberals are people who know that water flows down hill, but think it will never reach the bottom."
(That pretty much describes every policy agenda of the current US administration.)
