Why was Sarah late picking me up yesterday?

Because she was busy vaccuuming her tree.

Why, yes, I’m serious. It’s Sarah’s eco-friendly solution to the tent caterpillar problem in her yard. She’s hesitant to use pesticides for many reasons: Four children, two Dachsunds, and, well, pesticides are poison. No two ways about it. She had hoped the freeze last week would kill the caterpillars, but nope, they were wiggling around as soon as the sun hit them the next day.

So she had a eureka moment with her Shop-Vac, and tried it. You can follow the story here, complete with pictures of what the caterpillars looked like after being sucked up into the Shop-Vac. (Oh, go, the picture isn’t nearly as gross as she described it to me. And don’t forget to put your mouse over the picture for Sarah’s note.)

Lair reminded me that today is 4/11. He says to ask him any question.

I think I’ll take questions from the audience, too.

Jimmy Carter opens mouth, insults Jews—again.

Carter said the Bush administration and pro-Israel groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee prevent Americans from having a real debate on Middle East policy.

“The American friends of Israel, who demand such subservience, are in many cases sincere and well-intentioned people; I know them,” Carter said. “But on this crucial issue, they are tragically mistaken. Their demands subvert America’s ability to bring to Israel what she most desperately needs and wants — peace and security within recognized borders.”

What did the audience say to this calumny?

Carter received a standing ovation for his 25-minute speech, which did not ignore the controversy surrounding his most recent book.

For a very, very, very long time, I said that America was a safe place for Jews, and would always remain so.

I am beginning to doubt myself on that issue. The constant anti-Jewish remarks by prominent politicians is beginning to worry me.

A lot.

Hizbullah says: We’re going to attack Israel because America is making us do it.

Hizbullah has not ruled out another confrontation with Israel this summer and is rearming, according to a report by the Guardian, Wednesday. “We are prepared for the possibility of another adventure or the demand of American policy that might push the IDF in that direction,” the British paper quoted Hizbullah Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qasim as saying.

According to the Guardian, the Hizbullah leader believes Washington is waging a covert war against Hizbullah. In the article, the organization accused the US administration of arming anti-Hizbullah militias and seeking to undermine the Lebanese army.

Hamas says: Israel is the main “obstacle” to the prisoner’s deal, for having the nerve to not want to allow murderers to go free.

“Israel represents the principle obstacle to reach a deal for the exchange of prisoners. With the position it has adopted, Israel affirms that it does not want the release of Shalit and doe not want a deal,” said Ghazi Hamad.

Israel said Tuesday it was “disappointed’ with a list of prisoners the Palestinians want released in exchange for Shalit who was kidnapped last June in a cross-border attack by gunmen from Hamas and other armed groups near the Gaza border.

“There is no reason to refuse the names presented to Israel. The expression ‘have blood on their hands’ is absurd and we reject it entirely,” added Hamad.

The PA says: Even though we got $1.2 billion in aid last year, we still need another $1 billion because most of the aid was stolen by our thugocrats and by the way, our people are starving. Ignore the fat children and the full larders, they’re starving. Starving, I say!

Meryl says: This is the so-called reformer speaking below.

The new Palestinian Authority government will need 1 billion euros in international aid this year to “get back on our feet,” Palestinian Authority Finance Minister Salam Fayyad said Wednesday.

“We are looking for donor support to bridge the gap of 1 billion euros for 2007,” Fayyad said after meeting with EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner. “This is assistance we need to get back on our feet.”

Meryl says: Uh-huh. Another billion dollars down the sewer that is the PA, where the money will not even be spent to improve the sewers that Gazans are literally drowning in. Sure. Send ‘em money.

The new PA Minister of Tourism says: We’re going to re-brand “Palestine” and make it a popular tourist destination. (No, really.)

Her main goals are improving the destinations’ image abroad - “rebranding Palestine” - and restructuring the industry, including working closely with the private sector. In particular, she wants to increase the amount of time people spend in the Palestinian areas while visiting the Holy Land.

“We are counting on cooperation with the outside world to give Palestine the image it deserves and encourage tourism and pilgrims. Behind the wall,” she says, referring to the security barrier surrounding Bethlehem, “they will find friendly people with a rich heritage and culture ready to receive them.”

Meryl says: Perhaps if you did something about the shooting and the bombings and the kidnapping of journalists, soldiers, aid workers, and ordinary citizens, people might be more inclined to visit.

One has to wonder if the headline writer could keep a straight face writing this one:

Hamas’ Moderation Claims Meet Skepticism

Gee. Ya think?

Of course, this article didn’t get nearly as wide an audience as the story of an IDF attack on a Hamas murderer would get.

RAMALLAH, West Bank — He’s the new face of Hamas — a well-spoken intellectual who says he wants a Palestinian state alongside Israel, not instead of it.

Local Affairs Minister Mohammed Barghouti has like-minded company in the new Palestinian unity government. In hopes of breaking an international boycott, Hamas has filled its Cabinet seats with professionals and pragmatists, keeping its ideologues at home.

Or in exile in Damascus, from where they tell their people that they will not give up a single inch of “historical Palestine.”

“The world should use the positive signs, not push Palestinians to the wall,” said Barghouti, pleading for an end to the boycott. This is what is known as “lying,” something that the media can’t seem to wrap their brains around.

Yet Hamas is still close to the virulently anti-Israel Iran, keeps smuggling rifles and rockets into the Gaza Strip and threatens a third Palestinian uprising if diplomacy fails to bring statehood.

And that is such a moderate thing to do: Threaten war if you don’t get what you want. Yep. It’s tough to tell if these guys have moderated, all right.

Since Hamas and the moderate Fatah Party formed a coalition government last month, the world has been trying to figure out whether Hamas’s conflicting signals constitute true ideological transformation or merely a ploy to push a hidden, radical agenda.

That’s because the world is wilfully blind, or stupid, when it comes to organizations and people that vow they are going to murder Jews.

Hanging on to both options — militancy and moderation — allows Hamas to help prevent a split between pragmatists and hard-liners and put off tough decisions.

No, it means they don’t have to pretend they’re not moderating because given that excuse—that there is a “moderate” wing of Hamas—the world and the media can pretend that they are really moderating, even though they still want to destroy Israel.

“We are now at the stage where Hamas does want to deal, but it has to preserve what it sees as its credibility, also among the broader Palestinian public,” said Mouin Rabbani of the International Crisis Group, a private think tank.

See what I mean? They say, over and over again, at Hamas rallies, from their leaders on down, that they will never, ever, EVER accept Israel’s existence in “historical Palestine,” and morons like this guy say they’re ready to “deal.” Uh-huh. Because he wishes it to be so, you see, and wishes can come true. Really! Once, I wished that I would win the lottery, and, well—okay, maybe they can’t come true.

Watch the utter bullshit being passed along as analysis here:

Palestinians contend the West is missing a huge opening for Mideast peace by continuing to boycott Hamas. But Israelis warn against falling for Hamas’s smooth talk.

Barghouti, one of Hamas’s most polished advocates and at 38 the youngest Palestinian Cabinet minister, says his people understand today’s realities: that Israel is here to stay and that progress will be achieved through politics, not war.

Barghouti, a second cousin of jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, challenged the West’s main argument for maintaining the boycott: that Hamas has failed to renounce violence and recognize Israel’s right to exist. By calling for a Palestinian state on the lands Israel occupied in the 1967 Mideast War, “that means there is another state on the other side,” he said, referring to Israel.

They won’t refer to Israel by name, even in an article where the angle is their “moderation,” the writer clearly knows this, and points to Barghouti’s wordplay as some kind of proof that Hamas acknowledges Israel’s existence, when clearly, it is the opposite. And next, we get a flat-out lie, repeated dutifully, so that readers will know that it’s Israeli intransigence, not Hamas, that’s at fault:

The government’s support for expanding a truce from Gaza to the West Bank, he argued, trumps its platform affirming Palestinians’ right to “resist” — widely seen as code for violent attacks on Israel. Critics point to that part of the platform as proof that Hamas has not changed.

“No one among the Palestinians is calling for the elimination of Israel,” said Barghouti, a former Hamas student leader jailed repeatedly by Israel. “All the Palestinian people want is a state in the 1967 borders.”

Really? Read the Hamas charter. And then go back to Friday, three days before this AP article was published, and read this:

“Hamas will not back down. We will not give up on a single metre of our homeland,” Meshaal said to thunderous applause.

“We will and we must continue in the path of resistance,” he added.

Buried deep within the article are the facts that prove utterly that Hamas has not moderated even a whit.

Israel warns that Hamas’ softer tones are just a tactical ploy to stay in power, after a year of international sanctions. “There has been no change whatsoever in the ideology,” said Boaz Ganor, an Israeli counterterrorism expert.

Hamas hardliner Mahmoud Zahar seemed to confirm Israel’s claim. “The current government program will last at most three years, but our program is to liberate Palestine, all of Palestine, in what we call the gradual solution,” the former Hamas foreign minister said in remarks recently carried on a Web site linked to Hamas.

The “gradual solution” is obvious: Get Gaza and the West Bank, arm them to the teeth, and then try to destroy Israel from the fledgling Palestinian state.

Israel warns that Hamas is exploiting a relative lull to smuggle anti-tank missiles, rockets and explosives into Gaza, through underground tunnels from Egypt.

Palestinian analysts say other factions, including Fatah, smuggle weapons and that militants are hoarding for another possible round of factional fighting, not for use against Israel.

Yet Israel’s military is so worried about the arms buildup that it is preparing for a major invasion of Gaza, on par with a devastating 2002 offensive against militants in the West Bank. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert won’t give the approval for now, but one deadly rocket attack could change his mind.

In another worrisome sign, Israel announced Tuesday it had arrested 19 Hamas members who planned a car bombing in Tel Aviv over the Passover holiday. Hamas’ last suicide attack was in 2004. The Israeli daily Haaretz said the attack was ordered by Hamas renegades, unhappy with the new coalition.

Notice how the arms buildup is not a “worrisome sign” that Hamas is, oh, I don’t know, going to kill Israelis (the “we just want to kill each other” excuse is accepted blindly), but the arrest of 19 terrorists is “worrisome.” To whom? And why? Well, the AP simply has to blame Israel for every Palestinian civilian who dies in the next action against terrorists, not the terrorists sheltering among them. So to the AP, it’s worrisome that some Palestinians may die. Israelis? Not so much.

And you have to love the way the writer ends the article:

Barghouti hinted that if rebuffed, Hamas might fall back on its militant ideology.

“We have shown great flexibility in Hamas,” he said. “Hamas has two options. If it is not encouraged to go ahead with the political era, then we will have the other option.”

In other words: Give us a Palestinian state, from which we will launch our war against you and destroy you, or we’ll start to destroy you now.

What a choice for Israel, hm? Gee, they should make peace with these people, who obviously want to return the favor.

Arafat had a saying that offended me no end, calling his faux peace treaty with Israel “the peace of the brave.” I call peace with Hamas and Fatah “the peace of the grave.” Because the grave is what beckons if Israel actually tries to make peace with these murderers.

Not that I think she will. Her leaders are not suicidal.