What Breed Is That?

A Chinese headmaster is in some deep trouble after a series of incidents led to his school burning to the ground. First the man secretly sold off about 1,000 trees that surrounded the school. The problem was, the trees did not actually belong to him at the time of the sale. The teachers at the school apparently noticed that there wasn't as much shade as there used to be and must have asked a few awkward questions. The wayward educator decided he needed to buy the teacher's silence, so he had two accomplices procure a couple of dogs to provide a nice meal for the teachers. That's when the trouble really started. One of the dogs burst into flames as it was being baked for dinner.

The headmaster, in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, sold off a 1,000-tree arboretum surrounding the school on the sly, the newspaper said.

"In order to get the teachers not to tell anyone what he had done, on the afternoon of May 16, headmaster Meng got friends to obtain two dogs, which they proceeded to kill on the school grounds," the report said.

"He then told the teachers they would have dog meat to eat that afternoon," it added.

But the plan went awry when the dog being baked burst into flames and set fire to the school's main office and then the classrooms.

I think we need a name for this new breed of highly flammable pooch. Combustible collie? Fireball retriever? Spitz(fire)? Suggestions welcome in the comments.

The Little Martyrs

"We consider them martyrs for Palestine and martyrs for the nation." Says the man who caused the deaths of two Iraeli Arab boys aged three and nine years. The same man who unleashed the war in the first place. The same man who orders missile hidden inside civilian homes. The same man who orders the rocket barrages that target civilians. The same man that causes roadblocks to be set up to keep Lebanese civilians in the line of fire.

The man responsible for multiple war crimes under the Geneva Conventions.

I'm sure your empty words delivered from your empty soul are of great comfort to all the people you have caused to die in this war you started, Hassan Nasrallah. All of your apologists in the West cannot change this one fact: You chose to start this war.

In a Thursday interview with Arabic-language news network Al-Jazeera, Nasrallah accepted responsibility for the Wednesday attack, while conceding that an apology to the family was not sufficient.

"To the family that was hit in Nazareth — on my behalf and my brothers', I apologize to this family," he said.

"Some events like that happen. At any event, those who were killed in Nazareth, we consider them martyrs for Palestine and martyrs for the nation. I pay my condolences to them."

As volleys of Hezbollah rockets have soared across the border for the last nine days, Israel has pounded Lebanon with artillery and airstrikes. Despite Israeli claims to the contrary, Nasrallah said the attacks have failed to faze Hezbollah politically or militarily.

Empty words from a butcher. Because the rockets do not care. Remember who started the war, folks. It was not Israel.

Ethiopian Troops In Somalia?

Although both the Ethiopian and Somali Interim government deny it, there are reports that Ethiopian troops have entered the provisional capitol of Baidoa. The Islamic militia that has been threatening the interim government is calling for a Jihad against the Ethiopians.

Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, in a radio broadcast, said Ethiopia deployed troops to the government's base in Baidoa, 150 miles northwest of Mogadishu, to bolster what he described as a puppet regime.

"I am calling on the Somali people to wage a holy war against Ethiopians in Baidoa," said Aweys, who the U.S. government says has ties to al-Qaida. "They came to protect a government which they set up to advance their interests."

Residents of Baidoa reported seeing hundreds of Ethiopian troops, in uniform and in marked armored vehicles, entering Baidoa on Thursday and taking up positions around transitional President Abdullahi Yusuf's compound. Ethiopian and Somali government officials have denied Ethiopian troops are in the country, though witnesses from five towns have reported seeing them.

"Abdullahi Yusuf is in the pocket of Ethiopia," Aweys said on the radio, heard across the country. "He's been a servant of Ethiopia for a long time."

Islamic militants had rallied people to condemn the presence of Ethiopians after Friday prayers.

Demonstrators in Mogadishu shouted anti-Ethiopian and anti-U.S. slogans as they marched in the capital, accompanied by dozens of Islamic militiamen and trucks mounted with heavy weapons.

"We are against Ethiopian troops invading our country," read some of the banners carried by mostly male demonstrators. "God is Great!" shouted the protesters.

Radical Islamic militia, however, later shot dead two people when a rare demonstration broke out against the rulers of Mogadishu. "We don't want Islamic movements!" shouted the protesters before they were dispersed by fatal gunfire, the Banabir radio station reported.

Residents of Baidoa appeared unfazed by the presence of Ethiopian troop. Tensions sparked by fears of attacks by Islamic militants eased Friday in the town.

The troops, wearing their national military uniforms, arrived in the government base in Baidoa, deploying near the Somali president's home, at the airport and on the outskirts of the town, residents said by telephone.

Ethiopia's move could give the internationally recognized Somali government its only chance of curbing the Islamic militia's increasing power. But Ethiopia's incursion could also be just the pretext the militiamen, who control the capital and most of the rest of southern Somalia and have been accused of terrorist links, need to build public support for a guerrilla war.

Ethiopia continued to deny its troops were in Somalia, despite reports from witnesses.

"There are no Ethiopian troops who have crossed the border into Somalia," Solomon Abebe, Ethiopian foreign ministry spokesman, told the AP. "How can they tell who is Somali and who is Ethiopian?"

Reliance on Ethiopia appears to make the government beholden to the country's traditional enemy and hurts its legitimacy. Anti-Ethiopia sentiment still runs high in much of this almost entirely Muslim country, which is why the government and Ethiopia, a mostly Christian nation, may want to keep the troop deployment quiet.

The Islamic militia appears to have begun pulling back from the capitol, though. Ethiopian troops intervened in Somalia in 1993 and 1996 and forced the Islamists back. It may well be happening again.

Cat Burglar

A cat burglar is terrorizing the residents of Pelham, New York. Striking in broad daylight, the burglar makes off with item after item and nobody ever seems to be able to catch him in the act. Although the items are not of high intrinsic value, the persistent thief is making many tasks more difficult by taking the protective equipment people need. The thing is that residents of the town know who the thief is and yet still can't keep their assets from disappearing. Gardening gloves are disappearing at an alarming rate. Who is the thief?

Willy, the cat burgling cat.

PELHAM, N.Y. - A pink-and-white gardening glove was missing Thursday morning from Jeannine Goche's front porch. But there was absolutely no mystery about who had taken it. Willy, the cat who loves gloves, had struck again.

"It has to be him," said Goche, an attorney. "I've heard about him."

As if the gardeners of Pelham don't have enough to worry about, with the rocky soil and the slugs and the big trees casting too much shade, a feline felon has been sneaking into their back yards and carrying off gardening gloves.

Goche's flower-patterned number may soon take its place on the clothesline that's strung across the front fence at Willy's home, which he shares with Jennifer and Dan Pifer, their 19-month-old son Hudson and a mutt named Peanut Chew.

Above the line is a sign that says, in words and pictures, "Our cat is a glove snatcher. Please take these if yours."

On Thursday morning, nine pairs of gardening gloves and five singles were strung up, nicely framed by the Pifers' flourishing tomato and basil plants. Willy, looking innocent, was playing with a beetle under the Subaru in the driveway and occasionally dashing after Hudson.

"This all started about the time people began working in their gardens, I guess March or April," Jennifer Pifer said. "Willy would just show up with a glove, or we'd see them on the front steps. I guess it's better than if he was bringing home dead birds."

A friend, Claudia Bonci, said she was in the Pifers' kitchen recently and had noticed a single gardening glove on the sidewalk.

"Jennifer was telling me all about how Willy was bringing home all these gloves, and there was a small pile of them outside the door, and then here comes the cat with a glove in its mouth, proud as could be, like he was giving me a gift."

Ah yes. The reporter of this story makes light of the whole situation and glosses over the obvious danger here. This is just a way for the cunning criminal cat to lull the town into a false sense of security. Wait until the wallets begin to disappear! Then we'll see who's laughing.

Pakistan Asks For Proof

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, in a televised address, asked India to provide any proof of Pakistani groups involvement in the Mumbai train bombings. He offered to cooperate fully with any investigation. The Indian government is saying that proof will be forthcoming.

MUMBAI: Asserting that Pakistan-based terrorists were involved in the July 11 bomb blasts here, the Maharashtra government on Friday said police would soon 'submit' evidence about this.

"Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has spoken about proving the involvement of Pakistan-based terrorists in the blast. Let me inform the House that our police will soon submit proof of the involvement of Pakistan-based terrorist organisations in the blasts," Deputy Chief Minister RR Patil told the state assembly.

In a televised address to the nation, Musharraf had last night asked the Indian government to provide proof about organisations involved in the attacks so that Pakistan could fully cooperate in the investigation into the blasts.

Patil, who holds the home portfolio, made his statement after Deputy Speaker Pramod Shende sought more details from him about the arrest of three men suspected of involvement in the July 11 blasts on commuter trains that killed 200 people.

Earlier in the day, Patil had made a statement in the House about the arrest of the three suspects, two of whom were nabbed in Bihar near the border with Nepal.

He had identified the arrested men as Kamal Ahmed Mohammad Vakil Ansari (32), Khalid R Shaikh (24) and Mumtaz Maqbul Ahmed (34), adding that the probe into the blasts is "progressing at a rapid pace".

This Is Interesting

Ha'aretz has an interesting item in it this morning. It claims that German and Russian intelligence agencies are attempting to win the release of the kidnapped Israeli soldiers.

German and Russian intelligence services are using contacts to Hamas and Hezbollah in a bid to win the freedom of three Israeli soldiers being held by militants, the Berlin Zeitun newspaper said Friday.

The German Federal Intelligence Agency (BND) - in tandem with Russian intelligence - is seeking to activate long-standing links to both Hamas and Hezbollah, unnamed officials told the newspaper.

If true, this is a very interesting development, indeed. Neither of these two have really been players in resolving the periodic outbreaks of violence between Israel and the terror groups as far as I know. More signs of a changing model? Not just in Washington, either.

Israel Calling Up More Reserves

Haaretz is reporting still more Israeli reserves are being called up. Intensified fighting in Lebanon and in Gaza are cited as the reasons.

The Israel Defense Forces will be calling up additional reserve battalions, sending thousands more soldiers to fight Hezbollah on the northern border and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, the army said Friday.

The IDF said the call-up would likely come later in the day.

The decision comes on the heels of a significant expansion of the ground operations in the north, as the IDF sent thousands of troops into southern Lebanon on Thursday. Three reserve battalions have already been called up.

The reservists sent to Gaza will free up soldiers doing their compulsory service to go to the north. The additional soldiers in the north will be deployed to villages in southern Lebanon.

Four IDF soldiers were killed in clashes with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on Thursday.

On Friday, Israel Air Force warplanes resumed strikes on Lebanon, pounding the country's main road link to Syria with missiles and setting passenger buses on fire, Lebanese police said.

Israel warned hundreds of thousands of people to flee the south "immediately," preparing for a likely ground invasion to set up a deep buffer zone in southern Lebanon.

Up in the mountains of central Lebanon on the Beirut-Damascus highway Friday, IAF warplanes fired four missiles on a bridge linking two steep mountain peaks. Part of the bridge collapsed. It has been hit several times since the fighting began.

The passenger buses were in the Bekaa Valley, about 15 kilometers from the Syrian border, on the road linking Beirut and the Syrian capital of Damascus. The strike set three buses on fire at Taanayel, but there were no casualties, police said.

Also Friday, heavy black smoke billowed from targeted areas as IAF planes renewed attacks on the ancient city of Baalbek, a major Hezbollah
stronghold in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. The jets fired missiles on residential areas in Baalbek and a large building at the entrance of the city, witnesses said. There was no immediate word on casualties.

It sounds as if Israel has a plan. Whether it is actually what they are stating publicly or not remains to be seen.

Changing The Model

It's always been the model up until now: Fighting breaks out involving Israel and (insert opponent here). The US jets in a few envoys. Shuttle diplomacy occurs for a while. US pressures some concessions from Israel. A shaky ceasefire is worked out. Israel obey the terms of the ceasefire, (insert opponent here) plays at meeting the terms while secretly readying for the next outbreak. The US envoys pat themselves on the back and fly home. And the clock starts ticking on the next round, which will produce the same results. In going on sixty years now, it hasn't really worked to bring a lasting peace.

So it turns out that the Bush administration, especially the President himself, does not want to just follow the same old model. Which brings criticism from those who have acted as envoys in the past, big surprise.

President Bush's unwillingness to pressure Israel to halt its military campaign in Lebanon is rooted in a view of the Middle East conflict that is sharply different from that of his predecessors.

When hostilities have broken out in the past, the usual U.S. response has been an immediate and public bout of diplomacy aimed at a cease-fire, in the hopes of ensuring that the crisis would not escalate. This week, however, even in the face of growing international demands, the White House has studiously avoided any hint of impatience with Israel. While making it plain it wants civilian casualties limited, the administration is also content to see the Israelis inflict the maximum damage possible on Hezbollah.

As the president's position is described by White House officials, Bush associates and outside Middle East experts, Bush believes that the status quo — the presence in a sovereign country of a militant group with missiles capable of hitting a U.S. ally — is unacceptable.

The U.S. position also reflects Bush's deepening belief that Israel is central to the broader campaign against terrorists and represents a shift away from a more traditional view that the United States plays an "honest broker's" role in the Middle East.

In the administration's view, the new conflict is not just a crisis to be managed. It is also an opportunity to seriously degrade a big threat in the region, just as Bush believes he is doing in Iraq. Israel's crippling of Hezbollah, officials also hope, would complete the work of building a functioning democracy in Lebanon and send a strong message to the Syrian and Iranian backers of Hezbollah.

"The president believes that unless you address the root causes of the violence that has afflicted the Middle East, you cannot forge a lasting peace," said White House counselor Dan Bartlett. "He mourns the loss of every life. Yet out of this tragic development, he believes a moment of clarity has arrived."

The thing is, you can see hints that Bush is correct in his assessment. Bashar Assad said the other day that he was quite surprised a ceasefire hadn't already been imposed. The miscalculation on the part of the terror puppetmasters is revealed by statements like that. They wanted the old model to work again  in their favor. Bush isn't playing, though. But critics of the President, of course, abound.

Many Mideast experts warn that there is a dangerous consequence to this worldview. They believe that Israel, and the United States by extension, is risking serious trouble if it continues with the punishing air strikes that are producing mounting casualties. The history of the Middle East is replete with examples of the limits of military power, they say, noting how the Israeli campaign in Lebanon in the early 1980s helped create the conditions for the rise of Hezbollah.

They warned that the military campaign is turning mainstream Lebanese public opinion against Israel rather than against Hezbollah, which instigated the violence. The attacks also make it more difficult for the Lebanese government to regain normalcy. And what seems now to be a political winner for the president — the House overwhelmingly approved a resolution yesterday backing Israel's position — could become a liability if the fighting expands to Syria or if the United States adds Lebanon to Iraq and Afghanistan as a country to which U.S. troops are deployed.

"There needs to be a signal that the Bush administration is prepared to do something," said Larry Garber, the executive director the New Israel Fund, which pushes for civil rights and justice in Israel. "Taking a complete hands-off, casual-observer position undermines our credibility. . . . There is a danger that we will be seen as simply doing Israel's bidding."

Robert Malley, who handled Middle East issues on the National Security Council staff for President Bill Clinton, voiced skepticism about whether the current course would pay off for either Israel or the United States. "It may not succeed with all the time in the world, and Hezbollah could emerge with its dignity intact and much of its political and military arsenal still available," said Malley, who monitors the region for the International Crisis Group. "What will you have gained?"

One could ask what was gained by following the old model? A few years of lower level violence at best? Was peace ever achieved? No, not really. The closest thing to any success has been the uneasy relations between Israel and Egypt. But that peace has not stopped the ability of Hamas to get arms and ammunition into Gaza, has it? The old model just does not work when one side is not serious about it.

It's about time we changed the model, don't you think?

Chicken Of The Jihad

Years of preaching hate, inciting violence, raising money for murder and incidentally sponging huge welfare benefits just doesn't appear to prepare a big, bad jihadi cleric for the real thing. When the bombs start falling it's time to try to flee Lebanon by sneaking onto a ship full of women and children. A Muslim Cleric who fled Britain and bought a pricey house in Beirut saying at the time, "When I left England I bought a one-way ticket out. I never want to see the place again," Now wants to flee back to England.

EXILED preacher of hate Omar Bakri has begged the Royal Navy to rescue him from war-torn Beirut.

The Muslim cleric who fled Britain last year, tried to board a ship full of women and children yesterday but was turned away.

He also wrote to the British embassy asking to be allowed back on “humanitarian grounds”.

In an email to officials, dole scrounger Bakri pleaded: “The current situation in Beirut left me without any choice but to appeal to you to grant me a visit visa to see my children for one month.”

But his bid to sneak on one of our ships was blocked at harbour gates by sharp-eyed officials.

Bakri, 46, left his family in Edmonton, North London, last August and went to Lebanon after a Sun campaign to kick him out.

Charles Clarke, then Home Secretary, banned him from returning here.

The mad mullah, who hailed terrorists as “magnificent” martyrs, bought a £150,000 bolthole in the exclusive Doha district of Beirut.

In March he boasted: “When I left England I bought a one-way ticket out. I never want to see the place again.”

But cowardly Bakri changed his tune as soon as bombs started dropping.

He contacted the British embassy asking to be allowed back to see the six children he deserted. Bakri said last night: “What concerns me is my safety. I’d be happy with a month’s visa but this morning they told me I couldn’t because I’m not a British citizen any more.”

Boo hoo. I feel for this guy. I really do. Disgust and contempt describes it adequately.

Boo hoo. I feel for this guy. I really do. Disgust and contempt describes it adequately.

UPDATE: This is classic. CNN quotes "Brave Sir Robin" Bakri as saying: "I know myself I am not welcome in the UK … but I have the right like everyone else to safety." This is after preaching murder for others.