Be scared! No, scareder!

In case you missed any of those reminders today of how much safer you are thanks to the unpleas- antness in Meso- potamia, here's a Fox cen- terpiece to remind you of how close the danger is.

Things must be getting out of hand the world over, huh? Let's turn to the story we can find if we can bring ourselves to click on the photo:

The Vatican said Thursday that Usama bin Laden's accusation that Pope Benedict XVI had played a role in a worldwide campaign against Islam is "baseless," as the CIA said it was "confident" that the voice on the tape is in fact the terror leader's.

So this one's actually about the pope "blasting" (Fox's term) Bin Laden for the latter's comments on Wednesday. Yoo hoo! Where are you, Muslim rage?

It takes a bit of digging, because Fox apparently grabbed a pretty early version of this AP story; it doesn't even mention the recent republication of the cartoons. But several writethrus later, AP manages to work in this graf:

There have been renewed protests in the last month, though not as large or widespread. A few dozen university students waved banners and chanted slogans against Denmark on Thursday in Islamabad. The students said they had not seen the bin Laden message.

A few dozen, huh? Who didn't get the message in the first place? Threat-to-the-Republic-wise, it sounds like it falls somewhere between a pep rally and a Fred Phelps sermon.

Now, in all fairness, the photo Fox used was from an event today in Karachi (though the AP cutline notes that the guest of honor is a "representation" of the Danish flag). If the rally at which the alleged flag was torched was a big enough deal to warrant mention in any AP text coverage, I haven't been able to find it. At a quick glance, though, it wasn't on the scale of last week's demonstrations in Islamabad by scarily veiled women calling for ... erm, the restoration of the Supreme Court chief justice who was sacked by Musharraf last year. (Islam: Aflame for the separation of executive and judicial authority!)

So, to recap: Second-day story about a Bin Laden tape. Photo of a rally too dull to merit a reporter's attention. Couple dozen undergraduates who seem to have able to wipe the froth from 'round their lips long enough to talk about their news-watching habits. A + B + C = a billion people marching toward the ill-defended castle of Western Civ (pausing only at the New York Times building for some Gatorade and more torches).

Scared yet? Well, keep working on it. The election's just around the corner.