Yes, that was what a lead headline at Raw Story read as I went to bed last night.

But this morning, they've dropped the "Beirut burns" portion, which severs the classical allusion to Nero.

I liked last night's version better, and because I liked it so much, I fiddled around and saved a screen shot (while Beirut burned of course):

As to the connection -- the actual tie in -- between pigs and Beirut, I found myself disappointed, because the headline in the linked piece reads

Bush defuses tension at German news conference with gentle jibes

STRALSUND, Germany - With the world's most perplexing problems weighing on him, President Bush has sought comic relief in a certain pig.

But my classical appetite was whetted, so I read on in search of more details about the latest victim of Bush's genocidal wrath:

This is the wild game boar that German chef Olaf Micheel bagged for Bush and served Thursday evening at a barbecue in Trinwillershagen, a tiny town on the Baltic Sea where the boar chef also serves as second deputy mayor.

"I understand I may have the honor of slicing the pig," Bush said at a news conference earlier in the day punctuated with questions about spreading violence in the Middle East and an intensifying standoff with Iran over nuclear power.

The president's host, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, started a serious ball rolling at this news conference in the 13th century town hall on the cobblestone square of Stralsund. But Bush seemed more focused on "the feast" promised later.

"Thanks for having me," Bush told the chancellor. "I'm looking forward to that pig tonight."

If this 13th century setting and formal news conference seem an odd stage for presidential banter, the 21st century problems that Bush confronts often prompt him to attempt to defuse the tension in the room with a dose of humor.

Wurst of all, the president repeatedly and with apparent premeditation talked about the pig (a boar, no less) -- and even threatened to bring up the subject the next day!

And when an American reporter asked Bush whether he is concerned about the Israeli bombing of the Beirut airport and about Iran's failure to respond to an offer for negotiations that the U.S. and European allies have made, Bush replied with more boar jokes before delving into the substance of the questions.

"I thought you were going to ask about the pig," said the president, promising a full report from the barbecue. "I'll tell you about the pig tomorrow."

Why, in terms of monumental scale, it even approaches the evil of Condoleeza Rice's depraved shopping spree, in which she actually bought shoes while poor people in New Orleans were eaten by alligators. (In fairness to Condi, I don't know whether the shoes were made from alligators. Such a factoid, if true, might possibly mitigate the horror.)

The serious side of me might wonders what Bush was supposed to do. So I suppose I should ask some serious questions. Am I missing something here about the connection between pigs and Beirut? Is there some sort of inside joke which known only to Raw Story and its readers, or is there really a connection?

I had to know, and fortunately, this piece at Aljazeera provided a clue:

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida's leader in Iraq, has said in an audio tape put on the internet that rockets had been fired at Israel from Lebanon last month "on the instructions" of Osama bin Laden.

"The rocket firing at the ancestors of monkeys and pigs from the south of Lebanon was only the start of a blessed in-depth strike against the Zionist enemy... All that was on the instructions of the shaikh of the mujahidin, Osama bin laden, may God preserve him," said the voice attributed to al-Zarqawi.

Hmmm. . .

Maybe more context is needed. It just so happens that last month, shortly after the Bush administration killed the guy who claimed his outfit fired rockets at the pig ancestors, I was walking down the street in Chinatown. Friday being pig delivery day in Chinatown, I took this picture and posted it in honor of Zarqawi (would be pig ancestor slaughterer):

It seemed like poetic justice at the time. I know, I know, Philadelphia is not Beirut, and Zarqawi never fired rockets from here.

But Philadelphia is often described as a war zone, because a lot guns run around and shoot people all by themselves.

It might be a stretch, but if Bush ate pork in Chinatown during the gun violence epidemic, wouldn't that be Nero-like too?

Of course, as Bush crimes go, nothing could top reading to children about a goat while the Towers fell. Said Osama bin Laden:

It never occurred to us that the commander in chief of the American forces would leave 50,000 citizens in the two towers to face those horrors alone at a time when they most needed him because he thought listening to a child discussing her goat and its ramming was more important than the planes and their ramming of the skyscrapers. This gave us three times the time needed to carry out the operations, thanks be to God.

(I'm pretty sure Bush has a dog too, and maybe some cows and chickens on his ranch, but I don't have time to explore every damning connection in a single blog post.)