Numbers Games

It's Mission Accomplished Eve, boys and girls.

On the eve of the fourth anniversary of Commander Codpiece's prance across the deck of that aircraft carrier in his little flight suit costume, it seems as good a time as any to review some numbers:

1. American deaths to date: 3,351

2. Cost of the war: on track to top $500 billion.

3. Original estimate for the war's cost: approximately $50 billion.

4. Additional amount allotted for Iraq in bill Commander Codpiece is poised to veto: $78 billion.

6. Additional amount Commander Codpiece wants for the war: $116 billion.

7. Some of things the $564 billion in combined spending requests for Iraq could buy:

A college education - tuition, fees, room and board at a public university - for about half of the nation's 17 million high-school-age teenagers.

Pre-school for every 3- and 4-year-old in the country for the next eight years.

A year's stay in an assisted-living facility for about half of the 35 million Americans age 65 or older.

8. Number of morons Americans who actually voted for Commander Codpiece in 2004 (62,028,285) (+) Number who did so in 2000 (50,456,002) = Number of those who are morally complicit in all of the death, destruction, and waste that is Iraq (all of them).

9. Number of my senators who voted for the Iraq war resolution: both of them (Clinton & Schumer).

10. Number of my senators who voted for the Iraq war resolution and who are running for president who will get my vote: none.