<This popped up on The Times. The technologies discussed make little or no sense to me in this context, but the incongruities seem to go right over the reporter's head.

I find it hard to believe that a Nagasaki-type plutonium implosion bomb ("Fat Man") would be a preferred design over the much simpler gun-type Hiroshima bomb ("Little Boy.") The bit about external combustion propulsion is a complete non-sequitor. What's the point? Such propulsion is still experimental, even here. The other technologies mentioned are also off-the-wall.

Apparently, there is a cadre of high-tech geeks running bin Laden's technical programs instead of down-to-earth engineers. While they're chasing idealized superweapons, their time will run out on them.