Several readers emailed this story to me, and by now I’m probably the last blogger in the Western Hemisphere to pick it up, but it does need to be here: ‘Allah turned girl into dog’.

TAIBEH – Harsh punishment? A Muslim girl from Taibeh was punished by Allah and turned into a dog, according to rumors that have been circulating in the Arab-Israeli town this week, Arab-language newspaper Panorama reported.

 According to the rumors, the harsh punishment was meted out after the girl, upset by her mother’s request to bring her the Quran as she was watching television, threw the holy Muslim book at the mother with disdain.

 The newspaper decided to look into the rumors and sent a reporter to check where they originated. As it turned out, the source was a photocopy of a news story posted in Taibeh’s largest mosque. According to that report, taken from the Internet, the unusual story happened in a Muslim country in Asia.