In Other News…

"The Philippines ordered a nationwide manhunt on Monday," The New Zealand Herald reports, "after one of the region's top Islamic militants escaped from a high-security prison in Manila, apparently with the connivance of his guards."

A friend who's visited this very prison -- no, not as an inmate -- tells me that it is indeed a heavily guarded facility. Given that, and given some past examples of collaborators making mischief within the Philippine government, he thinks more insiders were in on this jailbreak than just a couple of terror-symp prison guards. "To get any kind of prisoner out of any jail compound," he writes, "especially one the size of the University of Michigan central campus with several perimeters, takes very high level collaboration….This is like Timothy McVeigh escaping from Walla Walla."

He adds that the getaway happened just as Australian PM John Howard promised money to help the Philippines fight its local terrorists, and suggests -- among other speculations -- that it was timed to deliver the maximum embarrassment to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Developing…