Tuesday Evening Potpourri

Just a couple of tidbits from the minds of others....

James Taranto takes on John Edward's head:

One area in which Edwards is getting a bum rap, though, is that $400 haircut. The Politico has video in which Edwards explains what happened: "Other people arrange these things, and I wasn't personally involved in it."
It's not that he's a foppish elitist who spends $400 on a haircut. He's a foppish elitist who has servants to make appointments at the beauty salon for him.

Across the pond, Christopher Hitchens reports from Londonistan, and he's uncovered some "root causes" that may make the left squirm:

The roots of violence, that is to say, are in the preaching of it, and the sanctification of it.

And even the UK's most radically far-left rag prints truths that the Democratic Congress furiously ignores...The Guardian reports on Iran's planned offensive against American forces in Iraq:

Iran is secretly forging ties with al-Qaida elements and Sunni Arab militias in Iraq in preparation for a summer showdown with coalition forces intended to tip a wavering US Congress into voting for full military withdrawal, US officials say.

Glenn Reynolds comments on the mullah's strategy, and George Bush's conspicuous lack of one:

Well, if they're targeting Congress they're certainly targeting our weak spot...

The Bush Administration's passivity with regard to Iran has puzzled me for some time... Having a powerful nation right next door sponsoring an insurgency makes the insurgency pretty hard to beat in short order.

Meanwhile, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, unfairly smears the Weather Channel - via LGF:

Israel’s UN ambassador on Monday accused moderate Muslim and Arab leaders of standing by in “eerie silence” while Islamic extremists terrorize people around the world.
" We live in a world where when Christians kill Muslims, it’s a crusade. When Jews kill Muslims, it’s a massacre. When Muslims kill Muslims, it’s the weather channel. Nobody cares,” Ambassador Dan Gillerman told reporters at a press lunch at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York.

Hey, I care about the Weather Channel! Well, I used to....

And here's why the Israelis trust no one, and why I trust NGO groups least of all - via Environmental Republican:

A Palestinian from the Gaza Strip who works for the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders has been arrested for allegedly plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed on Thursday.
Mazab Bashir, 25, from the Deir el-Balah refugee camp in Gaza, began working for Doctors Without Borders five years ago and received a permit from the IDF to travel to Jerusalem for work.

Bashir said he met with three Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) operatives last September, and agreed then to assassinate Olmert to avenge the deaths of Palestinian civilians.
Bashir underwent firearms and close combat training with the PFLP....

And finally, if you still somehow believe that the United Nations, the European Union, and all those allegedly non-aligned watchdog groups - Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, and so on - are not vile anti-semites, then this little tidbit probably won't convince you either:

In Tripoli right now, the Lebanese army is pounding a Palestinian refugee camp with tank shells and other heavy weapons far less discriminating in their lethal effects than anything fired by Israeli ground troops in Jenin—and many Lebanese are cheering them on. The choir of Europeans and American leftists who routinely champion the Palestinian cause is strangely silent—or maybe not so strangely silent. Perhaps their real interest lies not in defending Palestinian rights but in bashing Israel—and Israel, of course, is not engaged in this particular fray.

Indeed!