i’ve had a venti drip from starbucks in the past two days to stay awake late into the night. i usually never finish a venti drip, so after two days, the venti cups were still on my desk with an inch or less of cold coffee left in them. i noticed that starbucks has a tried to make their cups more interesting with a series of “The Way I See It” quotes from people who have important things to say. I got #1 and #14. Maybe these are collector’s items like those random messags under Snapple bottles some time ago. for those who would like to skip on the venti and just know what the cups said, here goes:

The Way I See It #1
Zeroes are important, A million seconds ago was last week. A billion seconds ago, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency. A trillion seconds ago was 30,000 BC, and early humans were using stone tools. America’s national debt is $7.5 trillion, and it’s skyrocketing, even as America’s population ages. There will never be a better time to start paying off this crippling debt than today.
— Denis Hayes, Chairman of the Earth Day Network and longtime environmental advocate

(pk comment: I don’t get why some environmentalist gets to be a spokesperson for the nation’s debt problem. Is there some connection I am not seeing? Shouldn’t he go save some whales or clean the air? Or hug trees?)

The Way I See It #14
1.6 million years ago a youth died in Africa. His body was swept into a swamp. In 1984 his bones were painstakingly excavated to reveal a species on the brink of becoming human. All people on earth have one thing in common. We share a single African ancestor; the same as this young boy.
— Dr. Louise Leakey, Paleontologist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. She is currently working in Kenya.

(pk comment: What happened to Adam and Eve? This statement sounds like we’ve accepted evolution as a fact or something. Haha. Just kidding. I once saw an evangelical Christian website for kids where the “atheist” was a grumpy goat who drank lots of caffeine. Starbucks strikes back at Creationists!)