Bad joke?

So a rabbi, a priest, a mullah, a pastor, a Buddhist, and a female lawyer walk into a bar, and the bartender says …

“What is this, a joke?”

Yeah, well, it’s a little better than the jokes Carl came up with for this week’s One Minute for Peace video. Not that that’s saying much.

But Carl has a good point. In 2008, the U.S. government spent $1.9 million EVERY MINUTE on the military. It does sound like a bad joke – the very worst.

Do you toss and turn nights, worried about China’s increasing military strength? Straighten those covers. Last year, China’s military spending amounted to a mere 10 percent of U.S. military budget.* In fact, the United States accounted for almost half – half! – of the world’s military spending.

And you paid for it.

You may have scrimped and saved to pay for some necessities and maybe even a luxury or two, but the U.S. government took your tax money and treated the military to the world’s most expensive party.

$1.9 million a minute.

Isn’t it more than just a bad joke?

[The figure of $89 billion in military spending for China comes from Wikipedia. The Wikipedia figure for military spending does not include money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For our figures on the military budget, go to www.oneminuteforpeace.org.)