Here’s the quid:

Iran frees detained British sailors
TEHRAN, Iran Apr 4, 2007 (AP)— Iran on Wednesday freed the 15 detained British sailors and marines in what President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called an Easter gift to the British people. Prime Minister Tony Blair said he bore “no ill will” toward the Iranian people.

Iranian state television said the 14 men and one woman, who were seized while on patrol in the northern Persian gulf on March 23, would leave Iran on Thursday. An Iranian official in London said they would be handed over to British diplomats in Tehran.

Ahmadinejad’s surprise announcement came at a news conference shortly after he pinned a medal on the chest of the Iranian coast guard commander who intercepted the sailors and marines.

Here’s the pro:

The call for talks came hours after Iranian diplomat Jalal Sharafi was freed by his captors in Iraq. He had been seized Feb. 4 by uniformed gunmen in Karradah, a Shiite-controlled district of Baghdad.

His release raised hope for an end to the standoff and suggested the possibility of a de facto prisoner swap - something both Tehran and London have publicly discounted.

And here’s the quo:

TEHRAN, Iran Apr 4, 2007 (AP)— Iranian state media reported Wednesday that an Iranian envoy will be allowed to meet the five Iranians detained in January by U.S. forces in the northern Iraqi town of Irbil.

There was no immediate confirmation of the report in Baghdad, where neither Iraqi government nor a U.S. military spokesman said they knew that permission had been granted for such a meeting.

“A representative from the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad will meet” the detained Iranians, the official Islamic Republic News Agency said.

U.S. troops detained the five Iranians when it raided their office in Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish autonomous zone, on Jan 11. The troops also confiscated computers and documents.

No quid pro quo, my ass.

Now, if Tony Blair and George Bush really had some stones, they’d go grab them some Iranian Revolutionary Guards trespassing in Iraqi waters. And keep them.

Poor Jay. I swamped him with emails about various directories because he put my WP files in a different directory than they were at the old hosting company, and I put the images directory in the wrong place, then I put it where he told me to, then it wasn’t working, then I remembered my archives directory (nearly four years of pre-WP files have to go somewhere!), then I remembered how to do that correctly, and then I still couldn’t call an image in the post about the whiny Palis, and then, finally, I tried doing that again and it worked (because I had—sigh—forgotten to call the image from the images directory, and may I say: Duh.). Um. I forgot where I was.

Oh. Poor Jay. Deluged with emails, and all of them concern things that I already figured out. Then, of course, I had to send him an email telling him I’d already figured everything out. Good thing it’s all gmail, which threads messages so that you can pretty much answer all six or seven emails at once.

There’s only one thing left to figure out, and I’m sure it’s a configuration thing at BlueHost, but it’s a pretty small thing to worry about. It just sends all of your comments to me with the physical name of my emailbox at BlueHost instead of your name, so I know who’s commenting without reading the comment.

Well, there’s that, plus the previous hosting service wants to delete my account a week before my year is up, and I don’t want to because I’m not finished being paranoid about having taken absolutely everything I needed to take off the site, and won’t be for another week. Which happens to be when my PAID hosting time is up. April 10th, baby, and that’s when you get to blow the old files away: Not a minute sooner.

I have two terabytes of monthly transfer with my new host, for four dollars less per month.

I do believe I may start running my own podcasts. Or posting videos.

I thought it was too small for me. I misread the ad at 2 gigabytes. No, it’s 2,000 gigabytes. Wow. Cat videos, here I come!

See, here’s what I’m talking about. Here’s the headline:

Israeli, Palestinian Shooting Kills 1

And here’s the lede:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - A Palestinian gunman was killed in an exchange of fire with Israeli troops Wednesday in an area where militants frequently fire rockets toward Israel, Palestinian security officials said.

Clearly, it was a terrorist who was killed, and the headline says only that “1″ was killed. Let’s look at the next few paragraphs.

The Israeli army confirmed the clash, saying troops hit at least two gunmen, but did not know their condition.

Soldiers entered Gaza after seeing three militants plant a bomb near the fence separating Israel from the Gaza Strip, the army said. Troops opened fire at the gunmen, hitting at least two, and the militants detonated two explosives in the exchange, the army said.

Palestinian security officials said troops entered the northern Gaza Strip and killed a Palestinian gunman, injured another, and arrested a third. It was not immediately clear to which militant group the three men belonged.

Now we start quoting Palestinian spokesmen, who are generally members of the terrorist group that was just doing the shooting/bomb-planting/what-have you. And gee, they badmouth the IDF. The AP does not

The Israeli army initially prevented Palestinian ambulances from reaching the scene to evacuate the wounded, the Palestinian officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release details of the incident to the press. Two farmers were wounded in the exchange, they said.

And that’s graf number five, the one that generally ends the story in the three-to-five-graf World News section of your local paper. Here’s what gets cut out:

The exchange of fire occurred in the area of Beit Hanoun, where militants from the radical Islamic Jihad frequently shoot rockets toward Israel. Though Israel has been observing a cease-fire with Palestinian militants in Gaza since November, Islamic Jihad has refused to join the truce.

Now let’s look at the Reuters story. I’m actually rather amazed at the accuracy of this one.

Israeli troops kill gunman at border

Typical Reuters headline: Israelis always “kill,” but when, for instance, Hamas kills civilian bystanders, they are “killed by stray fire” or something of that sort. But at least they call the terrorists a “gunman.”

Apr 4, 2007 — GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian gunman at the Gaza border on Wednesday, a militant group said.

An Israeli army spokesman said an Israeli force shot at three armed men, killing one of them and wounding at least one other, as they placed an explosive device 15 meters (50 feet) from the Gaza border fence.

The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a militant coalition, said one of its fighters was shot and killed by Israeli forces near the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. A Palestinian ambulance retrieved his body.

The group originally said he had been wounded and taken to Israel.

This is actually one of the most accurate Reuters pieces I’ve ever read. Notice how they don’t highlight the claim that the IDF prevented Palestinian ambulances from picking up the wounded (a commonly-made claim, without reference to the fact that Palestinian ambulances are often filled with gun-toting terrorists). Reuters calls the terrorist a gunman, doesn’t deny he was one of three terrorists planting bombs, and then we get to this shocker:

A PRC spokesman said the gunman had been on a “jihadi mission,” a term it uses to describe an attack against an Israeli target or a scouting mission to prepare for an operation.

Well, paint me pink and call me Rosie. They used the word “jihad” in a form other than to mean “personal struggle.” And they used the term “jihadi” as well. Except they’re using the word “operation” when they should be using “attack.”

Still, they used the term “jihadi.” Someone notify CAIR!

Someone in Britain is staging a rally for the kidnapped sailors. Good on them, as the Brits say. I hope a million people show.

Location: opposite the Iranian Embassy, 16, Prince’s Gate, South Kensington, SW7 1PT
Map here
Nearest Tube Stations: Knightsbridge or South Kensington

It’s at 6:45 p.m. British time, which is around lunchtime East Coast time. (I’ve lost track of the time difference since DST kicked in. I think it’s four hours now. No, six. See? No idea.)

If you live in the U.K. and you’re reading this, you should get down to the Iranian Embassy in London. And shout a little “Death to Iran!” for me, will you?

The Palestinians are whining that German Chancellor Angela Merkel “offended” their feelings. All together now: Awwwww.

Palestinian Authority officials have accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel of “offending the Palestinians’ feelings” during her visit earlier this week to Ramallah, where she met with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

The accusations, the first of their kind against a European leader, were made by top PA officials only hours after Merkel and her entourage left Ramallah on Monday.

“She did everything to provoke the Palestinians during her visit,” said one official. “She showed no understanding for the plight of our people. On the other hand, she appeared to be very biased toward Israel.”

The official claimed that while Merkel refused to meet with families of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, she focused during her talks with Abbas on the need to release kidnapped IDF Cpl. Gilad Schalit, who has been held in the Gaza Strip since last June. In addition, he noted, Merkel met with the families of missing IDF soldiers during her visit to Jerusalem.

Charles Johnson very kindly gave me this picture for just such times:

(Note: When I figure out what I did wrong with my images directory, you’ll be able to see the image.