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Observations on the world today.

Saturday, March 06, 2004

The Coolest Pen Ever... 

The coolest thing happened today. Completely out of the blue, and with no warning, I got this really cool pen in the mail today from True Majority, the 527 founded by Ben Cohen from Ben and Jerry's.



They are available through The True Majority Store for $5.00 each, or you can get more for a discount. I may be sending away for 10 which will only cost $20.

The pens feature a scroll which shows through graphs how America's spending on the military in terms of billions per year relates to such countries as Russia and China, and how it relates to the military spending of the "Axis of Evil."

In non-graph terms: US = $399b, Russia = $65b, China = $47b and the A of E = just $7b.

The chart also shows that our allies (which I suppose means the "Coalition of the Willing" as well as our other allies - Canada, France, Germany etc.) spend an additional $225b combined.

The reverse has yet another chart. This one shows that same $399b US dollars budgeted for the military in relation to how much was budgeted for a - children's health programs, b - kindergarten through 12th grade education, c - humanitarian and foreign aid, d - Head Start programs, and e - to reduce our reliance on oil.

a - $41b
b - $34b
c - $10b
d - $7b
e - $2b

At the bottom, the chart shows how by simply taking a small percentage off of the military's $399b ($60b or roughly 15%) we could more than cover the costs that all of those other programs are lacking - and it would still leave a military budget of $339 billion. That 15% could come from several now superfluous and wasteful cold war era military programs, including nuclear and other programs designed specifically to fight the cold war - which is over.

All that from a litle pen.
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