There is is flash version of this:
http://www.truemajority.org/oreos/

And the bb demonstration:
http://www.truemajority.org/bensbbs/

This is the first time I've seen them demonstrated live.

Quite an interesting way of putting our polititions to shame by using simple math. Should I repeate simple math?

I love Tavis Smiley. I saw this when it came on last week. Great stuff on PBS.

Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial-congressional complex decades ago. Now we're reaping the whirlwind.

The problem is that, as 2nd grade as that math is, it won't fit into one phrase. If it won't fit into one phrase, it can't be an issue for someone to run on. That's what people vote on, phrases: Pro-life/choice, Family Values, Sanctity of Marriage, Support our Troops and countless other shallow BS phrases.

Too much like right. –That's for sure.

And a lot of cookies make their way to Israel:

http://www.wrmea.com/html/us_aid_to_israel.htm

"Since 1949 the U.S. has given Israel a total of $83.205 billion. The interest costs borne by U.S. tax payers on behalf of Israel are $49.937 billion, thus making the total amount of aid given to Israel since 1949 $133.132 billion. This may mean that U.S. government has given more federal aid to the average Israeli citizen in a given year than it has given to the average American citizen."

It's a strange old place, the US.

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This is an awesome demonstration and shows how ridiculous our spending on contracts to Haliburton, TRW et al really is.

We need serious regime change in the US- get rid of the lobbyists, give us real campaign reform, and damn it after you do the world hunger one, please, please give NASA a few oreos. I want my Mars base.

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Nice link Snake. That sums it up pretty succinctly.

christ, I got a bag of Oreos upstairs, I had no idea

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LOL, DC.

Is G.W. Bush the bad guy that has been eating the oreos all along ?:p

Of course there's lots of waste in the defense budget, but considering the Constitution specifically addresses providing for defense and none of those other things, I'd say the real thieves are the socialists. A government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away. P.S. Tavis is too scared to go toe-to-toe with Larry Elder.

LOL - "the socialists".
Nice to see you still got that McCarthy-era paranoia going on.

Re: LOL - "the socialists". Is there some other term for those that think Big Gummint Control is going to solve all problems? Got news for you: only the paranoid survive.

Pretty amusing...but the example of BB's for nuclear weapons was somewhat misleading.
The U.S. nuclear arsenal isn't divided into "Hiroshima Sized" bombs, nor is another country like to build there cities in nice neat little pockets designed to receive maximum blast damage. They are also not likely to build most their cites out of wood,paper,and bamboo, like much of the housing in World War II era Japan.
Using misleading examples can ultimately work against his argument.

Also, his projections assume a static model of the situation. People that like to throw money at problems usually do...

For example, the more money that has been spent on education (and the more centralised it has become as a result) the lower scores have gotten. Also, spending more on energy independence sounds appealing, but the government has a dismal record at such activities.

I would much rather see people get a break on education & investing in energy production. Then you could let the people decide for themselves what to do with it and not some some bureaucrat or special interest group.

talk about misleading skeptical. you know, rumor has it that can work against you. take education for example. for starters your statement is not logical. if spending more money lowers scores we should than spend less money, right? actually we should keep spending less until we get to zero. i'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest scores go down with no schools, no teachers and no supplies. you know i find so strange as well -- why do kids score so much lower on tests when schools spend about $10,000/year on students vs. kids where schools spend more than $20,000? i know, it must be because the higher scoring kids are white!

as you state, being misleading can work against you. or , it can help you. for example, had i not already realized you are a misleading propaganda parrot, i would have continued to the next line which, in this case, is equally egregious. so your misleading spared you from furher debunking. congrats.

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Hey hotpotatomash, great blog. I think it warrants a callout:
http://hotpotatomash.com

I love it when idiots do idiotic things to try and convince other idiots that their idiot social programs will work 'if only they get a few billion more dollars..." Of course, all the worlds problems would be solved if only the U.S. spent less on defense. Well, this thread proves that there are plenty of stupid people on the internet.

Tell you what - how about this? How about we stack up all the cookies that are spent on SOCIAL programs?

http://www.infoplease.com/cig/economics/government-share-economy.html

You see - what the moron from "Ben and Jerry's" (Pht - nice 'expert' to bring in...) didn't want to share is that the U.S. federal budget is already dominated by spending on social crap like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and so on. So how about this - every dollar we cut from Defense must be matched by a cut in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Stack up THOSE Oreos, why don'tcha? "Wah wah wah - the U.S. spends money on its own DEFENSE!" You morons do know that the Federal government is constitutionally ordered to fund defense, right? Or were you too busy reading Karl Marx to bother with the Constitution? Please show me in the Constitution where we are supposed to fund Ben & Jerry's education fund, and health care, and all the other crap that whiny liberals THINK should be funded?

BTW - all that money the government gets... They SURE do a good job of getting it to the poor and needy don't they? How about instead of picking everyone pocket to federally waste money, you guys put your money where your mouth is and donate money to the causes you support?

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Yes, Nafarias, we're all Marxists here at VS. (actually I think we're closer to the opiate of the masses)

Although I like what he says, you do have a point that the Ben & Jerry guy might not be the best person to set domestic economic policy in the US - BUT it would be nice to get my monthly allotment of Cherry Garcia, and Chunky Monkey - (alloted according to my needs and abilities of course, comrade).

Also, on preview - I bet your grandma doesn't consider her Medicare prescription subsidy "social crap".

nefarias you deserve credit for the appropriate name but certainly not your talking points response. fact: bush and the republican congress are the biggest spenders since the new deal and fdr is often considered the greatest president of all time for pulling the country out of the great depression. fact: liberals give more to charity than conservatives.

also, i don't recall anyone stating the u.s. should not live up to its constitutionally mandated responsibility to defend the country. only comments i have seen are regarding the amount of that expenditure - which is now 1/2 of the worlds total military expenditures. that is gross. it also makes half your post superflous.

finally, you are among the luckiest f's on the planet assuming you were born in the richest country in the history of mankind. only 3.5% of the world's population get so lucky. so maybe you should thank your lucky stars and not cry so much about helping your fellow man.

DAG - thanks much for the shout out. i'm pretty new at this so still in the figuring out stage. just found this site, for example. you guys do a great job. i will do my best to spread the word.

Nefarias, if you're going to go into a rant and use graphs as proof of your problem with social programs, you need to check for the validity of the graphs and whether they are even usable. I don't put much trust in a graph from 1999 when I try to equate ten with now, there are just a few differences.

http://costofwar.com/

That is truly monstrous. How anyone can defend that level of spending is beyond me. Essentially what you have got yourselves there is a massively public-subsidised chunk of your economy, the military/industrial complex.

Subsidising? Hell, that sounds positively socialist! As an added benefit, the industry you are subsidising is one dedicated to warfare, suffering and destruction!

Nefarias - the US isn't working. Stop being so defensive and stick your head up once in a while and see what you might learn from other countries.

I personally like Chubby Hubby in Ben and Jerry's. I wonder if he is going to make some type of Double Stuff Oreo ice cream now.

If he does, I'll be first in line!

After reading the comments here, I just had to register to post my own opinion. I think this video is a perfect example of the simplistic thinking and cherry picking of information that will continue to haunt the forward thinking, even with the wealth of opinion and fact that the internet provides.

"Too much like right" is a very appropriate way to describe BB's demonstration. It's agressively simplistic in its framing: throw money at the problem and it's taken care of. It's just ludicrous to say that if you spend $10 billion more on energy research that it WILL cut our oil dependency in half. Likewise, if we throw $25 billion more at world hunger, then all the children will be fed. I wonder if BB remember Somalia and how well throwing money, food, and even enforcement worked over there. Aid can be effective, but it isn't as simple as stacking a couple of oreos.

With that said, our defense spending may be overboard if a true assesment of the threat to our national security could be had. I'd say the nature of government spending, especially defense spending, is to go too far and misappropriate and waste. However, the U.S. has not had any major terrorist events on home soil since 911. Perhaps our spending is a part of this accomplishment, who knows. Not I, nor Ben and Jerry.

The "we haven't had any terrorist attacks since 9/11" argument is simplistic thinking and cherry-picking, eff. Proves absolutely nothing about our readiness or prevention of attacks.
Our single greatest protection against Islamic terrorism is a little something called the Atlantic Ocean. You can bet your ass if we were closer to the Middle East, we'd have suffered the same fate as London, etc.

This video and thread are really interesting.

Simplicity of message is impossible without simplification.

*dead

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