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The sign is beginning to fade slightly after several seasons of Wisconsin weather, but the message is still quite clear and unmistakable in its meaning: “Stop the war now!”

As I drove past the sign near Black River Falls the other night as a summer day came to end under a golden-hued horizon, I wondered how much our country is taking its eye off the ball.

That will happen with $4 gas that keeps rising, retirement accounts rapidly collapsing with a bear stock market, uncertainty about an economy that seems to be weakening even more and — of course, in many people’s minds, the most important topic of all — whether Brett Favre will play for the Green Bay Packers this fall.

No matter how you feel about the war, it marches on. It’s easy to get trapped into our troubles at the moment, but depending on how fast you read, by the time you’re done reading this column we will have spent nearly another half-million on the war in Iraq. The overall daily cost of the war is estimated at $200 million a day, which is $128,889 a minute.

Think about it, but don’t take too long. Go ahead, get that cup of coffee. What’s another few million? Where will it end? One trillion? Two trillion?

Let’s not let our troubles at home deflect from the 4,119 (as of Tuesday morning) American service men and women who’ve paid for this war with their lives. Or the 29,000 who have been wounded.

While financial analysts arguing over bailing out Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac to avert a worsening home mortgage market, people like Sgt. Alex R. Jimenez, 25, of Lawrence, Mass., and Pfc. Byron J. Fouty, 19, of Waterford, Mich., are coming home in body bags. The bodies of those two soldiers were identified July 10 after their remains were found more than a year after a gun battle that took five other American lives south of Baghdad.

A few weeks ago I asked the rhetorical question about the value of pouring money into a seemingly endless war when we’ve got bridges falling down at home. While we’re fixated at the moment about our own economic plight, who is considering the long-term cost of this war we’re financing on credit that at some point must be paid for? And let’s not forget about finding a way to pay for that freight train coming at us in the tunnel called Social Security.

War: $2 trillion. Social Security: $10 trillion. Plan to pay for them: None.

That’s not precious. That’s atrocious.

If you bleed green and gold, what are your thoughts on the whole Brett Favre saga? The Packers could start their own reality show/soap opera called “As the Tundra Turns” or “Days of our Off Seasons” or “All My Poorly Behaving Childlike Quarterbacks.”

Should the Packers welcome Favre back? Should they tell him to ride the pine behind Aaron Rodgers? Should they tell him to go make another blue jeans commercial? Should they evoke the reverse situation of John Hadl and trade him to another team for a ridiculous amount of draft choices? (Of course Favre will probably be a better quarterback when he’s 50 than Hadl was with the Packers ...)

Here’s the bottom line as I see it: The Packers owe it to their fans to put the best players onto the field that give them their best shot at winning. Favre told the team he was done — in both language and tears — so the team moved on. If he wants to come back, welcome him back, but tell him he has to do like any other player needs to do every year in training camp — earn the job.

Even at 38, Favre is probably still a better quarterback than Rodgers. If so, let his play prove it. The Packers don’t owe Favre the starting quarterback spot, just like they don’t owe Rodgers a shot.

It’s called competition and let the best man win. Then the fans will win.

Chris Hardie is publisher of the River Valley Newspaper Group’s weekly and shopper division.