I don't do this much, as it's one of the reasons I established the "Headlines and Quick Links" list to the right, but I was noticing several pieces this evening as I surfed about the blogosphere and thought I'd put up a few quick links. I usually try to do my own news prowling before hitting the blogs so I can at least try to have a little better chance of having my own take on any given new subject without getting too derivative. Then it's interesting to see what others thought of the same things. Anyway, today I didn't really have much time to do that, and as I hit the blogs I found a bunch of stuff I just wanted to point to, so here's some of it:

Norman Geras has a touching story of the day Saddam was captured and "Iraqi Uncle Toms" in 'Hope of something better' as well as the very picture of misery in the person of former British Cabinet Secretary, Clare Short, in the entry Sad picture.

Charles Johnson has a post that has reminded me of the angry, frustrated emotions I had that led to the starting of this blog in his "Outrage of the Day" post - the story of an anti-Semitic Canadian professor's LA Times op-ed piece on the subject of...anti-Semitism. This one really pisses me off. Note to the "Criticism of Israel/Zionism is not the same thing as anti-Semtism" crowd: If a guy like Michael Neumann is who you need to reach to to do your think pieces (to say nothing of the quality of the thinking or the piece itself) then your meme is in trouble.

Power Line Blog takes multi-cultural blindness to task and uses a whitewashed, wishful-thinking view of the Aztecs as their jumping-off point. First is Celebrating the Aztecs and then Why the Aztecs? Is this Uncle Sam bowing to the "Noble Savage?"

Setting the World To Rights scoffs at Cuban hypocrisy in Cuban Outrage and warns against the siren song of proportional representation in Proportional Nonsense.

Alan Forrester has his own take on Clare Short in Clare Short...Eeewww!!!

Who Knew? has a post with some links on the disaster in Iran in Iran disaster relief.

Healing Iraq has a view of what it's like to live in a neighborhood where the Fedayeen are seen prowling the streets in his post "Back to normal."

Omar at Iraq the Model points out that none of the Iraqi political parties, including the Islamic ones, are pushing for a theocratic government among other tidbits in his post Some news, answers and clarifications.

Ays at Iraq at a Glance was a bit put out listening to a couple of Egyptians talk on the radio about Saddam and the Americans in his post...wait for it...A couple of Egyptians..

Speaking of defending Saddam, Lee at Right-Thinking draws attention to the Jordanian Lawyers lining up to defend Saddam, and mentions the weakness this shows for the idea of the ICC in his post Defending the Dictator.

Smooth Stone has a world-wide round-up of fences in Want Israel to remove her fence? You remove yours first.

And finally (uh...for the moment),

Dan Darling defends the Vatican against the imperious Glenn Reynolds in Oh goody, Reynolds weighs in on Vatican comments on rising anti-Semitism in Europe.