Watcher of Weasels » The Council Has Spoken! http://www.watcherofweasels.org Keeping an eye on the weasels of the world Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:33:41 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watcher’s Council Resultshttp://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-36/ http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-36/#comments Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:31:56 +0000 JoshuaPundit http://www.watcherofweasels.org/?p=3421


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.

The so-called Arab Spring is rapidly turning into an Arab winter. And as this week’s winner, Joshuapundit’s The New Egypt – Bankrupt And Sinking Fast writes, it’s not likely to be a pleasant time in Pyramid Land:

All hail the wondrous Arab Spring!

It is one year ago today that the protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square began that ended in the fall of the Mubarak regime. It was fitting that President Obama mentioned it last night in his State of the Union Address, since he had a major role in that ‘wave of change’, calling for Mubarak’s ouster and signalling to the Egyptian military whom now control the country which way to turn.It’s well worth examining how things are going.

The parliamentary elections have been held, and the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and the hard core Salafist al-Nour Party won – surprise!- over 75% of the seats.The FaceBook and Twitter liberals in places like Cairo and Alexandria everyone in the West was so in love with proved to be a negligible political force, and Egypt is likely headed towards an Islamist Republic as soon as the proper arrangements are made with the Army.

The Army originally had ideas of a government that had little civilian control over the military or is it’s budget, ala’ the old Turkish model. In response, Islamists played their cards quite cleverly, gradually fomenting discontent against military rule and instigating violent riots after Friday prayers over the military’s refusal to turn over power to a civilian government. The riots resulted in a harsh series of crack downs that effectively turned the military from the people’s heroes during the Revolution into oppressors and the chief villains opposing ‘democracy’. Between September and the end of December, something like 100 demonstrators were killed by the Army and police, while hundreds were injured and arrested.

The military junta’s tactics also turned the Brotherhood and the Salafis into heroes, and the election results show how effective their tactics were. The Egyptian military will almost certainly have to make the same devil’s bargain with the Islamists that the Iranian military did.

So Egypt is likely headed towards Islamist rule, but the country’s future is looking increasingly grim. Egypt’s economy is essentially collapsing from within.

After the Lara Logan gang rape and the widespread scenes of unrest, most of Egypt’s tourism industry is dead, and the rest will likely collapse as soon as the Islamists take power and put sharia law in place to outlaw alcohol, bikinis and mixed bathing on beaches.

Increased sectarian violence against Egypt’s Coptic Christians, who largely supported the Revolution, is ensuring that a large group of Egypt’s more prosperous and educated citizens are emigrating in droves.

Investors are unwilling to buy Egyptian bonds even at double digit interest rates, which means that Egypt’s ability to borrow is being cut to the bone. No one wants the Egyptian pound. The only Egyptian bonds anyone wants to buy are dollar-denominated treasury bills. After the results of the last election, currency flight has become a major problem, as anyone with money is stashing it overseas as fast as they can in euros or dollars, preparing for a relocation out of the country.

In our non-Council category, we had a tight race, but in the end the winner was Alisina.org for What Is My Identity? submitted by Joshuapundit. What’s it about? I suggest you go read for yourself and make up your own mind. I guarantee you won’t be unaffected by 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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]]> http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-36/feed/ 2 The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watcher’s Council Resultshttp://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-35/ http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-35/#comments Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:50:48 +0000 JoshuaPundit http://www.watcherofweasels.org/?p=3416

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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]]> http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-35/feed/ 6 The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watcher’s Council Resultshttp://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-34/ http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-34/#comments Fri, 20 Jan 2012 07:17:48 +0000 JoshuaPundit http://www.watcherofweasels.org/?p=3410


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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]]> http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-34/feed/ 5 The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watcher’s Council Resultshttp://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-33/ http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-33/#comments Fri, 13 Jan 2012 07:06:14 +0000 JoshuaPundit http://www.watcherofweasels.org/?p=3405


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!

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]]> http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-33/feed/ 3 The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watcher’s Council Resultshttp://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-32/ http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-32/#comments Fri, 06 Jan 2012 06:21:50 +0000 JoshuaPundit http://www.watcherofweasels.org/?p=3395


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!

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]]> http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-32/feed/ 3 The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watcher’s Council Resultshttp://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-31/ http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-31/#comments Fri, 30 Dec 2011 09:38:07 +0000 JoshuaPundit http://www.watcherofweasels.org/?p=3387

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!

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]]> http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-31/feed/ 2 The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watchers Council Resultshttp://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-30/ http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-30/#comments Fri, 23 Dec 2011 07:32:59 +0000 JoshuaPundit http://www.watcherofweasels.org/?p=3376


Christmas is just around the corner, and I and all of my colleagues here at the Watcher’s Council want to take this time to wish you a merry and blessed Christmas,with all the warmth and happiness that goes with this time of year:

But wait, there’s more!

Christmas Day just also happens to be special for another reason…it’s the birthday of our own Dave Schuler, The Glittering Eye!

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20081113004808/uncyclopedia/images/9/9c/Birthday_Candles.gif

Now, I’ve known Dave in an online sense ever since I first became part of the madness known as the Watcher’s Council, and I’ve never ceased to appreciate his good humor, his renaissance approach to a myriad amount of interests, and his willingness to lend a hand when needed. Most of all, he’s put up with me all this time…many happy returns,Dave!

But wait, there’s still more…


The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and yes, we have this week’s Watcher’s Council winners!

This week’s winner, The Noisy Room’s Syria – The Tipping Point Into Hell was an excellent examination of exactly why America intervening in Syria’s civil war is a really bad idea, especially since the Muslim Brotherhood is now spearheading the Syrian opposition. Here’s a slice:

Ask yourself, what happens if we intervene in Syria? Nothing good will come of it. As the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine raises its rough countenance and swivels its sights towards Syria, America should pause and consider where this road leads. Straight to a world war drawing in Iran, Russia and China, courtesy of the Obama administration and its thuggish goons.

I have no love for the Ayatollahs and the whack jobs that rule Iran. War with them is almost a foregone conclusion, primarily because we never had the backbone to take out their nuclear ambitions or smack them for their terrorist forays. That confrontation is coming and will rock the world. However, sticking our nose into Syria as we did in Libya, will poke the badger, so to speak. You won’t free Syria from a tyrant, you’ll solidify Islamic radicalism and embolden it. Iran will not let it go, they are vested in Syria and will step in to dance with us almost immediately. Russia is using Iran for all they are worth and will back them in conflict, as will the Chinese. That’s your formula for the war to end all wars, considering how Obama and Panetta have neutered a great deal of our military muscle. It will also get many Christians slaughtered in Syria, but our Marxist-in-Chief cares little about that I would wager.

Think of Russia as the Mob and Iran as one of their enforcers. Russia is angling for control in the Middle East and Europe. You would not want to play Risk with these guys, trust me. They will let the Islamic extremists do their dirty work by invading, warring and wiping Israel off the map. When Russia is done with them, they will attempt to put the Islamists down. Who will win? Well, Russia has might, but Iran has insane religious fervor. They are willing to take everyone out to win. My money is on the Jihadists, but that roll of the dice is anyone’s guess. Let’s pray it never gets that far, but it sure looks like it’s progressing in that direction. I suspect in the end, the Chinese will be there to claim whatever is left, if anything is.

So, why would we stick our nose once again where it does not belong? Power, control and delusion. The Progressives always believe they will come out on top and in control. But they are not the biggest dog in this fight and they will get the crap kicked out of them by the big boys in Russia, Iran and China. And there are no do-overs in this game.

I understand Syria is murdering their own. That is evil and heinous, but nothing we do will change Islamic rule there. Either Iran will win or the Muslim Brotherhood will. Both are horrific and both are very bad for us. Both sides of that coin are our enemies, make no mistake about it. Pushing the so-called Arab Spring there is just enough to really stir the war pot.

We had a tie this week between two must read entries in our non-Council category. One was by Friedrich Hansen in The Brussels Journal entitled A Brief History of Liberty for the OWS Crowd submitted by The Political Commentator, which was exactly what it sounded like, a scholarly attempt to explain the roots of our political liberty.

The other was Sultan Knish‘s Mr. Islam’s Blindfold and Machete submitted by Right Truth.

As is usual in these cases, I had to put on my Watcher’s hat and break the tie. While the Brussels Journal piece was erudite and well written, ultimately Sultan Knish’s visceral imagery won me over.

Here are this week’s full results. Only New Zeal was unable to vote this week, but was not 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!

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]]> http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-30/feed/ 3 The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watchers Council Resultshttp://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-29/ http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-29/#comments Fri, 16 Dec 2011 06:53:08 +0000 JoshuaPundit http://www.watcherofweasels.org/?p=3371

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

The anniversary of Pearl Harbor and some of the nonsensical politically correct verbiage out there about how Evil America interned the Japanese touched a chord in this week’s winner, Bookworm Room’s My Mother’s War, Courtesy Of Pearl Harbor . As a contrast, Bookworm Room shares with us how her mother and others under Japanese occupation in Java were treated when they were interned by the Japanese. Here’s a slice:


In 1941, my mother was a 17 year old Dutch girl living in Java. Life was good then. Although the war was raging in Europe, and Holland had long been under Nazi occupation, the colonies were still outside the theater of war. The colonial Dutch therefore were able to enjoy the traditional perks of the Empire, with lovely homes, tended by cheap Indonesian labor. All that changed with the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Most Americans think of Pearl Harbor as a uniquely American event, not realizing that it was simply the opening salvo the Japanese fired in their generalized war to gain total ascendancy in the Pacific. While Pearl Harbor devastated the American navy, the Japanese did not conquer American soil. Residents in the Philippines (American territory), Indonesia (Dutch territory), Malaya (British territory), and Singapore (also British) were not so lucky. Each of those islands fell completely to the Japanese, and the civilians on those islands found themselves prisoners of war.

In the beginning, things didn’t look so bad. The Japanese immediately set about concentrating the civilian population by moving people into group housing, but that was tolerable. The next step, however, was to remove all the men, and any boys who weren’t actually small children. (Wait, I misspoke. The next step was the slaughter of household pets — dogs and cats — which was accomplished by picking them up by their hind legs and smashing their heads against walls and trees.)

After this separation, the men and women remained completely segregated for the remainder of the war. The men were subjected to brutal slave labor, and had an attrition rate much higher than the women did. Also, with the typical Bushido disrespect for men who didn’t have the decency to kill themselves, rather than to surrender, the men were tortured at a rather consistent rate.

One of my mother’s friends discovered, at war’s end, that her husband had been decapitated. This is what it looked like when the Japanese decapitated a prisoner (the prisoner in this case being an Australian airman):

Japanese execution0001


The women were not decapitated, but they were subjected to terrible tortures. After the men were taken away, the women and children were loaded in trucks and taken to various camps. The truck rides were torturous. The women and children were packed into the trucks, with no food, no water, no toilet, facilities, and no shade, and traveled for hours in the steamy equatorial heat.

Once in camp, the women were given small shelves to sleep on (about 24 inches across), row after row, like sardines. They were periodically subjected to group punishments. The one that lives in my mother’s memory more than sixty years after the fact was the requirement that they stand in the camp compound, in the sun, for 24 hours. No food, no water, no shade, no sitting down, no restroom breaks (and many of the women were liquid with dysentery and other intestinal diseases and parasitical problems). For 24 hours, they’d just stand there, in the humid, 90+ degree temperature, under the blazing tropical sun. The older women, the children and the sick died where they stood.

There were other indignities. One of the camp commandants believed himself to have “moon madness.” Whenever there was a full moon, he gave himself license to seek out the prisoners and torture those who took his fancy. He liked to use knives. He was the only Japanese camp commandant in Java who was executed after the war for war crimes.


Not exactly “Farewell to Manzanar”, was it?

In our non-Council category, we had some particularly good entries this week, and the winner was Barry Rubin for Middle East: We’re Going to Have a Revolution and We Can Do it the Hard Way or the Easy Way submitted by Joshuapundit. Professor Rubin gave us an excellent piece on how the Muslim Brotherhood sees the near future as they look towards gradually taking control of a large chunk of the Middle East.

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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]]> http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-29/feed/ 3 The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watchers Council Resultshttp://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-28/ http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-28/#comments Fri, 09 Dec 2011 07:25:07 +0000 JoshuaPundit http://www.watcherofweasels.org/?p=3366


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

Of late, there’s been an interesting phenomenon evident. President Obama, who got 78% of the Jewish vote in 2008 has lost a substantial amount of that support and is now apparently trying to recoup it by misreperesentingt his treatment of our ally Israel on the one hand and attempting to blame Israel for the failure of the peace process and delegitimize its government on the other, depending on what audience he’s facing. And he’s even using top level cabinet officers like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to do it. This week’s winner, Joshuapundit‘s Heart Of Darkness; Obama’s Campaign To Make Israel A Scapegoat And Fool America’s Jews examines this campaign in detail. Here’s a slice:

The Obama Administration is obviously very concerned about its fading support among America’s Jews. And to counteract it, there’s a subtle but growing campaign going on to convince America’s Jews that not only is the president the most pro-Israel in history, but that it’s those ungrateful Jews in Israel that caused the death of the so-called peace process and cause all the rampant Muslim Jew hatred rather than President Obama’s arrogant, amateurish and deceitful behavior. And the president and his handlers are using committed foot soldiers who are either Jews or people posing as ‘friends’ of Israel to do it.

The president, speaking in front of a fundraiser to group of American Jews in the Manhattan home of Obama donor Jack Rosen,the chairman of the American Jewish Congress made this incredible statement: “I try not to pat myself too much on the back, but this administration has done more for the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration. We don’t compromise when it comes to Israel’s security … and that will continue.”

A whole chorus of the administration’s allies has come out full force to echo this fantasy.

For instance, the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, recently told a conference hosted by the European Jewish Union that Israel was to blame for Muslim Jew hatred :

“A distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians,” Gutman reportedly said, according to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. “He also argued that an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty will significantly diminish Muslim anti-Semitism.”

According to the account in the Israeli paper, “The legal experts at the event were visibly stunned by Gutman’s words, and the next speaker offered a scathing rebuttal to the envoy’s remarks.”

Gutman apparently never read the Qu’ran or the Hadiths and is clueless as to the real roots of Muslim anti-Semitism, which predates the re-establishment of Israel by centuries.

But of course, Gutman is infinitely qualified for his post as ambassador, having bundled $500,000 in 2008 for Obama, according to OpenSecrets.org.

In our non-Council category the winner was Andrew McCarthy’s – Fears And Smears submitted by Joshuapundit, an excellent takedown of the ‘Islamophobia’ all purpose label.

Here are this week’s full results. Only New Zealwas unable to vote 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!

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]]> http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-28/feed/ 4 The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watchers Council Resultshttp://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-27/ http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-27/#comments Fri, 02 Dec 2011 08:51:20 +0000 JoshuaPundit http://www.watcherofweasels.org/?p=3361


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

This week’s winner, Joshuapundit’s Rats in the Kitchen: A Parable is a parable indeed. Rather than try to describe it, I’ll just provide you with a slice, let you head to the link to read the whole thing and allow you to draw your own meaning from it:


Once, there was a man who had to deal with rats when he had a major infestation in his home.

The rats’ normal environment became unable to support them all, and they began coming down from the hills looking for new digs… and decided they liked the man’s house. They were perfectly happy to hunker down in the attic, garage and basement with free access to the goodies in the kitchen and pantry. And once they had moved in and saw what rich booty was to be had, they were determined to take over.

At first the problem wasn’t evident. The man would see an occasional rodent scurrying around in the basement, and being a live and let live sort, it never bothered him too much.

As more and more rats began showing up, their presence became much more noticeable. The man made an effort to understand the rats and their needs. The thought even crossed the man’s mind that he and his neighbors, by living in the area, owed it to the rats to try and coexist peacefully.After all weren’t they entitled to live on the planet too?

The man talked to a local expert on rats, who owned a pest control business. The expert warned him that he had to get rid of the rats now, and act decisively when things were at an early stage, or he would be faced with a major problem in the future. The man listened politely, but thought `well, this guy has his own agenda…after all, he makes his living scaring people about rats. I don’t see it as any kind of major problem yet…nothing that can’t be handled.’

So he tried what he thought was the most compassionate way out, taking bread and putting it out in the fields, figuring that the rats would be satisfied with that and leave. No luck..having learned to enjoy the basement and access to the goodies in the pantry and the kitchen within, they weren’t content to scrounge in the fields any more. Next he tried purchasing a number of those electronic gizmos that claim to drive rats away using high frequency sound. Not only didn’t they work, but the rats became even more blatant and bold. The high-pitched electronic sound drew them like an Islamic prayer call or a rock concert.

And as the rats became more bold, they began coming into the house at will. And their numbers continued to increase.

In our non-Council category, we had the unusual situation of a three way tie, which means I had to pick the winner as Watcher. And it wasn’t easy choosing between The Passing Parade’s OWS IT GOING, AND IT SHOULD GO FASTER submitted by Simply Jews, a hilarious send up of the OWS movement versus small town America;Sultan Knish’s The Myth of the Arab Spring Underdog submitted by The Noisy Room,the Sultan’s fine exposition on why the West’s sympathy for the Arab Spring protesters is largely misplaced; and Caroline Glick’s Calling Things By Their Proper Names submitted by The Political Commentator, in which the always scintillating Ms. Glick writes on how President Obama’s Middle East policies are shuffling the cards there – and not in our favor.

All three of these pieces are must reads, frankly. But I have to admit, still being indignant over how the mayor and city council of Los Angeles endorsed the OWS movement there based strictly on Democrat party politics and cheerfully allowed them to break the city’s laws with impunity, I simply had to give The Passing Parade the nod.It struck home, you might say.

Los Angeles’ almost entirely Blue municipal government will spend nearly $1 million in taxpayer dollars to remove what amounted to a large, rancid trash dump created by the OWSers next to City Hall, pay for the police and other personnel involved and reconstruct a public park. They have no respect for the city they’re in charge of or the people they govern whatsoever.

http://wiki.urbandead.com/images/c/cf/Rant.gif

OK, OK, rant over. 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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