Hamas will give back Gilad Shalit only when they get back their convicted murderers, presumably to murder again.

“If Israel insists on the name of one or more of the prisoners the kidnappers want to see released, the entire deal could collapse, as has happened in the past,” he said.

According to the source, before the parties reach a final agreement it can be determined “beyond any doubt that prisoners defined by Israel as prisoners with blood on their hands will be released, as well as Israeli Arab prisoners.”

He added that he was aware of the fact that these two groups of prisoners were considered a red line by Israel.

“It is no longer a matter for the kidnapping groups or the Egyptian mediators. This is Olmert’s problem and he must find the way to convey this to the Israeli public opinion. This is the last thing bothering us,” the source said.

Without the release of the senior Palestinians prisoners jailed in Israel for dozens of life sentences for the murder of Israelis, and the inclusion of Israeli Arab prisoners, there would be no deal, the source explained.

“The organizations’ goal this time is to break the criteria dictated by the Israelis in previous deals. We want to create a precedence,” he said.

The really sad thing? Count on it happening. Olmert will cave. Watch him.

[FLASHBACK TO John Locke, depressed and at the Disability office, being asked stupid questions by an annoying bureaucrat that proves once again that Hollywood script writers have zero connection to real, actual working people] [Meryl says: gee, what an exciting way to start a series of flashbacks! Wow, what next, the doctor's office for the annual proctology exam?)

[Back on the island, John, Kate, and Sayyid are watching from the bushes (and just how creepy is that, really?) as Jack runs, skips, and plays happily with The Others. Rousseau glowers in the background and disappears, because she is Mystic and Cryptic and she is still DeLenn and can do no wrong in our eyes. The three get even more horrified when they see Jack shaking hands with the man formerly known as Henry.]

Sayyid: Jack’s gone over to the Other side!
Locke: No he hasn’t.
Sayyid: Has too!
Locke: Has not!
Kate: [rolls eyes]

[FLASHBACK To John in a crappy little apartment]
Rich kid: My mother is in love with your father
Locke: He’s not my father
Rich kid: The whole damned audience knows he’s your father, and the teasers all said we were gonna find out how you wound up in that wheelchair, and Meryl has five bucks on your father being the one who cause it, so shut up and move the plot along!
Locke: Never heard of him. But do you like how I’m practicing my brooding, mysterious look that I’m going to use when I get to the island?
Rich kid: WTF do I care? I’m going to be dead by the second act.

[The island again, the three creeping around in the bushes, this time with binoculars, while the cellos and violins get annoyingly loud again in the failed hopes of stirring a dramatic moment because the script sure as hell can't seem to do that]

Kate: I’ll go in the front, Sayyid go around back, and Lock will, uh, wait—there are only two doors—
Locke: I’ll go walk around looking mysterious. It’s what I do best.
Sayyid: I thought I was going to be the mysterious one this week!
Kate: [rolls eyes]

[Inside Jack's Shack, Jack is playing the piano.]
Kate: Hi!
Jack: We’ve been on this island how long and we still haven’t figured out that no matter where we go, there are cameras? They don’t call this Big Brother Surivor for nothing, you know.
Kate: Oh, crap. They’re going to cuff me again. And this time, I won’t like it.
Jack: Yeah, but you know the only reason you’re here is so I can get the Jack & Kate fans going again and beat down the Sawyer & Kate fans. My last flashback proved that I can be a bad boy, too.
Kate: [rolls eyes]

[Inside Henry's house]
Henry: Is that a gun in your pocket or did you really miss me?
Locke: I want the submarine
Henry: We don’t have a submarine
Locke: Don’t make me go down to the docks and find it myself!
[Alex walks in. Locke grabs her.]
Alex: Dad, was there anything else you needed me for other than to be held hostage?
Henry: Yeah, go get Sayyid’s pack. We need a little C4 to liven up this show.
Alex: You know, Dad, when they say the show’s bombing, they mean it’s dying in the ratings, not going boom.
Henry: Shut up and get me the C4 while I taunt Locke about his father and he taunts me about being a cripple.
Alex: [rolls eyes]

[FLASHBACK TO Locke confronting his father]
Locke the younger: I know you’re a crook, and I’m gonna tell your fiancee if you don’t.
Locke the elder: I may be a crook, but at least I still have my hair.
Locke the younger: [rolls eyes]
Locke the elder: Don’t look at me like that, boy! I made you, and I can break you!
Locke the younger: Not until the third act.

[In the Henry House: Locke and Henry are exchanging taunts and mysterious sayings about the island and its powers.]
AUDIENCE: This is really boring.
WRITERS: WTF do you want from us? We’re making this crap up as we go along. You know how hard it is to tie EVERYone to this stupid island?
AUDIENCE: No it isn’t. You just suck at it.
WRITERS: No, YOU suck. You deserted us when we stopped showing reruns!
AUDIENCE: Wait. You don’t show Lost for six weeks, then you get mad at us because we weren’t watching it? Love your logic. Not.
Kate: Hello! My scene now! My big scene with Jack! I get to look longingly at him not knowing that he knows I had sex with Sawyer!

[In the game room. Kate the Wonderful gets her handcuffs from in back of her to in front of her just as a guard comes in to announce that Jack is here.]
Kate: What did they do to you to make them like them?
Jack: They said I could go home.
Kate: You’re deserting us?
Jack: Yes, but I’m going to bring back help.
Kate: Why would you trust these people? They’ve broken their word on absolutely everything they’ve ever promised, and you’re trusting them to let you go?
Jack: Well, yeah. I don’t write this shit.
WRITERS: We HEARD that!
Jack: You were supposed to.

[Lots of stuff happens. Sayyid sees Alex and tells her that her mother is alive. Rousseau sees her Alex. Locke and Henry continue their game about the submarine, even as the audience is still going, "A submarine? WTF? A sub? Who the hell needs a submarine to get on and off an island? WTF? Like the anomaly is real? Shyeah, right."

Alex brings the C-4 to Locke. Henry tells Locke not to blow up the sub at least until after Jack leaves the island. It's a one-way trip. All communications are dead. Locke walks off with the C-4. We knew he would.

[FLASHBACK TO: Locke's father's apartment, an apartment in a high-rise. Fans all over the country start nodding their heads. Meryl loses five bucks. She thought sure his father was going to slam into John's VW.]
Locke the younger: You’re still conning her, and now you killed her son!
Locke the elder: I’m a con man, not a killer. Say, would you mind standing next to this window that just happens to be eight stories up, and oh yeah, turn your back on me too, will you?”
Locke the younger: Sure, Dad. I’m a sucker for, well, everything and everyone.
Locke the elder: Now this won’t hurt a bit. [pushes John out of window]

[THE GAME ROOM]
Locke: We both know you wanted this to happen.
Henry: Yeah, but I still played you like the violins in the background music. Because it is my part in this story to always, always, always pretend that I foresee every single outcome, and to make you think you are lower than low and smaller than small because I get to see the scripts before you do.
Locke: Yeah, but I have the steely jaw and blue eyes. Women think I’m hot. They they’re your a nerd, and now you’re a nerd in a wheelchair. I win.
Henry: Hey! Just for that, I’m going to show you the man from Tallahatchee. Or Tallahassee. Or Tallawhosee. I have no idea what. Anyway, I’m just really jealous that the island keeps bringing you people and I’ve asked and asked and asked for Eva Longoria, and yet, she does not show.
Locke: What are you talking about?
[Thug opens door]
Locke the elder: Hi, son! WTF am I doing here?
AUDIENCE: That’s what we’d like to know!
Locke: [rolls eyes]

Ban Ki-Moon is really starting to grow on me. Check out this video (towards the end) of his reaction to a mortar that landed about 100 meters away. He ducks, looks worried for a second or two, and then recovers, though you can damn well bet his adrenaline level was about five times normal for the next few minutes.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon ducked in surprise when an explosion rattled Baghdad’s Green Zone on Thursday where he was delivering a televised news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Two mortar rounds were fired at the Green Zone, an Interior Ministry official said. The Associated Press reported that small chips of debris fell from the ceiling.

The explosion startled Ban, who swiftly regained his composure as the briefing continued.

Yep, he did regain that composure pretty damn quick.

Guy could use some brushing up on his English, though.

Former Chief Rabbi Meir Lau addressed a forum on anti-Semitism. It’s a read-in-full recommendation, but here’s an excerpt:

“For instance,” Rabbi Lau continued, “some 200 years ago, and at other times, the Maskilim said that to get rid of anti-Semitism, we have to change our mores and be like the nations. It was said that the Jews dress differently, speak differently, and have different culture and the like, and that causes their persecution. ‘If we are like them, they’ll learn to appreciate us,’ it was said. They said this in Poland and in Hungary and in many other places. But of course we know that in Germany in the last century, we were not different in anything - not in clothing nor in language nor in arts nor in politics. The only thing that stood out very nicely was our genius, from Albert Einstein to the present Foreign Minister - but did it work? Did anti-Semitism disappear? Did they begin to like us? Of course not. Instead, they said, ‘Aaah, so you’re trying to be like us? Have you come to live here and then judge us? - Just like they said in Sodom [Gen. 19,9] … So we see that it’s not the differences and not the sameness that brings about anti-Semitism…

“So then we were told that one of the reasons they hate us is because we were temporary residents in their land, that we don’t have a home of our own. They told us to leave and go to Palestine, and that once we have our own country, they won’t hate us. How ironic - for we did that, and of course they still hate us. As the phrase goes: Sorry for winning… They hate us when we don’t have a home, and they hates us when we do have a home… So what’s the reason?

“I once heard an Arab man address a forum. He did not deny the Holocaust, but he said that as a Palestinian, he is the real victim of the Holocaust, because it caused him to be displaced by the Jews and now he does not have a home. So he said that the Jews should go back to Europe and there will no longer be a problem between Jews and Arabs. But what about the pogrom in Hevron in 1929, and the killings in Motza and elsewhere in the 30s, which happened way before the problem of the refugees of 1948; what, they had prophecy regarding what would happen later?

I’ve been thinking about this for years, and have my own ideas. I really must find the time to sit down and write that essay.

Russian students are protesting the lowering of educational standards and the rise of anti-Semitism at Moscow University.

Somebody pinch me, I’m dreaming.

The accusations, many of them circulated to Western universities by a small group of students in an effort to gain support, also strongly suggested that official anti-Western attitudes and creeping nationalism were undermining the quality of the teaching.

The students said, for example, that extremist views had become institutionalized and that conspiracy theories had infiltrated the teaching.

“The dean’s office has distributed a brochure to all students that approvingly quotes the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’ blames Freemasons and Zionists for the world wars, and claims that they control U.S. and British policy and the global financial system,” the students wrote in one of their public appeals. “Studying conditions at the department are unbearable.”

Of course the official line is that there is no anti-Semitism in Russia. Uh-huh. Never was. Of course.

Vladimir I. Dobrenkov, the dean of the sociology department, dismissed the complaints about the curriculum in a telephone interview, saying that the student claims “are full of hints, rumors and half-truths” and that no anti-Semitism has been taught or tolerated on campus.

Now that’s the Russia we know and hate!

Yet another example of an Arab spokesliar. How can you tell an Arab leader is lying? His lips are moving.

Via Charles, MEMRI has video of the Syrian Minister of Culture (and I always love to hear that one, because it is so utterly Orwell), who blames America and Israel (of course) for all of the terrorism that his co-religionists have perpetrated.

Following is an excerpt from a speech delivered by Syrian Minister of Culture Riyadh Na’san Agha, which aired on Al-Kawthar TV on February 28, 2007:

Riyadh Na’san Agha: The so-called Al-Qaeda is in my opinion, an illusion. It is a bunch of organizations which used to be supervised by the CIA, and used to commit crimes in some Arab and Islamic countries. They committed crimes in Luxor, Tunisia, and Jordan. Who knows who committed these crimes? Who can vouch that the prisoners in Guantanamo are really the so-called terrorists? We don’t know, because none of these crimes were investigated. Take, for example, the London bombings, of which Muslims have been accused. Who are they? Has anyone announced their names? Has anyone said who they were? They were forgotten, just like in all the bombings that took place in Europe. The truth is that the people who do this are the agents of the U.S., with its new anti-Islamic policy, and the agents of Zionism and the Mossad. Unfortunately, our media in some Islamic countries follows the Zionist media machine and repeats what it is says.

Why let facts get in the way of your calumny? It’s easy to find the names of the London bombers. Why, yes, someone has “announced their names.” There are even pictures. Yes, someone has “said who they were.” It’s been all over the Western media, but then, I’m sure the minister would tell us that it’s simply Zionist lies. And oh yeah–while he was going on about the London bombing, the trial was in (I think) its third week.

You see how effing crazy these people are? They utterly ignore evidence that convinces rational people of the facts, and continue with their fingers in their ears and their eyes closed and their little fantasy world in which their problems are all, every last one of them, caused by Zionists, Crusaders, and Zionist Crusaders.

And yet, the world vilifies the country that gave us improvements in drip irrigation that literally made the desert bloom, and a thousand other great inventions (including IM technology, which kids today—and businesses—can’t live without).

This year, for the first time, I bought TurboTax. I spent a few hours last night doing my taxes.

It was pretty easy overall, but it screwed up a stock sale I made, which I made partly because I was dead broke and needed the money—this was around the time that Gracie’s operations were going on—and partly because I knew it’d pay off big-time on my taxes because I lost a LOT of money when the tech bubble burst, and I’ve been getting a few dollars back here and there on my taxes. I have two more stock dogs that I will probably liquidate and then never, ever, ever play the market again, because I suck at it. But since it’s possible I will be a 1099 contractor for the rest of this year, every little bit helps with the Taxman, so I’ll probably sell off the other dogs in December. They’re never going to regain their cost basis.

In any case, my Federal phone tax refund came to $143. If you are claiming only what the Feds suggest, you’re getting ripped off. They were going to give me a flat $30. I found my old phone bills and checked back one from each year. My Verizon long distance Federal tax was $2 a month. Cell phone Federal tax was $1. They pay interest, too. If you haven’t done your taxes yet, and you don’t have your phone bills, check online. Sprint has ALL of my phone bills going back to when I first purchased my cell phone. Verizon goes back a year. Your phone company will probably have something similar. Get back a little of your own, since this tax was established to pay for the Spanish-American War, and, well, I’m pretty sure we finished paying for it a long, long time ago.

This is a perfect lesson in why the government should be reined in. Once they get a tax on the public, they never, ever, ever let it go. The Feds fought this for YEARS before finally losing the battle in court. This is a perfect example on why the government needs to keep its hands out of our pockets, its nose out of our business, and its laws out of our bedrooms (I mean YOU, Georgia).

I chose the e-file option for my Federal taxes and did NOT let them take it out of my refund (for another $13, no thank you). If my refund gets here by April 1st, it’s going to help ease the financial squeeze from being laid off in December. Now that my new job is kicking in, so are the paychecks, but they’re (argh!) monthly. On the other hand, can’t wait until I get March’s check sometime in April. At long last, I can buy that mp3 player I was going to get with my 2005 refund. I really want to be able to play my CDs in my car, but it’s a Jeep. I’ve never bought a CD player for it. I make cassettes. I suspect anyone who checks out my car for things to steal is puzzled and disgusted when they see my cassette tapes.

Hey. It’s a soft top, and nobody’s slashed the windows to steal what’s inside it yet. It pays to be out of synch with the world, sometimes.

The Arabs will never love their children more than they hate the Jews. They’re still teaching their children to hate, and that Israel is Muslim land—and once again, the world will turn a blind eye to the facts that this is a religious war, and always has been a religious war, and will not stop being a religious war unless a sea change happens in Muslim opinions worldwide.

“You can’t have agreements while this kind of hatred is inculcated in the children,” Knesset Education Committee Chairman Michael Melchior (Labor-Meimad) said on Tuesday after seeing new 12th-grade textbooks published by the Palestinian Authority late last year.

“I intend to demand from Prime Minister [Ehud Olmert] that he present the findings [of a new report on the textbooks] to Abu Mazen [PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas] at their next meeting,” Melchior said.

Melchior’s statements at the Knesset followed a Palestinian Media Watch presentation showing Palestinian 12th grade textbooks teaching children in the PA that pursuing Israel’s destruction was a religious duty.

PMW director Itamar Marcus told the Education Committee that the new schoolbooks were - for the first time - uniquely focused on portraying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a religious war.

“According to these books,” Marcus told the MKs, “the war over this land is a war for Muslim land, and will end only with the resurrection of the dead.” The books teach that “recognition of Israel is forbidden by religion,” he said.

So, who wrote the textbooks? Hamas?

No.

According to the report, the schoolbooks, the products of the official education arm of the PA, written by Fatah-appointed officials at the Center for Developing the Palestinian Curricula and published by the PA Ministry of Higher Education, are also used by schools in east Jerusalem that are under the jurisdiction of - and receive funding from - Israel’s Education Ministry.

So much for peace partners.