Thomas Hardy has never been anyone's idea of a lightly comic author, but if I recall correctly there's at least one joke in one of his protracted chronicles of rustic guilt and doom.

"Why do black sheep eat less than white sheep?" asks one character. "Because there been't as many of 'em."

This flawless and sophisticated piece of statistical analysis came to mind on reading the latest rhetorical broadside in the battle over the USAF's tanker contract, a report commissioned by Boeing which concludes that the rival Northrop Grumman/Airbus KC-30 will burn $14.6 billion more in fuel than a 767 fleet - versus $6.6 billion for the entire Air Force in 2006.

Read the report and a startling truth emerges. More sheep eat more grass and bigger airplanes burn more gas! It would be nice if it was the other way around, since one could then eliminate the need for fuel completely by building infinitely large aircraft, but it's not.

Analysts Conklin & de Decker further earn their fee (which will presumably be billed to the taxpayer as overhead) by using a convoluted analysis that fails to take into account the fact that the KC-30 hauls more fuel and thereby should need to fly fewer sorties than the KC-767.

The really big money numbers, however, come from simply straight-line-inflating fuel costs through the projected 40-year lifetime of the tankers. In 2047, fuel will cost $15.77 per gallon.

If you're old enough, cast your mind back to 1967. The Summer of Love. Scott McKenzie ubiquitous on the radio. Did anyone think then about fuel costs today? Would a straight-line projection then have been more accurate than casting dice or observing the flight of the sacred temple owls? Of course not, which is why Boeing's projection of fuel costs is utterly meaningless.

What is scary, though, is that someone in Boeing thinks that someone in Congress - which after all is where the decision needs to be approved - is dumb enough to be convinced by it.