IF THIS UPSETS YOU, I'LL PAY YOUR SHARE OF THE COST, WHICH IS FIVE THOUSANDTHS OF A CENT

Tireless in its search for new outrages, the right-wing noise machine now seizes on this:

... Taxpayers will foot the bill to replace radical Islamic preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri's infamous hooks, The Post has learned.

And the cost -- while not quite an arm and a leg -- is expected to run up to $16,000 so the one-eyed, terror-loving thug can feed and clean himself in the slammer.

Al-Masri's metal hooks were removed from his forearm stumps Friday night after he was handed over by the Brits to face terror-related charges in Manhattan federal court....

Although al-Masri's lawyer demanded on Saturday that prison officials immediately return his signature hooks, sources said they're considered a security risk and there’s "no way" he’s getting them back.

But because depriving al-Masri of a "reasonable standard" of medical care in jail would violate his civil rights -- and provide grounds for an appeal -- he's expected to be outfitted with a pair of no-frills, cable-operated rubber hands....

So we're depriving this guy of prosthetics he's been using (and still wants to use, and presumably used while incarcerated in Britain), and we're giving him unfamiliar ones. That's clearly for security reasons:

A former Prisons official said that the 2000 attack on MCC guard Louis Pepe -- who was stabbed in the eye with a sharpened comb by Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, a former top aide to Osama bin Laden -- was undoubtedly a factor in the decision to take away al-Masri's infamous hooks.

But that's not mean enough for right-wing complainers. They complain about the $16,000 cost. But the population of the U.S. is 314,545,663 as I type this. The $16,000 cost comes to .0050867018313 of a cent per person.

Don't like kicking in? I'll pay your share. Hell, I'll pay double. (Got change for a penny?)

I'd also add that the only reason the extradition went through is that the European Court of Human Rights heard al-Masri's lawsuit and concluded that he would be treated humanely in the U.S. criminal justice system. If not forcing him to live with stumps is one of the conditions we had to meet, at a cost of less than a penny per citizen, I can live with that, even if you can't.