fasten your seat belts

Yasser Arafat has departed this world. At the same time, the US military is destroying the city of Fallujah, probably killing far more Iraqi civilians than combatants, leveling mosques, further inflaming the followers of Osama-think, and all to no avail in terms of quelling the rebellion. At this point, no major "insurgent" leaders have been captured or killed and are presumed to have been gone before the assault started. Little w. is stacking the powder kegs high and deep, and is going to have to deal with the explosion that he has initiated. The idea that because all of this is happening in Iraq, it won't happen here is insane. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be doing much flying for a while, and it might be a good time to not visit national monuments or architectural icons...