"But the Shooter will discover soon enough that when he leaves after sixteen years in the Navy, his body filled with scar tissue, arthritis, tendonitis, eye damage, and blown disks, here is what he gets from his employer and a grateful nation: Nothing. No pension, no health care, and no protection for himself or his family." —Things have not worked out so well for the Seal Team 6 assassin who took out Osama bin Laden, America's most wanted global terror mastermind Bond villain. Update: Someone should have told him about the VA hospital though.

The other day I ventured out into the sun-drenched city of Beirut, where I saw cafes and restaurants packed with young people spending money. At a stainless steel table, buff men ate olives. Nearby, two young women in gold shirts talked over a stack of books. One title: Elite Management Training. Down the block, a gleaming red Ferrari rolled by and a transvestite teetered on heels. Osama bin Laden had just been killed.

On a quiet side street, I ducked into a grocery and asked a woman in head scarf where to buy wine. With a hateful roll of her eyes, she clicked her tongue, seeming to say: I [...]

"Arbitrary killing is not a solution to political problems." —Omar bin Laden.

"President Obama will meet with the valiant Navy SEALs who took down Osama Bin Laden Friday – but it remains a secret whether the raid's daredevil dog will be in the room." [UPDATE: He did!]

"The internet has moved at a breathless pace since the world found out about Osama Bin Laden's death late last night, with experts from all fields being consulted to lend fresh perspective. Well, we think we've found a new area of specialty: pornstars! To show that Bin Laden's death has captured just about everyone's attention, we've rounded up some Twitter reactions from people who have sex for a living. Admittedly, out of the fifty or so accounts we scoped out, the pornstars below are the only ones who chose to address this momentous occasion on Twitter."

"Bears have scent detection that is far superior to bloodhounds! Trained bears with GPS and day/night cameras around their necks might be able to hunt down the scent of [Osama bin Laden], even in and through any caves and tunnels!!! Overnight, Parachute some bears into areas [bin Laden] might be. Attempt to train bears to take off parachutes after landing, or use parachutes that self-destruct after landing."

You just can't make some fucking people happy, you know? Now there is a new Osama bin Laden tape where he is all "Obama has thus walked in the footsteps of his predecessor. Let the American people prepare themselves to harvest the consequences of their leadership's actions." Well? It's not like I disagree that much, actually! But seriously, ObL could at least give the dude a few more months before he gets all Judge bin Judy. It's hard to come in and take over such a shitshow, we all have been there professionally.

Once upon a time there was a magazine. It was called Talk, and Tina Brown made it with her friend Harvey Weinstein. Tina must have had a magical crystal ball because, as we see in this month's installment, the prescience displayed in this turn-of-the-century synergy handbook is something to behold.

In October 2000, Tina Brown celebrated Talk's new office: "After nearly two years in small and excessively intimate 'temporary' quarters in midtown Manhattan, we've moved downtown into spacious permanent digs in the Chelsea district, designed to our needs and specifications by architect Ross Anderson."

Other new things celebrated in October 2000: Zooey Deschanel, "a straightforward and unbratty new [...]

There is a prominent grid square on our cultural map that I've learned not to see or talk about. I don’t look at the New York skyline, and I avoid the news for the three days around each anniversary of 9/11. My brother, Aaron Jacobs, was killed in the World Trade Center that day, along with thousands of others. In my daily interactions since then, I have had a terrific wife, world travels and cute kids at the ready to absorb the friendly need of others to situate me in a history. But while I no longer feel as I did in the first year—that I must be marked [...]

It's hard to keep track of bin Laden's wives, so we're in need of a womens' magazine to get with them all and ask them about their taste in shoes. Let's see!

Najwa Ghanem left him after 9/11, after giving birth to 11 of his 20 children; then came Khadijah Sharif, who was smart and older, and she dumped him in the 90s (yes, you read that timeline right—the marriages were willy-nilly); and then Khairiah Sabar, who may be dead; and Siham Sabar is also out of sight or missing; and there's Amal al-Sadah (or Amal Ahmed Abdullfattah) the fifth wife, who's Yemeni, and still just 27, and [...]

Here is some happy news for Ross Douthat: A majority of Americans surveyed believe Osama bin Laden is in hell.

"A spokeswoman for St. James’s Palace said there was no link between the U.S. attack on Osama bin Laden and the decision by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to postpone their honeymoon."

God, the news is bad. Bin Laden is calling for "drastic solutions." (More drastic?!) The Italian mafia has been sinking cargo ships full of radioactive waste in the Mediterranean. Paul Krugman should basically start ending his pieces on the administration's economic policy with "but I just saved a bunch of money on car insurance." But know hope: I think we may have found the answers to all these problems, and more: New Orleans rap kingpins Ronald and Bryan "Baby" Williams Williams, cofounders of Cash Money Records, have started an "environmentally friendly" energy company, Bronald Oil & Gas.

You know why we can't have pictures of dead Osama bin Laden? Because the government knows you'd just Photoshop cats and Xzibit and cartoon come-lines in there.

Want to see the pictures of dead Osama bin Laden? Run for Congress.

Should you still be in the market for some thoughts on the legacy of Osama bin Ladan, Awl pal Dana Vachon offers a few here.

"Despite fans reportedly chanting 'Osama, woah-woah, Osama, woah-waoh, he's hiding in Kabul, he loves the Arsenal', Bin Laden was not a faithful of the north London club."

In case you headed to work without seeing any news and wondered as to why there was an increased police presence at your subway station, Osama bin Laden, the terrorist mastermind who "was elevated to the realm of evil in the American imagination once reserved for dictators like Hitler and Stalin" in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States, was killed in Pakistan and buried at sea. An event like this raises all sorts of emotions, and any number of questions: Will this hasten our exit from Afghanistan? Did Pakistan's intelligence service tip us off to his whereabouts, and if so, why? (Did [...]

Al-Qaeda lead singer Osama bin Laden's latest mixtape just dropped, and it sounds like he's looking to broaden his audience. In the message, which I had to read about several times just to make sure it wasn't some kind of joke or parody, bin Laden blamed Western industrialized nations for hunger, desertification and floods across the globe, and called for "drastic solutions" to global warming, and "not solutions that partially reduce the effect of climate change."

He also wants to boycott American products and has a huge problem with dollarization.

"We should stop dealings with the dollar and get rid of it as soon as possible," he [...]