Arab media stress, when they list the "contributions of King Fahd" the expansion of the Mosque in Mecca which cost some $30 billion. That money could have fed so many people, built so many houses and hospitals. But the King had his priorities, intended not for piety but for purposes of political legitimacy and the requirements of glossy propaganda brochures. But don't worry. He also managed to siphon some $40 billion of the country's oil wealth to his private account. The Hijazi King of Jordan, `Abdullah, described King Fahd yesterday as "brilliant." Well, to King `Abdullah's "mind", even Mr./Ms. Potato head is brilliant. And Khalid Mish`al (the chairperson of the politburo of Hamas) has shed more tears on King Fahd than he has over Palestinian victims of Israeli gunfire. And Arab media (and even some US media) keep talking about the vacuum that he will leave, and that he will be missed, and that his wisdom (teeth?) will be needed. Come on. The guy has been in a vegetated state for TEN YEARS, and nobody has even noticed. Do you know that Saudi flags cannot--no matter what--be flown at half staff because they contain the Shahadah of Islam? Do you know that according to Wahhabiyyah public expressions of grief are strictly forbidden (so is female driving of cars)? A former US ambassador in Saudi Arabia, who knows the senior members of the royal family very well, told me that Prince Salman, who is very popular among the media and university elites, carries himself as if he is the king. When Prince's Salman's son, Sultan flew on one of the shuttle missions (in return for large amounts of money for NASA) he was asked about his most important moment in space. He said: "Completing [reading] the Qur'an in Space." We have to wait to see who will be designated as the second hair apparent (after the new Crown Prince, Sultan). When I think that some naive US journalists were under the impression (fed to them by Prince Bandar himself) that Bandar is the next King. I have better chances of becoming president of the US.