The hype about Pushing Daisies is true. The pilot was excellent. It reminded me of Tim Burton’s humor, back when he was creating Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands. Plus, it’s from the folks who brought us Wonderfalls and Dead Like Me, both good, but short-lived, shows.

And a great big plus: Swoosie Kurtz and Ellen Greene (who looks much younger than she did playing Sylar’s mom on Heroes, phew!) were in the pilot, and may show up from time to time later. I would hope so, anyway. I love the actors.

The show was funny and sweet and heartbreaking, sometimes all at once. I haven’t seen a romance this tragic since my first-ever viewing of Romeo and Juliet (the Franco Zefferelli version). The concept is just great, and my, the producers really know how to screw with their main characters. No surprise, as that’s what their previous two shows were all about.

So go. Watch it. Another good new show to go with Heroes and the Bionic Woman.

Looks like Patrick was right, and I was wrong, about the SiteMeter visitor count. Not about everything, mind you. But definitely about the major issue.

The things he was right about: If you stay on a high-traffic site while the visitor count refreshes, it counts you as a new visitor. The 30-minute rule is also in effect. If you drop off the visitor count, you do go back on as a new visitor. (Not unique, though; see below.)

The things he was wrong about: Unique visitors. Sorry, Patrick, but nope, they’re just visitors. SiteMeter doesn’t track uniques. As for having the ability to log more than 100 (or 4,000) visitors at a pop: Here, too, you are wrong. I have been informed by SiteMeter staff that arrangements could be made for higher-traffic sites. Which means they do collect the data, and it does not disappear into the ether.

The things we were both wrong about: SiteMeter does not use cookies to track visitors.

The things I was right about: Sorry, Patrick, but unless you have some programming background that I’m not aware of, you are a technical neophyte. That doesn’t mean you can’t catch things like the SiteMeter double count, and that wasn’t what I was implying. I was implying you were lacking a certain strategic depth to your knowledge due to a lack of understanding of certain technologies. But I was wrong about the concept you were getting across. I simply couldn’t fathom the idea that someone would write a visitor-tracking program that would allow a visitor to become brand-new if someone were still on the site, or clicking to another page. It seemed utterly counter-intuitive to me. But hey, there’s a lot of programming out there, and site statistics are utterly impossible to track with 100% accuracy. I have three different site trackers and three different traffic counts. I was also pretty much on the money about clickthroughs. You really can’t judge a DKos clickthrough rate as indicative of traffic rate. Clickthroughs from referring sites depend on so many reasons that they’re not indicators unless the site is specifically geared to drive traffic (a la Instapundit).

Things I can’t say for sure: I don’t know if his 60% figure is accurate. That one I think is not easily charted. Testing doesn’t tell you how many people are doing the thing you are testing for—only whether it works or not.

I could go point-by-point on the rest of the things, but, well, the argument is done.

Someone forgot to tell you that this week’s Shire Network News, featuring an interview with Richard Landes of Second Draft (a.k.a., Pallywood), is up. It’s about the fact that France 2 is about to be exposed as the lying liars who lied about the al-Dura hoax.

My contribution is on feminism in the Muslim world. I think you’ll enjoy it.

Remember, you don’t need an iPod to listen. All you need is a computer that can play audio files. Click to listen online.

Palestinians are so tired of Hamas they’re longing for the good old days of Israeli occupation:

Asked a routine question about the 2006 Palestinian elections yesterday, Khaled abu Ahmed slipped off his sandal and used it to beat his head several times to demonstrate his remorse for voting Hamas. “We wanted change and reform,” he said. “We thought they would bring prosperity. We thought they were people who knew God. But, believe me, they don’t know God.”

He was standing outside his white goods shop in al Khawaja street, where the first intifada famously began 20 years ago and where the yellow flags of Fatah have recently begun to flutter obtrusively above many of the houses. Before the elections and the subsequent international boycott, he said, he used to make between £1,200 and £1,400 a month. Now, he said, thanks to closures and two years of only sporadic payments to public employees, he is lucky to make £25. “People have no money to buy anything,” he said, pointing to the street’s many shuttered shops. “We have been occupied by the Turks, the British, and the Egyptians,” he added, his voice rising rapidly. “We were occupied by Fatah and now we are occupied by Hamas. And the best of these occupations was by the Jews.”

That’s funny, I thought the Israelis are brutalracistZionistmurderers who deliberately target and murder civilians for no reason other than they’re brutalracistZionistmurderers.

Of course, the Independent (part of the U.K. Guardian media outlet) couldn’t let a pro-Israel remark stand unchallenged.

Mr Abu Ahmed, an angry man but as ardently nationalist as the next Palestinian, was being deliberately provocative of course. And it worked.

Hearing him, a passing bearded cyclist, Hamas supporter Omar Hamad, 37, stopped in his tracks and shouted: “You are talking only for yourself, not for the Palestinian people.”

Mr Hamad levelled the blame for Gaza’s ever deepening economic crisis on the emergency Ramallah government of President Mahmoud Abbas for sanctioning its isolation. “We Palestinians did these closures ourselves,” he said.

Well, the truth will out. That’s right, Hamad, you did it to yourselves. It’s the rockets and mortars and terrorism, which of course continues on a daily basis.

And of course, no Indy/Guardian article quote would be complete without reversing any possible negative spin for the Pals:

A telephone poll yesterday by Near East Consulting said that most Gazans oppose rocket attacks on Israel, do not regard the de facto Hamas government as legitimate, and support a peace agreement with Israel-the still distant goal of yet another meeting between Mr Abbas and the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem yesterday.

And while the poll - accurate or not - will no doubt encourage Israel and the US in their belief that the continued economic misery of Gaza will eventually turn it against Hamas, there is no obvious mechanism for change as long as Hamas opposes the fresh elections Mr Abbas threatens from time to time.

Right. Because we can’t possibly bash Israel if the Gazans agree that the Palestinians are in the wrong.

The world in which diplomats live is not the same world in which you and I live. These people think that wishing and hoping Hamas will change is going to change them from terrorists whose charter stipulates that a Jewish conspiracy controls the world (based on the forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion), that Israel must be destroyed, that “Palestine” is an Islamic waqf now until the end of days—to a group that will meekly accept living in a Palestinian state, side-by-side with Israel, and with the Arab part of Jerusalem as its capital. Yes, these people think that Hamas will accept not having total control over the Temple Mount, over which they built the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock—in spite of Hamas’ charter explicitly stating that will never happen.

Five former State Department and Pentagon officials are proposing Israeli and Palestinian capitals in Jerusalem and excluding Arab refugees from returning to Israel as part of an Middle East accord.

In a six-page policy statement submitted to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, they also suggested a series of peace conferences following the one she hopes to convene next month, probably in Annapolis, Maryland, near Washington.

Hamas, which controls Gaza and about one-third of Palestinian-held land, has not met US terms for attending. Those conditions are recognizing Israel’s right to exist and abandoning violence against the Jewish state.

But the ex-officials suggested Hamas might be drawn to attend a second conference, which implicitly would accept the first one and Israel’s existence. They called the role of Hamas the most difficult issue in peacemaking.

Once again, just in case you think Hamas might truly moderate, let’s check out their charter:

The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day.

These diplomats will fail, as long as they refuse to recognize Hamas for the irridentist terrorist organization it is. Hamas will never moderate. Hamas will never accept Israel. The question, of course, is whether or not any Palestinians—or the rest of their Muslim neighbors—will truly accept Israel in the middle of the Islamic world.

I’m never going to get tired of posting about this.

The Hamas op-ed that made the rounds of the major U.S. newspapers:

“Palestinians want, on their terms, the same thing Western societies want: self-determination, modernity, access to markets and their own economic power, and freedom for civil society to evolve.”

[…] Our stated aim when we won the election was to effect reform, end corruption and bring economic prosperity to our people. Our sole focus is Palestinian rights and good governance. We now hope to create a climate of peace and tranquillity within our community.

The reality today:

According to the survey, 58 percent of respondents said they are now afraid to express their political views following the Hamas takeover, and 60% say Hamas’s paramilitary police, known as the Executive Force, has done a poor job respecting individual rights.

It also found 52% of respondents consider Abbas’s government to be the legitimate Palestinian ruling authority, while only 26% favor the Hamas government led by Ismail Haniyeh. Sixty-four percent said they trust Abbas, compared with 36% who trust Fatah.

In another blow to Hamas, 72% said they support a final peace agreement with Israel, and 55% called on Hamas to change its position toward Israel.

Nearly three-quarters said they support Abbas’ call for new elections - a position opposed by Hamas. It said 42% would vote for Fatah, with just 15% support for Hamas.

You simply have to marvel at the utter disdain Hamas really has for its own people. But then, that’s what totalitarian movements are all about, and Hamas is all about totalitarianism with a liberal dose of Islamism thrown in. I can’t think of a worse combination.