Global Military Spending Tops $1T in 2004:
STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- For the first time since the Cold War, global military spending exceeded $1 trillion in 2004, nearly half of it by the United States, a prominent European think tank said Tuesday. As military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terrorism continue, the world spent $1.035 trillion on defense during the year, corresponding to 2.6 percent of global gross domestic product, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said.
The War of the Worlds, a classic book from H.G. Wells has been remade (yet again) for a silver-screen debut on June 29th. The premise is that alien life forms from outerspace invade planet Earth with the desire for total domination, submission, etc. Call me foolhardy, but with these astronomical military budgets, I do not think humanity should fret annihilation from extraterrestrials... but rather from the State and its swaths of departments specializing in human disposal.