This is a good one. The Committee To Protect Journalists released their yearly study and came to this shocking conclusion: The increase in journalist's deaths in the line of duty last year is because of the war in Iraq.

Wow. I'm astonished. I would never have guessed. I mean, a war increased the number of deaths? Hard to believe.

But wait. There's more. They came to this conclusion after hours of grueling research in which they compared the cause of this year's 36 deaths to last years 19 deaths. Yes, they had to indvidually list this year's 36 causes of death, then painstakingly compare them to last year's 19 causes of death, and somehow, someway, working night and day, find that one elusive factor that had caused 17 additional deaths.

I'm sure we'll never have the full inside story but I'll bet one night, very late, probably as late as 135am or even 155am, a last, lone dedicated researcher peered with blurry eyes at the two lists. There had to be an answer, dammit, there had to be. His colleagues may have given up, but he wasn't going to go to bed until he had figured it out. He looked at the 2002 list again: Cause of Death: Rwanda, Pakistan, Lesotho, South Africa...the list went on and on a full 19 items. And now 2003: Rwanda, Iraq, Pakistan, Iraq, Iraq, Lesotho, Iraq, Iraq....a mind numbing 36 items in all.

He just couldn't see it, just couldn't identify the subtle difference between the two lists that had so far evaded detection.

He put his head in his hands, and looked down at his half-eaten dinner. "Hey," he said to himself "that potato chip looks just like George Bush!"

And the rest is history.