To, uh, cleanse the palate, an oldie but goodie via Jonah Goldberg. Odds that this is a prank played on the credulous host by some viewer, possibly the MEMRI guys themselves, who simply couldn’t resist: 40 percent. Odds that it’s a legit query, proof that the mujahedeen’s willingness to sacrifice for jihad has taken on painful new dimensions: 40 percent. Odds that the guy posing the question is the world’s dumbest would-be terrorist, whose “recruiter” is really, really eager to start “training” him: 20 percent.

It’s hard not to laugh, but don’t laugh too hard. Terrorists have tried this before. Four years ago, a member of Al Qaeda attempted to kill a Saudi minister with a rectal bomb. It didn’t work, although the minister was lightly injured. Late last year, the Taliban sent a jihadi with a bomb implanted in his rectum to meet Afghanistan’s intelligence chief. The victim survived in that case too, but he was badly wounded; according to some reports, he was still in such bad shape as of this summer that he had to be flown to the U.S. for more treatment. As bombs get more efficient, the size of the blast capable of being generated by a rectal bomb becomes bigger and more lethal. And no, as of last check, TSA’s backscatter body-screening machines probably can’t detect this sort of weapon.