Mr Bean goes to heaven

These haunting photos were distributed by the Associated Press from Middle Eastern television stations. They show the CIA suicide bomber (left) as a young physician with a distinct resemblance to Rowan Atkinson's comic character, Mr Bean, and (right) robed and bearded and armed for jihad. Given that the underpants bomber was the son of a banker, the Fort Hood shooter a psychiatrist, and the British terrorists from a few years back all with medical connections, we seem to have a phenomenon by which middle-class Muslim men act out their frustrations by blowing themselves up, along with whatever infidels happen to be in the vicinity. (Dr al-Balaw and Major Hasan share another characteristic: they both have the hangdog look of men who were were bullied by their schoolmates when they were growing up.) What a waste! -- Dan Ford