As of May 30, in addition to the 1000th American GI casualty, the National Priorities Project calculates that we have past the one trillion dollar mark on the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. One TRILLION dollars, with a T. It's a hard number to wrap your mind around, as this Google Sketchup illustration demonstrates. It also begs the question: just what have we bought for all that money and what good could have been done with that money instead?

Brave New Films's ReThink Afghanistan has a new Facebook app that allows you to see other ways that money could have been spent:

You could choose to hire every worker in Afghanistan for a year for
$12 billion or hire 1 million public safety workers for a year for $46.5 billion, and still only have made mere drops in the bucket.

Personally, I opted to pay for four years of college for a million students, fund the clean up of the gulf oil spill, hire one million elementary school teachers and offer health care for 10 million Americans and guess what? I still didn't reach that one trillion mark.

Check out the app. Tell us how you'd spend the money. Then consider sending this to your congresscritter to ask him/her how much more blood and treasure need to be lost in the sands of the Middle East.

The Progressive Puppy: Where will right-wing anger lead?

Capital Eye: Health Care tools to help you follow the money

2 Political Junkies: Your body is a battleground

Mother Jones: Chart of the Day

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: Babbling Brooks...Sensible centrism...Michael Savage has to apologize!...D.C. Conventional Wisdom...Say any-damn-thing...Unarmed, this time...Nevermind public opinion...Rock bottom...Ink shortage...Our Miss Brooks...Douthanasia...Schizoid in Barbieland...Graphic evidence...Terrified Dems & Media...

Brave New Films has a petition to ask Air America to give Sam Seder the chance to take over Randi Rhodes time slot.

Air America's Sam Seder has a chance to take over the time slot created by Randi Rhodes's departure. It was just about a year ago that Air America made the foolish decision to move Seder from a daily show to Sundays; he a vital progressive voice on the radio, one that should be heard daily.

Right now, the plan is to rotate weekly a roster of celebrities to fill Rhodes' time slot. Ironic for a company who said that the mistake their predecessors made was filling the schedule with comedians instead of solid radio professionals. BNF says they have about 4,000 signatures already and hope to get 6,000 more this week to deliver to the Air America offices. Let's help get Sammy the permanent position.

Just to prove that irony is not dead. The site Digg has banned Brave New Films for "Inappropriate Content" for this video on Fox Porn.

(Not safe for work)

YouTube requires an age check to access this video...but all of it was aired on FOX News.

Apparently, after discussion with the Digg editors, Brave New Films was reinstated after promising not to post inappropriate content from FOX News again. (There's just too many jokes to make there) And in a circular bit of logic, a Digg posting by Brave New Films on the banning is now getting Diggs.

But here's where you have to tighten that tin foil just a bit: in a convenient bit of timing, Digg has recently entered into a partnership with FOX parent company News Corp to offer WSJ content. And News Corp has been wooing Digg for the last year to outright acquire the site. Coincidence?

AAIE produced this ad, which will be running in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's district:

Brave New Films has a couple of other ads targeting Mitch McConnell as well.

Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films has a new blog. Cliff Schecter will be "the blogger-in-chief and video content creator/manager in a large project to enact a clearing house for original content progressive video."

Blue Herald: Jim Swanson's "Week in Review" and other podcasts.

A Save Net Radio update: The Internet Radio Equality Act (H.R. 2060) now has 115 Congressional co-sponsors, but can still use more help. Webcasters are organizing a National Day of Silence for Tuesday, July 26.

Jon Swift: "Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Ann Althouse" puts it all in perspective.

The Aristocrats: The important Zygote-American voting block, because every sperm is sacred. Really. They even dance.

Poetry and Politics: A Poetic Justice, Poets for Peace, Poems From Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak, Mad Kane, and a piece imagining Fallujah.

Guest round up by Batocchio. That's it for me! Thanks! The next week is by Cernig of The Newshoggers (newshog AT gmail DOT com).