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The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watcher’s Council Results

on Jan 27 2012 | Filed under: The Council Has Spoken!.

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for the first Watcher’s Council match up of 2012, carved eternally in the akhasic records of cyberspace.

This week’s winning essay, The Mellow Jihadi’s Lance Corporal Donald Hogan, Marine Hero is a prime example of the Jihadi’s unique literary style as he takes a stirring look at an American hero in and recounts his feelings on reading about his posthumous honoring. Here’s a slice:

I am sitting in my home away from home, Panera Bread. The traffic outside is all jerky bumpers and tire shrieks. A bummy dude with an expensive laptop sprawls a seat five feet from me. I finish reading this moving post on the Marine Corps and continue my duck hunt through the web for interesting stories to share. Posts, articles, pictures that capture me, waiting for me to do the same to them.

Then this story waves at me and I know I have to salute a great hero:

A Marine who died from a roadside bomb in Afghanistan was awarded the highest honor given to members of the Corps for his heroic actions as he hurled his body into a fellow serviceman and warned the rest of the his squad of the blast.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said Tuesday that 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Donald Hogan is “now part of Marine lore along with the great heroes of the Corps” as he presented the fallen hero’s parents with the Navy Cross. He said his actions placed him among the “bravest and finest” in the Marines.


Semper Fi indeed.

In our non-Council category, the winner was a must read piece by an old favorite of mine, terrorism expert Dave Gaubatz writing in Family Security Matters on howMuslim Children in America are Being Taught to Hate submitted by The Political Commentator.

Eventually, we’re going to wake up to what’s happening right under our collective noses as a new generation of American Muslims is indoctrinated by people who definitely mean us no good.

Here are this week’s full results. Only New Zeal was unable to vote this week and was affected by the infamous mandatory 2/3 vote penalty:

Council Winners

Non-Council Winners

See you next week! And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that!

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Watcher’s Council Nominations: State Of Obama Edition

on Jan 25 2012 | Filed under: Nominations.


Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.

Council News:

This week, Liberty’s Spirit, The Independent Sentinel, Ask Marion and Capitalist Preservation took advantage of my generous offer of link whorage and earned honorable mention status.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

Simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address ( which won’t be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category, and return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week.

It’s a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members. while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

So, let’s see what we have this week….


Council Submissions

Honorable Mentions

Non-Council Submissions

Enjoy! And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that!

Share

5 Comments »

The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watcher’s Council Results

on Jan 20 2012 | Filed under: The Council Has Spoken!.


The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.

The election approacheth, and as expected the usual suspects are already touting the wondrous accomplishments of Our Dear Leader.

This week’s winner, Sard at The Right Planet’s The Talking Points Meme examines some of these claims and takes them apart with a fine eye for detail and hyperbole. Here’s a slice:

Here we go again … the ole leftist talking points meme! The Progressive never tires of it. If you want to try this at home (the Talking Points Meme that is), just string a series of hyperbolic, fanciful, unsubstantiated claims together and then challenge the listener to respond. I believe the purpose of this technique is analogous to running someone over with a freight train.

And what’s up with the British guy meme? Does he do the Geico ads too? Could we not find an American? Or does it make the inflated assertions sound so much more erudite if it comes in the form of an English accent? Maybe he works for the Chatham House. But I digress–so many amazing accomplishments. Where does one start?

Well, let’s start at the beginning … shall we?

Our TPM talking point friend (the British guy) alleges seven major accomplishments Obama has achieved during his years in Office, if my math serves me correctly.

TPM guy alleges Obama …

  1. Killed Osama
  2. Ended the war in Iraq
  3. Contained Iran
  4. Repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT)
  5. Reigned in Wall Street
  6. Prevented a 2nd Great Depression
  7. Passed landmark legislation–Obamacare

The Killing of Osama Bin Laden

“It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it… anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”–Douglas Adams

President Obama’s decision to take out America’s most-wanted–Osama Bin Laden–was hardly what I would call “controversial.” Honestly, what U.S. president in their right mind would not take out the world’s most notorious terrorist who perpetrated the worst terrorist attack in the history of our nation if given the chance?

I could act like a main-stream, liberal journalist and ask why the President delayed his decision for so long? Or why we never got to see the body of Bin Laden? Or why Osama was given a sailor’s burial at sea? Or how this opens a dangerous new chapter in American foreign policy in regard to the sovereignty of other nations? How many trees were burned and innocent animals killed during the illegal raid? What about noxious fumes being released into the atmosphere from burning helicopters? Won’t this lead to an increase in Climate Change? Yeah … I will leave all the speculation to the hyperbolic types of the main-stream media.

But the main point, as far as I’m concerned, is the notion Obama killed Osama. Yeah, right! Barack the brave Ninja warrior leaped from a burning helicopter riding his skateboard in, with nunchucks in tow, to engage Osama Bin Laden in mortal hand-to-hand combat. PUH-lease! I think we know who killed Osama–SEAL Team 6, and the U.S. Military and intelligence services that made the operation possible in the first place. The hunt for Osama had been going on long before Obama ever “made the scene.” Let’s put the credit where it belongs … NEXT!

Withdrawal from Iraq

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”–Napoleon Bonaparte

It was President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki who signed the U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement in 2008. Obama did nothing but watch SOFA take its course. For Obama and his minions to make the claim it was dear leader who ended the war in Iraq is absurd and infuriating. It is also an insult to those who served in Iraq–who did the hard work–provided the blood, sweat, toil and sacrifice; while the Left did everything it could during the Bush years to tear down any forward progress in Iraq. How about giving credit to where credit is due? It’s not going to happen with the Left–only when it suits their hidden agenda and predetermined outcomes.

Additionally, after the withdrawal of U.S. Forces from Iraq, an escalation in car bombings and violence has exploded within Iraq. It doesn’t look like it’s going to stop anytime soon, either

In our non-Council category the winner was Rep. Colonel Allen West, who had a favor to ask the president in the coming campaign: Mr. President, please don’t play the race card in 2012… submitted by Joshuapundit. Colonel West was his usual eloquent self, in spite of knowing that the president will almost certainly play that particular card. Do read it.

Without further ado, here are this week’s full results:

Council Winners

Non-Council Winners

See you next week! And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that!

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Watcher’s Council Nominations – Float Like A Butterfly, Sting Like A Bee Edition

on Jan 18 2012 | Filed under: Nominations.

Seventy years young yesterday…rumble young man, rumble!

Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.

Council News:

This week, The Independent Sentinel, Crazy Bald Guy and Capitalist Preservation took advantage of my generous offer of link whorage and earned honorable mention status.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

Simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address ( which won’t be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category, and return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week.

It’s a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members. while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

So, let’s see what we have this week….


Council Submissions

Honorable Mentions

Non-Council Submissions

Enjoy! And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that!

Share

7 Comments »

The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watcher’s Council Results

on Jan 13 2012 | Filed under: The Council Has Spoken!.


The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up of 2012, carved eternally in the akhasic records of cyberspace.

This week’s winning essay, Joshuapundit’s The Tale Of The Swine is a cautionary tale about…well I think you’ll figure it out for yourselves. Here’s a slice:

Once there was a tribe of wild pigs who lived in a remote area of the woods.

As anyone who’s spent time around pigs will tell you, they are by no means the most unintelligent of animals, and these pigs had learned to adapt quite well to their circumstances. They had fashioned dens and had gradually learned to piece together a tribal law that allowed them to work as a group when necessary to ensure an adequate if not over generous food supply, care for their young and defend themselves against any natural predators. In their little corner of the woods, they were pretty much the dominant species, and were reasonably content.

One day, a pig named Andy went missing. The others searched for him throughout their part of the forest, but they were unable to find him no matter where they looked. Andy’s fate became a major topic of conversation among the pigs. It was totally unheard of for one of them to simply disappear like that.

The pigs didn’t quite keep track of time beyond the seasons, but still by their reckoning it was some time before, to their astonishment, Andy reappeared as the leaves were turning color.

The pigs were ecstatic to see their lost tribe member returned to them..and even better, in what appeared to be rip roaring good health.

Most of the wild pigs tended to lose some weight as the weather started to turn colder and food became scarce and harder to find, but Andy was sleek, fat and obviously had been living, if you’ll pardon the expression, high on the hog. His bristles and hooves were clean, his eyes shone brightly and he was as happy as a pig in – well, you know. And much to the other pig’s surprise, he had a pretty red collar around his neck, something none of them had ever seen before.

“Wherever have you been Andy?” the other pigs asked. “We looked everywhere for you.”

“Oh, I can’t wait to tell you”, said Andy. “I’ve discovered something wonderful.”

“You know, I was chasing down some berries I smelt over by the oak trees over by our eastern border, you know the place. Well I ended up going a little past our bounds and what bad luck! I wasn’t paying attention and got my left rear trotter lodged in a tree root.”

“I tried and tried, but I couldn’t get free and I thought I might die there. But then the most marvelous thing happened. A man heard my squealing, came through the underbrush and set me free.”

In our non-Council category, the winner this week was an interesting piece by Fred Seigal and Joel Kotkin in The City Journal, The New Authoritarianism submitted by Bookworm Room . It’s an interesting look at the widening divide between President Obama and the increasingly authoritarian ‘progressives’ that support him and the rest of the more center right electorate.

Here are this week’s full results.Only New Zeal was unable to vote this week, and was affected by the 2/3 vote penalty:

Council Winners

Non-Council Winners

See you next week! And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that!

Share

3 Comments »

Watcher’s Council Nominations – The Watcher’s Birthday Bash Edition

on Jan 11 2012 | Filed under: Nominations.


Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.

Think of us as your private window of some of the very best of the blogosphere.

Council News:

This week, The Independent Sentinel, The Grouch, Liberty’s Spirit and Capitalist Preservation took advantage of my generous offer of link whorage and earned honorable mention status.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

Simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address ( which won’t be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category, and return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week.

It’s a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members. while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

So, let’s take a look at what we have this week….


Council Submissions

Honorable Mentions

Non-Council Submissions

Enjoy! And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that!

Share

3 Comments »

The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watcher’s Council Results

on Jan 06 2012 | Filed under: The Council Has Spoken!.


The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for the first Watcher’s Council match up of 2012, carved eternally in the akhasic records of cyberspace.

Great ideas and eternal truths never die – or as the megilla written by Ecclesiastes put it so well long ago “There is nothing new under the sun” – because human nature never changes.

This week’s winning essay, The Noisy Room’s 2011 – Turning Our Backs on the Gods of the Copybook Headings takes an old and very prescient poem by Rudyard Kipling, applies its lessons to our present day and turns in a real cri de coeur. Here’s a slice:

Rudyard Kipling:
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

***************************************

Welcome to 2012… Buckle up because it will be one hell of a ride as Obama goes for broke and his mask comes off, displaying the full intent of his Marxist agenda. Interesting times indeed.

2011 was a year replete with Progressivism running wild in America and across the globe. A year that freedom slipped away and tyrants gathered collectively in gleeful anticipation of a coalescence of power, wealth and control. The year that many patriots woke up in America and realized they did not recognize their country any more.

Economics

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

The Keynesian economists blather on and on… Every channel you turn to, they proclaim that we are in a recovery, albeit slow, but, recovery nonetheless. And they actually think we are stupid enough to believe that. Elitist arrogance run amok.

Silly Marxists, we know the markets are rigged. All they do is go up and Americans know it is a lie. Gold and silver markets are being manipulated. Stocks are a bad joke. The dollar is junk. While firms such as IMF Global rip investors off, publicly and brutally, individual banks are stealing their clientele blind a few dollars at a time. Why? Because they can. The collective mentality dictates that you should steal all you can before the ship goes down for the last time. After all, what does it matter? Get it while you can, is their reasoning. Screw everyone, time to look out for numero uno. What they forget is that their actions will have a cost, just like it did in the days before the Russian empire came tumbling down and the KGB changed their clothes from chic jack booted thuggery, to sleek government de regeur.

We are trillions in debt here in the US. Forget untenable, it’s un-survivable. But our leaders keep printing money in a Weimar frenzy, declaring: “What inflation?” While Americans go to the store and weigh what they can afford to eat this week as opposed to keeping the heat on.

Regulations are strangling capitalism to death and company after company is down-sizing or folding altogether. Three years into Obama’s bleak utopia and unemployment is staggering. Don’t believe the government’s numbers – they are a lie as well. Rigged to make gullible taxpayers believe things are better than they really are. Thy story is entitled Animal Farm. How very anti-laissez-faire. Welcome to 1932 redux.

I sense Cass Sunstein chuckling sardonically behind the Marxist curtain of the EPA and other agencies stealing our land, telling us what we can and can’t buy and where we can and can’t live. Herding us into cities where we can be stacked and packed and controlled. They are engineering tenement Hell.

In our non-Council category, the winner was an old Watcher’s Council favorite, Sultan Knish with The Year We Lost Afghanistan, Etc. submitted by The Political Commentator.

Here are this week’s full results.New Zeal was unable to vote this week, and was affected by the 2/3 vote penalty:

Council Winners

Non-Council Winners

See you next week! And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that!

Share

3 Comments »

Watcher’s Council Nominations – Post Hawkeye Head To Head Edition

on Jan 04 2012 | Filed under: Nominations.

Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.

Council News:

This week, The Independent Sentinel, The Grouch,Crazy Bald Guy, Knowledge Creates Power and Capitalist Preservation took advantage of my generous offer of link whorage and earned honorable mention status.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

Simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address ( which won’t be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category, and return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week.

It’s a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members. while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

So, let’s see what we have this week….


Council Submissions

Honorable Mentions

Non-Council Submissions

Enjoy! And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that!

Share

5 Comments »

The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watcher’s Council Results

on Dec 30 2011 | Filed under: The Council Has Spoken!.

Welcome to the last Watcher’s Council posting of 2011! We’d like to wish all of you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

Seeing as 2012 is just around the corner, I polled some of our illustrious Council members to get their picks on some of the most notable people and events of the past year:

The Noisy Room: Person of the Year: Glenn Beck.

Event: Passage of S 1867 – NDAA

Rhymes With Right- Person: Paul Ryan, for his efforts to totally remake medicare and place it on firm financial footing.

Event: Obama’s Illegal Undeclared War In Libya. Yes, it ended the Qadaffi regime, but at what cost to the Constitutional order here in the United States?

Right Truth- Tim Tebow

The Razor – Person: Turkish PM Recep Erdogan. Turkey’s pivot to Islam away from secularism is going to reverberate through the region for years.

Event: The Japanese tsunami. I’ve never seen any natural disaster like it and the videos were some of the most chilling I’ve ever seen. Popping Bin Laden is a close 2nd.

Bookworm Room- Person: Obama in a negative way; Tim Tebow in a positive way.

Events: The Euro’s collapse and/or the withdrawal from Iraq, an ignominious retreat from a war we actually won.

Simply Jews – Person: Muammar Qadaffi

Event: Stems from A) – guess what ;-)

The Colossus of Rhodey – Person(s): Arab “Spring” participants who’ve fooled the media around the world into thinking they’re democrats but in reality are just more Muslim fundies.

Event: Japanese tsunami and subsequent nuke reactor destruction.

Glittering Eye – Person: For notable individual I’d pick Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian fruit vendor whose self-immolation was the spark that ultimately overthrew the government in Tunisia and lead to the upheavals in Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Syria and elsewhere in MENA that are being called the “Arab Spring”

Event: I think that Scott’s got it right on the notable event; the tsunami that struck Japan.

The Right Planet – For most notable person: Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer

For most notable event: Japanese Tsunami. Tens of thousands killed and radiation to boot. What a horrible disaster. Bustin’ a cap in Osama would be my second too. I’m with Scott on this one. Of course our debt has now surpassed our GDP. That’ll probably be next year’s most notable event–financial collapse.

The Mellow Jihadi – Notable Person: SEAL Team Six

Notable Event: Arab Spring

Joshuapundit- Person: Rep. Col. Allen West

Event: A toss up between our retreat from Iraq and the Tsunami.

And now, without further ado, let’s move on to this week’s winners.


This week’s winner, Bookworm Room’s A case regarding citizen journalists proves, once again, that bad facts make for bad law dealt with the case of a blogger who was successfully sued for libel and the implications of that legal ruling. Here’s a slice:

When I first saw the headline — “A $2.5 Million Libel Judgment Brings The Question : Are Bloggers Journalists?” — I have to admit that I felt a bit queasy. When I write something snide about President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, or any of the other prominent Democrats I routinely criticize at this site, am I exposing myself to massive liability? Well, probably not, because they’re public figures and we have enormous latitude to criticize them. But what about a post I might write criticizing, not a political figure, but a local businessman. Can he sue me . . . and win?

The answer, it seems to me, is that Mr. Businessman is just as likely to win against blogger as he would have been if, in the old days, I sent nasty letters to the editor, distributed flyers or otherwise widely and impugned his character. If my statements are true, I win. If they’re false, I lose. I would have been at risk in the old days and I’m still at risk in the new if I choose to shout out lies from an electronic rooftop.

So why is the $2.5 million dollar libel judgment an issue? Because the blogger in question sought to protect herself by claiming that she was a journalist, not a blogger. She therefore contended that Shield Laws allowed her to hide her sources while successfully protesting her innocence in a defamation lawsuit. When the judge said she wasn’t a journalist, bloggers got nervous. After all, we bloggers consider ourselves a “new media,” providing information that the old media, usually for political reasons, often leaves on the cutting room or newsroom floor. What’s unnerving is that, if we’re not journalists, even when we scrupulously present facts, we’re still at risk of litigation, something that has a very chilling effect even on the most honest writer.

As is so often true with legal cases, though, the details should be comforting — and this is true despite the fact that I think the judge committed a definitional error that must be redressed. This case, though, is not going to be the one that makes correcting that legal error easy, because the facts really militate against the blogger. By any standard, Crystal Cox, the defendant against whom the district court judge imposed the $2.5 million libel judgment, was not making any effort to conduct herself according to journalistic norms. Instead, Cox was the journalistic equivalent of a vexatious litigant.

In our non-Council Category, this week’s winner was a masterful piece by Victor Davis Hanson , A Vandalized Valley submitted by The Noisy Room.it deals with what is happening in California’s Central Valley,once one of the richest and most fertile farmlands in America. And classicist that he is, it’s Vandals VDH is talking about, as in the fall of Rome. Do read it.

Here are this week’s full results:

Council Winners

Non-Council Winners

See you next year! And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that!

Share

2 Comments »

Watcher’s Council Nominations – Buh-Bye 2011 Edition

on Dec 28 2011 | Filed under: Nominations.


Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.

The New Year fast approaches and 2012 is just around the corner..the year of the Dragon, a time of energy, change and important decision in Chinese Astrology.

Council News:

This week, Ask Marion and The Pagan Temple took advantage of my generous offer of link whorage and earned honorable mention status.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

Simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address ( which won’t be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category, and return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week.

It’s a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members. while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

So, let’s see what we have this week….


Council Submissions

Honorable Mentions

Non-Council Submissions

Share

3 Comments »

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