Here we break down the proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street and put that value into context with Bill Gates, Tata Nanos, Florida’s GDP and Fun Dip. Also in today’s Light Friday: Brilliant But Lazy Ideas, a 20,000-Year-Old Pothole, a Swiss Jetman Crosses the English Channel and MORE.

Bailout Numbers in Context
Lawmakers this week closed in on a massive $700 billion rescue deal for the nation’s troubled financial sector even as many politicos and talking heads greeted the proposal with anger, skepticism, alternative proposals and, ultimately, continued talks/finger-pointing to get this thing hashed out.

Now, $700 billion is, put simply, a lot of money, which has led to lots of questions from lawmakers and taxpayers alike: How long will $700 billion last? How will the federal government know what price to pay for the mortgages it buys? Will all of the federal wheeling and dealing come with transparency and oversight? How will the average Joe be affected? Do the Wall Street executives get to keep their bonuses?

Because this is Light Friday, our question follows Slate‘s: How much is $700 billion?

• Enough to buy 5,000 packs of Fun Dip (the three-flavor/two-stick packs) for every American man, woman and child, a colleague suggests;

• About 11 Warren Buffets;

• If a dollar bill is 0.1 centimeters in height, 700 billion dollar bills stacked one on top of the other would form a pile 52,000 miles high;

• Not quite half the assembled net worth of the Forbes 400;

• Enough to buy every U.S. citizen old enough to drive (all 225,633,342 of ‘em) one new Tata Nano car, and maybe some gas in each tank;

• Approximately 70 Large Hadron Colliders (LHC);

• More than the $530 billion in total world textile and clothing trade;

• Like, 12 times what the U.S. spends on education every year;

• Siphoning off Florida’s gross domestic product would cover it, Slate notes; or

• Roughly $100 billion more than we’ve spent so far on the Iraq war.

Malaria affects half of the world’s population — 3.3 billion people in 109 countries — and causes nearly one million deaths per year. According to projections by the ambitious new Global Malaria Action Plan (GMAP), more than 4.2 million lives can be saved between 2008 and 2015 if its plan is put into action, and the foundation can be laid for a longer-term effort to eradicate the disease.

Fully implementing the GMAP will require $5.3 billion in 2009 and $6.2 billion in 2010 to expand malaria control programs; $5.1 billion annually from 2011-2020; $3.3 billion annually from 2021-2030; and $1.5 billion annually from 2031-2040.

Achieving full control of malaria in all endemic countries, reducing the number of malaria deaths to near zero by 2040 and still having $589.5 billion from $700 billion? There better not be a golden parachute in sight.

Black Hole Machine Breaks Down, pt. II
In continuing coverage from previous Light Fridays, the $10 billion LHC atom smasher recently broke down. Again.

The world’s largest particle collider — also the biggest, most expensive scientific instrument in history — was damaged “worse than previously thought and will be out of commission for at least two months,” the Associated Press reported about a week ago.

“It’s too early to say precisely what happened, but it seems to be a faulty electrical connection between two magnets that stopped superconducting, melted and led to a mechanical failure and let the helium out,” James Gillies, spokesman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), told AP.

“The damage to the LHC on the Swiss-French border will delay for at least two months the quest for scientists to learn more about the nature of the universe and the origins of all matter,” according to a Q&A from AP.

As a reminder from last month, these are apparently the people in charge:

Brilliant. Lazy, but Brilliant
Ideas By Chuck is a blog that has better ideas than resources or passion to make the ideas reality, whether they’re for inventions or marketing campaigns or whatnot. But Chuck does hope his blog “makes the world a better place.”

How could it not? Herewith, three of Chuck’s ideas:

Magical Binder
For those all too familiar with the aggravation that comes of a three-ring binder’s continuous folding and falling when using it on your lap, Chuck offers this potential solution: “I don’t have all the plans drawn up, you will have to spend the half hour figuring out the best way to make this a reality, but someone should produce a three ring binder that locks open, creating a rigid plane of productivity.”

Seductive Slot Machine
It’s not a well-kept secret that the only clocks in casinos are on the employees’ time cards. Casinos want you to lose track of time, and often you do. So, after walking the casino floor for nearly 13 hours, your feet begin to ache. Chuck’s proposal: “A slot machine with a built-in foot massager. The massager would keep going as long as you are playing the one-armed bandit. Maybe you could even call the slot machine, ‘Foot Loose,’ to tie the whole thing together.”

Doritos Cereal
“Why? Why not? Doritos are delicious. I don’t see why they wouldn’t be just as tasty in cereal form.”

via Adrant, Gawker

Ground Zero Workers Discover 20k-Year-Old Pothole
“Crews excavating the World Trade Center site this summer for the foundations of a new skyscraper have uncovered features carved into the bedrock by glaciers about 20,000 years ago, including a 40-foot-deep pothole,” AP reports.

The pothole and other features are being covered, filled in or blasted away.

. . . Burning Out His Fuse Up Here Alone
Strapped to a homemade jet-propelled wing, a Swiss daredevil crossed the English Channel today, parachuting into a field near the white cliffs of Dover after a 10-minute, 22-mile solo flight.

Cheers.