You may or may not know about the Carlyle Group (here’s a link to an earlier article), an investment group that employs a bunch of retired politicians, including James A. Baker and the elder President Bush. The group specializes in buying out defense and aerospace contractors, and counts among its investors the bin Laden family. So as Osama drives up defense spending in the United States, the family business benefits financially. I obviously don’t think there’s a conspiracy of any kind here, I just find it perpetually interesting what a small, strange world we live in.