Is Bin Laden still alive?

Transterrestrial Musings blog speculates that Bin Laden has been dead for years. He figures the reason we haven't seen a Bin Laden video for a long time, just audios, is that Bin Laden is actually pushing up daises and is thus unavailable for filming. Audio tapes are easier to fake than video so we just get audio. The piece ends wondering why our "intellegence" agencies won't call OBL dead.
Another real good question is why CIA issues a press release authenticating every OBL tape. Smarter, and of more benefit to the United States, would be to say nothing. As it is, the United States government, via CIA, confirms OBL is alive each time they authenticate one of his tapes. Let OBL's people do the selling of OBL's tapes as real, as opposed to fake.