2222 and counting

Do you ever watch your odometer when it gets close to some milestone number? Do you ever watch it to try to see the exact moment when it rolls onto that number, to the point of endangering everyone on the road while you glue your eyes to your dashboard?

Oh. Um... well, me neither.

Anyway, I just noticed that 2,222 is a pretty palindromic number. That happens to be the number of dead American soldiers due to the Iraq war at this moment (as reported by icasualties.org).

Unfortunately, like a car odometer, it can't go any lower once it's hit that number. Or rather, maybe it can. You know, an unscrupulous person could set the odometer back in order to sell a used car. It's not unprecedented for the current administration to work a little creativity into figures they report, particularly about the war.