That’s what Bush wants slipped into his checking account, to run his wars — not including the one he wants to start with Iran — through fiscal 2009. Now I could break that down by the population of the US or the world, or tell you that’s roughly $2,143,000 for every solider presently serving in Iraq. But I won’t. Let’s take a more astronomical approach, shall we? I found this on Google Answers:

Number of visible stars, visible with the unaided eye

Everyone's eyes differ, but a figure of around 6000 visible stars is
often quoted (with around half visible from any point on earth). At
sea level in a rural area you might see around 2000, and in an urban
area you might be lucky to see 20.

You can't count the stars directly. Due to the rotation of the earth,
more keep appearing on one side and disappearing from the other. As
atmospheric conditions change, some stars become visible and some
become invisible. Instead, people look through a tube, count the stars
in that field of view, and scale that figure up to obtain an estimate
for the total.

Let’s take a liberal perspective, and say that you’re lying in your sleeping bag on a mountain top in the high Sierras in mid-summer (low humidity), late at night when the moon is not up. I’ve been there, it’s amazing. So maybe you can see 3000 stars. The Shrub wants $10,000,000 – Ten Million Dollars – for every star you can see. Picture it.

So Bush wants more than all the stars of the heavens we can see, to a factor of ten million. Shall we give it to him? Yes? For what?

To save us from the evil communists who want to smother our American way of life? No, that’s not it.

WMD? Nope.

To get our oil out from under their sand? Maybe. It’s the most plausible reason I’ve seen posited to date. But that’s some pretty expensive crude, Dude, especially just for the oil rights, not the oil itself.

To stop Saddam? Ha ha ha.

To find Bin Laden? That’s not even funny.

To fight them over there, so we don’t have to fight them over here? That’s sick. Twisted and warped and foul and sick. That’s evil, boys and girls. Pardon us y’all, but we’uns was hopin’ might we bury – I mean borrow – your country … since we’re over here over anyway, pulling down statues of your megalomaniac. You see, we need a place to throw a rather messy hoedown, and well, we like to keep the carpets clean back home. And our dog bites. So no no, it’s not at all convenient. Can’t possibly have a good Texas BBQ back home just now. It has to be here, because we’re invitin’ some fellas that tend to get sloppy with their ribs and sauce. But we promise to rebuild — er, clean up — after ourselves.

It’s not just that we can’t afford another half a trillion bucks. And you know that’s the least it would be; this is just the estimate. It’s that we can’t afford another 3000 lives. We can’t afford to stagger on as a country torn asunder by protracted and untreated mental illness and unremitting grief and stress. We need to rebuild what’s been damaged here, of the fabric of what passes for our civilization. We need to build a place for ourselves in the world’s community and economy. And, maybe on Saturday mornings when time permits and the sun is out, make some attempt to teach our children not to repeat these unconscionable and stupid mistakes.