"Goaty Old Fiend Loses...Bowel Control"

Gee, the news lately has been great--GWB re-elected, Arafat dead, Scott Peterson convicted of Murder One, what more can a watersoaked cadaver dog ask for? Success in Fallujah, for one. Minimal casualties on our side, maximum on theirs.
We avoided a nuclear showdown with Russia during the Reagan years by showing the USSR that our guns were bigger than her guns. I think the same thing has to happen today. Bin Laden has asked for and received permission from his spiritual leaders for a possible nuclear strike against America, according to Drudge:

Osama bin Laden now has religious approval to use a nuclear device against Americans, says the former head of the CIA unit charged with tracking down the Saudi terrorist. The former agent, Michael Scheuer, speaks to Steve Kroft in his first television interview without disguise to be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday, Nov. 14 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

Scheuer was until recently known as the "anonymous" author of two books critical of the West's response to bin Laden and al Qaeda, the most recent of which is titled Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror. No one in the West knows more about the Qaeda leader than Scheuer, who has tracked him since the mid-1980s. The CIA allowed him to write the books provided he remain anonymous, but now is allowing him to reveal himself for the first time on Sunday's broadcast; he formally leaves the Agency today (12).

Even if bin Laden had a nuclear weapon, he probably wouldn't have used it for a lack of proper religious authority - authority he has now. "[Bin Laden] secured from a Saudi sheik...a rather long treatise on the possibility of using nuclear weapons against the Americans," says Scheuer. "[The treatise] found that he was perfectly within his rights to use them. Muslims argue that the United States is responsible for millions of dead Muslims around the world, so reciprocity would mean you could kill millions of Americans," Scheuer tells Kroft.

What are we to make of this? We must be ever watching, ever praying. On a lighter note, James Lileks weighs in:

Our paper had this headline: “Enduring Symbol of Palestine Dies.” Personally, I’m old school. I’d go with something, oh, factual, like “ARAFAT DEAD.” Hard to argue. Hard to find bias. I don’t know what would be satisfying, really. “Goaty Old Fiend Expires, Loses Power, Fortune, Bowel Control; Fills Room with Odor of Offal and Urine” would put people off their breakfast, I suppose. I am content to know he is not in Hell. Nope. Arafat did not go to Hell. He boards the ferry, yes; he makes it halfway across the River Styx, yes. Then the ferry blows up. Ten times a day for eternity. For a start.