And she is great.

This week’s podcast: I scored an exclusive interview with Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s number two. You have to hear it to believe it. I asked him to tell me why Muslims are so batshit crazy about Jews. I believe the answer was “Zionist Death Rays.”

Lair Simon is back, and better than ever. The rest did him good.

It’s a full house, with Damian Penny chiming in on Loose Change (Oh, the stupidity!).

The feature interview: Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Cucullu, former US Special Forces Green Beret, discussing Guantanamo and other current military issues (such as the nuke that will go off in the U.S. if we lose the war in Iraq).

My interview with Zawahiri carries a spit-monitor warning. Don’t say I didn’t tell you.

UPDATE: I went back and listened to the last few weeks of SNN, and I have to tell you, we are smokin’. It is really, really good. If you’re not listening, you are missing out on an excellent source of analysis, humor, and a wry look at the world and the blogs. I am not saying this because I’m a contributor. I’m saying this because we have hit our stride. Lair’s return made this week’s episode simply perfect.

The news media, Arab and Muslim states, and morons like to pretend that the palestinians’ Mecca agreement will have an effect on the Israeli peace process. That is to say, they pretend that it is a step forward in the peace process. It is not. It is only a step forward in stopping the war between Fatah and Hamas, which is in the interests of all of the palestinians’ supporters. If civil war breaks out, they can’t pretend that they want peace with Israel—even as they launch kassams on a near-daily basis from Gaza into Israel.

One of the groups of morons is the Reuters news service. They think that by burying this extremely pertinent quote after the 3-5 paragraph part that makes it into most newspapers’ World News pages, it won’t get out as much:

“Abu Mazen (Abbas) specified (to Rice) that his paramount, cardinal interest is to end the Palestinian inner-fighting, to end the chaos and lawlessness,” Saeb Erekat, a senior Abbas aide.

You see? The “paramount, cardinal interest” of the palestinians is not the two-state solution. It is not peace with Israel. It is peace with each other, so that they can continue the war against the Jewish State that was launched the instant Israel declared her independence. When palestinians are murdering each other in civil war, they don’t shine as brightly with that sheen of victimhood. The world realizes that they have money enough for weapons to kill each other, and yet beg for more money for food. Very bad PR. That’s why the Saudis stepped in, and quickly—and used their cash as a carrot to stop the fighting.

The secondary interest, of course, is in restoring the funds that fuel the palestinian thugocracy and made Yasser Arafat a billionaire:

Palestinians had also hoped the power-sharing pact, which contained a vague promise to “respect” previous peace deals, could persuade Western donors to restore direct aid cut off to the Palestinian Authority after Hamas won election a year ago.

At the start of her talks with Abbas, Rice said she looked forward to hearing more from him on the unity arrangement. Abbas said he and Rice would discuss the Mecca agreement and explore “the horizon for the peace process” at Monday’s talks.

You see: Lip service to “the peace process.” If the palestinians truly wanted peace, there would be no kassams falling on Sderot. And yet, Sderot still experiences rocket attacks.

Senior Palestinian officials said Abbas replied angrily to a U.S. official who warned him on Saturday that Washington would have no contact with unity government ministers, including Fatah members, if the Quartet’s terms were not met.

“President Abbas … shouted (at the official), saying: ‘You are placing pressure on me. I have internal pressure — the pressure is unbearable. The only alternative to this agreement is civil war’,” one Palestinian official said.

And thus we see the real motivation behind the Mecca agreements: Stopping the red-on-red fighting. The Mecca agreement, my friends, had nothing—nothing—to do with moving the peace process forward. Anyone who tells you so is either lying, or an idiot.

Here’s another interesting piece of information for you:

Saudi Arabia rewarded Hamas and Fatah for coming to agreement over the formation of a unity government with a pledge to provide an initial aid disbursement of US$1 billion.

“The key issue here is that the Saudis are the sponsors of this agreement and having invested their political prestige in this agreement are now going to fund it to ensure that it succeeds,” Rabbani said.

“If the Saudis begin sending hundreds of millions of dollars to the PA then you could make the argument that the Quartet sanctions are becoming increasingly irrelevant,” he opined.

Steinberg noted that the agreement also provided a bulwark against the extension of Iranian influence in the region.

The Mecca accord constituted a major boost for Hamas, which has long sought acceptance from Arab states as a legitimate player in Palestinian political life.

“I think that for people like Ismail Haniyeh and Khalid Meshaal there could be no clearer sign that at least the regional component of their isolation is now a thing of the past,” Rabbani said.

That’s something that cannot be emphasized enough: A genocidal terrorist group has now been given more credibility in the Arab world. It’s part of the fallout from Iran. And it is nothing but bad news for Israel. But then, I never believed the Arab world will ever agree to allow Israel to live in peace. A state of perpetual wariness, perhaps. But no more.

At least for now, the U.S. and the EU are holding steady.

The U.S. and Israel agreed ahead of a three-way meeting with the Palestinians not to work with any new Palestinian government that does not renounce violence, recognize Israel and accept existing peace agreements, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday.

The so-called Quartet of Mideast negotiators the U.S., European Union, U.N. and Russia has set these demands as a condition for lifting crippling international sanctions against the Palestinians. The platform of a new Palestinian power-sharing agreement reached this month speaks only of “respect” for existing peace deals.

We shall see what happens in the future.

I TOTALLY fell for this email:

Subject: Haveil Havalim #107 is(n’t) UP!

I’m Sorry Folks I Just Can’t Do Haveil Havalim #107

Now I think I’m going to have to get back at Soccer Dad. I wasn’t even going to bother putting up the post, but then I clicked on the link and started reading, and totally fell for YID with LID’s story, right up until I read past, oh, the fifth link.

You are both on my list. And it’s not a good one.

Okay, so maybe I’m a little tired and grouchy this morning. But at least I’m letting my readers know, so they don’t fall for the joke. Like some sucker who writes this blog.

Sigh.

UPDATE: While I truly did fall for the email, I am not angry about it in any way, shape, or form. The use of ASCII smiley faces is strictly forbidden in my blog posts, and sometimes, sarcasm doesn’t come through. Please believe me when I tell you that when I am truly angry about something, there will be no doubt in your mind, and your eyebrows will have fallen off, charred, from the flaming. Okay? All right.

The case in a nutshell: A school board member doesn’t like some of the names she’s being called in the comments of a post Orthomom’s blog. So she’s suing Google to force them to reveal Orthomom, who currently blogs anonymously. I’m not quite sure why, as the offense is by an anonymous commenter, but then, public figures really don’t get blogs very well.

Two possible consequences: Google caves, or the lawsuit is dismissed.

I’m thinking the latter is the stronger possibility.

The Canonist has a link to the legal papers here.

The Canonist, run by Steven Weiss, has a new blog that I forgot to get around to mentioning. Probably because it’s called Jewess, and I hate that word with every fiber of my being. It’s about Jewish women’s issues, and yet, they have a resident Shiksa. Go figure.

Meryl’s always saying “Just die already” to Holocaust deniers, anti-Semites, and unrepentant Nazis.

Well, he took a long time to do it, but French collaborator Maurice Papon eventually caved in.

Don’t put a headstone over his grave… build a urinal trough.