Thanks, Maria. So Burn Notice isn't very accurate. Who would have guessed?

My understanding is that a sea burial was the only way to both honor Muslim tradition and avoid creating a martyr's tomb.

Well, that makes sense. I won't believe it until I see leaked pics from some soldier's cell phone ;)

Oh, and best part? He tweeted specifically to his bosses that the 9/11 widow declined to be interviewed for tonight's news and he wouldn't press her. That from him, she'd get peace.

Just when I'm about to totally give up on humanity, someone does something decent. I was at my wit's end this weekend when a guy decided to leave the theatre to get coffee just when the show started. The other house manager asked him several times what show he was seeing, but he ignored her, so she told the stage manager to start the show. When he tried to enter and she explained that he had to wait for the late seating break (about 6 minutes), he started yelling her and finally said "fuck you, I'm going in" and just walked into the theatre in the middle of the opening scene. I couldn't believe it.

You're welcome, Tom. Sometimes I find it disturbing that I have multiple members of various U.S. Special Forces teams in my address book.

Vortex, I'm amazed at your restraint. I would have cut the inconsiderate little prick a thousand times over with a dull knife.

I'm surprised they buried Bin laden's body at sea, because without a corpse it's just going to lead to conspiracy theories that he's still alive.

The pictures of his dead body aren't going to mean as much since they shot him in the face, right above the left eye. So they blew most of his head off.

Again, I'm seeing the value in Erin's medievalist approach.

Interesting, one theory on why Bin Laden built the place so close to the Pakistani military academy is because that made it essentially drone proof. You can't be buzzing the equivalent of Pakistani's West Point with killer flying drones.

This is pretty amazing - local man accidentally liveblogs bin Laden's death. Just some guy using Twitter to complain about the annoying helicopters in his neighborhood!

Interesting article from The Times of India on Pakistani complicity: [link]

US analysts uniformly suggested that the Pakistani security establishment's claim of a role in the operation is clearly aimed at ducking charges of its military's possible role in hiding bin Laden. ''This is hugely embarrassing for Pakistan,'' was a common refrain on US TV channels throughout the night.

...

US officials have said for years that they believed bin Laden escaped to Pakistan after the American bombing campaign in Afghanistan. But Pakistani officials, including its former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, insisted that he was in Afghanistan, even as Afghan officials would angrily refute it and say he is in Pakistan. In the end, the Americans and Afghans were right on the money.

I'm kind of amazed that one of the two helicopters they used went down with mechanical failure. Did nobody have the mechanics give it a once over before they sent it on this mission?

"Uh, squad leader, we've got a situation here."
"Copy. What you got?"
"Uhm, we're out of oil."
"Come again?"

I'm wondering now if they postponed the attack until after the Royal Wedding. They certainly wouldn't want a gathering of a million people in the streets of London after assassinating Bin Laden.

Just some guy using Twitter to complain about the annoying helicopters in his neighborhood!

Gotta love the internet.

I'm kind of amazed that one of the two helicopters they used went down with mechanical failure.

I dunno. Helicopters are very complex and are sometimes known to fail even with the best preventative maintenance.

Remember the attempt to rescue the hostages in Iran back in '79 or so? Called off due to a helicopter's mechanical issues. (In the process of leaving Iran, a transport collided with a helicopter on the ground, killing some American servicemen.)