"It is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three.
`By thy long beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?"

OK, what’s with the fucking Coleridge poem, because it’s waay too early for a pop quiz.

Bear with me.

We humans, we like our round numbers.

C’mon, admit it. You know we do.

No “Nations #1 Psychics Reveal -- Top 7.3 Beauty Tips of the Dead.” or “Thirteen-and-a-half Hot Secrets for Turning Your Man From a Boo Berry to Capt’n Crunch ” list is going to get you to plunk down your four bucks for the glossy embarrassments that pass for reading material in America’s supermarkets.

And because of the fingers and toes arrangement with which (Fundies, please avert your eyes. This is NOT work-safe) Evolution has gifted us (OK, you can look now), we like our round numbers in base ten.

No freaky, hippy, vaguely-French-seeming hexadecimal for us, no sir.

No octal.

And except for computers, and Presidential Edicts on Terrorism ---

(Such as the very definitive “You’re either with us, or with the Terrorists”…

like the Insurgents…

who are all Terrorists…

apparently unless you’re negotiating with them…

which we learned from our antic Secretary of Defense this weekend we were doing, a LOT…

but only with the Good Insurgents and not the Bad Insurgents…

which is reassuring, because if it were otherwise, one might think this Administration may have lied about certain pretty important things…

which might cause one to idly wonder what other things they had lied about…

which sorta begs the question, since we have such incredibly sketchy intel on who the Insurgents are in the first place, are we basing our ability to differentiate between Good Insurgents and Bad Insurgents on some Powerful Frist-like Remote Diagnostic Ability, or secret handshakes or a type of Star-Bellied Sneetch technology that I’m not familiar with...

or what?)

--- we loathe binary.

We like tens, but only when “10” doesn’t by some Clinton Liberal word-parsing trickery really mean eight or two or something.

We notice tens.

So when I noticed that the most conservative estimate of number of soldiers wounded in Iraq had topped 13,000 it caught my attention in different way than that tragic number had in the past.

Because as understandably hard as it is to get a definitive number for the troops deployed in Iraq, and as tricky as it is to pin down exactly what we’re calling a casualty this week and how we’re tallying it, the fact is, we’ve got 130,000 troops in Iraq – give or take – and we’ve got 13,000 wounded – give or take.

Which means we’re at ten percent, or will be very soon.

Ten percent.

A nice, easy-to-remember number, ten-percent. Sorta just rooooolls of the tongue, doesn’t it?

Something for our petit Chickenhawk Republicans Reagan Youth to think about at their next kegger, while they’re doing beer bongs and lines of coke off each others pasty asses.

And “wounded” doesn’t mean nicked yourself shaving, or sliced a thumb doing watermelon shooters.

If you serve in Iraq, it means you stand a one-in-ten chance of losing an eye, or a leg, or having your chest smashed open by shrapnel.

At the next Junior GOP bash, look around the room at a hundred of your closest friends slobbing all over each other and braying about the Ascendant Glory that is the brave, brave Republican Party that sends the Underclasses off to die so that the Uberclasses can party like flappers and bootleggers in the upholstered comfort of Mommy’s well-appointed basement.

Because in Iraq, ten of them would be bleeding out from a belly wound all over that nice genuine Hopi rug and the fake Italian leather couch.

In Iraq, ten of them would be reeling in numb shock, wondering where their arm went.

In Iraq, ten of them would be on a chopper, trying to breathe with scalded lungs.

In Iraq, ten of them would be screaming for their mothers and shitting themselves in terror.

And with over 1,700 soldiers KIA, in Iraq, two of them would be dead.

So why the Coleridge poem?

Because it’s you who killed the albatross, Young Republicans motherfuckers, and it is around your necks this stinking war now hangs.

It’s your turn to go face the wraith that you turned loose.

It other words…

“It is an Insurgent Warrior,
And he woundeth one of ten.
To face his long beard and glittering eye,
Now it’s your turn, Barbie and Ken!”

This is the war you wanted, Young Republicans.

This is the war you begged for and celebrate.

This is the war you didn’t care was sold with lies, as long as you got to conquer by proxy and kill by remote control.

But now your war isn’t going so good, Young Republicans, and the President you overwhelmingly supported so that he could continue to prosecute your optional war exactly as you wanted it done needs you to serve.

Talking-time is over, Young Republicans.

The War God you elected is still hungry. He demands a sacrifice of flesh: without it, your dreams of PNAC Global Empire will be lost forever.

So step up, join up and go to Iraq, Young Republicans. Do it now, because we will never, ever let you forget it if you don’t.

Do it now, Young Republicans, and do it now.

Because if you don't, you will be invited, forever and always, to…

01100111 01101111

00100000

01100110 01110101 01100011 01101011

00100000

01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 01110011 01100101 01101100 01110110 01100101 01110011

(Gadzooks, dreamweasel is quite right. I dropped a letter. This should rectify it.)