No, wait, it’s the umpteenth time that Abbas or Hamas has said Shalit will be released. Either way, I’m not buying it.

Abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit will be released soon, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said in a television interview on Friday.

“We are undertaking efforts to free Shalit and these efforts will soon come to fruition,” Abbas told France 24 television of Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was seized last June in a cross-border raid from Gaza into southern Israel. “We are optimistic.”

“He will be freed soon,” Abbas said in comments due to be broadcast Friday evening.

Uh-huh. And the Easter Bunny will be delivering chocolate-covered matzohs to Ehud Olmert this Sunday, too.

Seriously.

This picture could be used as evidence against me in a U.K. court.

Why? Because they’ve enacted a pet care law that forbids owners from letting their dogs and cats get fat.

Owners of fat dogs or cats could face prosecution under the Animal Welfare Act which comes into force tomorrow.

The Act, the biggest overhaul of animal welfare legislation for a century, creates a new offence of failing in the duty of care towards a captive animal.

Pet owners can for the first time be guilty of an offence before an act of cruelty has been committed, for example by overfeeding their pet.

[...] Maximum penalties for breach of the new rules include a ban on owning animals, fines of up to £20,000 or up to 51 weeks in prison. The Act raises from 12 to 16 the minimum age for buying a pet and bans pets as prizes for under-16s.

And here are helpful hints to tell if your dog is fat. It doesn’t say how to tell if your cat is fat. I’m thinking, though, that Tig is fat. Just a hunch I have, mind you.

The Pet Health Council says:
Run your hands along the dog’s sides to see if you can feel its ribs when you apply gentle pressure. Then check from above whether you can see a waist - a thinning from where the ribs end to where the hips begin. Finally, run your hand gently over its back to check if you can feel hip bones. If your pet has all of the above it probably will not be obese.

Tig and ribs? Well, I suspect if I brought beef ribs into the house, he’d love to munch on them. But no, you can’t feel his ribs. However, he just purred while I was checking for them. So he’s a fan of this method.

It’s good to know that the U.K. doesn’t have proper rules of engagement or cover for her sailors and Marines, but if there’s a fat dog owner in London, by God, that owner is going to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law! Because the U.K. has her priorities straight.

Hat tip: chsw

Let’s check out the details of what happened to the British sailors and Marines, shall we?

Apr 6, 2007 — CHIVENOR (Reuters) - The 15 British sailors and marines seized by Iran in the Gulf last month said on Friday they were blindfolded, bound, kept in isolation and warned that they faced up to seven years in jail.

[...] “We were interrogated most nights and given two options. If we admitted that we had strayed, we would be back on a plane to the UK pretty soon. If we didn’t, we faced up to seven years in prison,” they revealed.

They heard weapons being cocked behind them and feared the worst.

The sole woman among the group, Faye Turney, was kept isolated for several days and told by her captors that the others had been freed and gone home.

[...] After their arrest in the Gulf, the sailors and marines were taken to a prison in Tehran. “We were blindfolded, our hands were bound, we were forced up against a wall,” they said in their statement.

They were “stripped and dressed in pajamas … we were kept in stone cells, approximately 8 feet by six, sleeping on piles of blankets. All of us were kept in isolation.”

Gee. That doesn’t match the letters that were supposedly written by Faye Turney, or the claims of the British sailors on Iranian TV. I’m shocked, shocked I say, to discover that the Brits were coerced. Gee. No wonder they didn’t let the Red Cross or any representative of the U.K. visit them. Because that wouldn’t have fit the Iranian puppet theatre, using live people in fear of their lives, instead of puppets.

I fully expect to hear from Human Rights Watch over this. Well, no, not really.

Still think you ought to apologize to Iran, Brits?

Yes, the “militants” of Hamas and Fatah are still murdering each other without regard to anyone getting caught in the crossfire.

Apr 6, 2007 — GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas and Fatah militants clashed in the Gaza Strip on Friday and at least two militants and a young boy were injured, Palestinian security sources and local residents said.

Tensions are running high in Gaza despite the formation of a unity government on March 17 between the ruling Islamist Hamas movement and President Mahmoud Abbas’s secular Fatah faction.

Don’t you love that? “Tensions are running high” is how they describe the utter lawlessness of the Gaza Strip.

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said his cabinet would hold a special meeting on Saturday to discuss a new security plan aimed at stemming factional fighting and growing lawlessness within 100 days.

Haniyeh offered no details about the plan, drawn up by Interior Minister Hani al-Qawasmi.

I think it’s called “The Last Man Standing” maneuver. But check this out:

Haniyeh accused the United States of fuelling the tensions by refusing to lift economic sanctions that prevent local, regional and international banks from transferring funds directly to the government.

It’s our fault. You see, they’re getting $200 million more in aid this year than they did last year, but it’s our fault that they’re murdering each other. It’s not like it’s, oh, clan wars fueling the tension. Twenty-five Palestinians were killed by, gee, Palestinians last month.

Palestinian Authority officials on Thursday expressed fear that the United Nations may formally declare the Gaza Strip a dangerous zone - a move that would result in the evacuation of the remaining foreign nationals from the area and drastically hamper international humanitarian aid to the Palestinians.

PA security sources told The Jerusalem Post that 25 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip last month in internal fighting. Another four were killed in the West Bank, the sources added.

“We’re moving very quickly toward such a scenario,” said Yasser Abed Rabbo, member of the PLO executive committee and a close aide to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. “The Gaza Strip is full of thugs and gangsters who are responsible for the ongoing anarchy. Soon the Gaza Strip may be declared a dangerous zone, which means that all international organizations would have to leave.”

Yeah. The Gaza Strip is full of thugs and gangsters. Who knew this was going to happen? Well, besides everyone with half a brain.

Here, however, is the killer quote:

“The Gaza Strip has become worse than Somalia,” a prominent human rights activist in Gaza City told the Post. “Thousands of gunmen continue to roam the streets and the new government hasn’t done anything to restore law and order. Every day you hear horror stories about people who are killed and wounded. The situation is really intolerable.”

That’s from an aid worker, not from an Israeli. Yes, Gaza is now a craphole. The Palestinians have shown what they will do if given their chance at statehood.

Sure. Let’s give ‘em a state.