Numbers

Round numbers make news, there's no getting around it. But just because we've now reached the newest magic round number of 4,000 American military casualties in Iraq should not take away from the daily tragedies that have brought us to this point. And today's commemoration of this number shouldn't be the last time we revisit the subject of death and mayhem in Iraq for months to come. There are a lot of pressing worries on the American public's mind these days, foremost the economy (but don't forget angry African American preachers, too), but in order to address our down-spiraling economy we're going to need to extricate ourselves from Iraq sooner than later. Which will also, thankfully, bring an end to the numbers game.

As a reminder of the toll of 4,000 (as well as a reminder of who got us here and who will continue the carnage), here's a photo mosaic created by Nico Pitney over at the HuffPo (click through for a much larger canvas):