Every week, the Watcher's Council nominate two posts each, one from the Council members and one from outside for consideration by the whole Council. The complete list of this week's Council nominations can be found at the site of our fearless leader, Watcher of Weasels
Watcher's Council News: We've had another change in the Council. Replacing Gates of Vienna is self-proclaimed curmudgeon Francis W. Porretto at Eternity Road. A fine site..check him out.
Here's this week's lineup, the opening salvo for 2007:
1. J O S H U A P U N D I T: Saddam Hussein in Hell. This week, my own reaction to both Saddam Hussein's execution and the dinosaur media's coverage of it.
2. Done With Mirrors: Hypocrites Last week's winner Callimachus writes about the hypocrisy of the dinosaur media in damning any connection by Bush, however feeble, of Iraq and 9/11 while at the same time being totally willing THEMSELVES to do so in making a point about the US death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan surpassing the 9/11 death toll this week.
3. Soccer Dad: Dingell-ling Soccer Dad writes this week about congressman John Dingell(d-MI),the prospective head of the important House Energy & Commerce Committee, and a little history on how Dingell abused his position to harass a respected scientist.
Another interesting fact about Dingell(and Soccer Dad may know this but didn't mention it)is that,like and John Conyers, rep. Dingell is one of that select group of 30 or so congressmen who routinely vote against Israel,national defense and any sort of security legislation that might inconvenience some of his Arab constituents.
Welcome to the new order.
4. Right Wing Nut House: RELIGION AND POLITICS: INTOLERANCE IS GROWING Hmmmm.Respectfully, I'll reserve comment on this, except to state that I think that equating Evangelical Christianity and Islam as a threat to our liberties is an exercise in fantasy. A well writtenpiece, as always from Rick..but one I have major disagreements with.
5. The Sundries Shack: Bipartisanship? Tee Hee! Here, Jimmie Bise writes about the new congress and the attempts by the Democratic majority to muzzle the opposition.
I expected no less..and I think we will see a number of agenda driven investigations and attacks from these people. Hopefully, I'm mistaken, given the seriousness of the world situation.
6.Rhymes With Right:Hidden Truth About Arafat Revealed Here, Greg writes about a story that I've meant to get into...the recent declassification of a State Department report showing that Yasir Arafat directly gave the orders to kidnap two US diplomats snatched from the Saudi embassy in Khartoum, Sudan. They were held as hostages to exchange for Palestinian terrorists held in the US and Israel, including Sirhan Sirhan, Robert Kennedy's murderer ( which should provide some enlightenment to anyone who thinks Sirhan was a crazed loner who`acted alone').
When the US refused to deal, Arafat ordered the diplomats to be tortured to death.
Those diplomats were disfigured so badly that they were only able to be identified by their fingerprints.
This murder has been common knowledge to many ever since it was revealed by a Soviet KGB defector, and the State Department, and presumably the White House, knew this for 33 years but covered it up by classifying this report, just as they knew that Arafat personally gave the order for wheel chair bound American citizen Leon Klinghoffer to be thrown into the sea from the deck of the Achille Lauro.
Yet presidents Carter and Clinton continued to receive this man as an honored guest at the White House and to fund him...just as Bush receives and funds his deputy, Mahmoud Abbas, today.
7. The Glittering Eye The house always wins Here, Dave writes about risk..and how we might just need a bit more in our society.
8. AMERICAN FUTURE - :The Mysterious Mr. Ritter Marc has an interesting expose' of one time UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who is now shilling a book, "Target Iran" that says that the pro-Israel lobby is ginning up things for a war with the mullahs.As if Iran hasn't been in a de facto state of war with us for thirty years!
Actually, Ritter isn't that mysterious..he just has his finger in the wind. There's a real stream of opinion in the west that if we just give the crazy jihadis Israel, they'll stop bothering us. So we have Jim Baker's Iraq Study Group, Jimmy Carter, and the Walt/Mearsheimer screed on the `Jewish Lobby'. Nowadays, bashing Israel and the Jews is how you get invites from the Arabs and American universities to speak for large fees,get on the Sunday shows and get your fiction sold.And it works especially well if it dovetails with your existing prejudices.
9. Andrew Olmsted : You Keep Using That Word...An amusing piece by Major Andrew Olmsted on words and their meanings to different people, as he continues last week's examination of blogger hilzoy's partisan argument that Democrats are fiscally responsible while Republicans are not.
I liked the `secure the building' joke BTW, Major!
10.The COLOSSUS OF RHODEY: I like John Scalzi Hube just finished a book by sci-fi author John Scalzi and tells us all about it...
11. The Education Wonks: 1984 All Over Again?
EdWonk writes about iris scans as a means of keeping track of children, and sarcastically notes `what's coming next? A tamper free national ID card?
12. Eternity Road: Nuremburg, 2006? In his debut post with the Council, Francis examines the Saddam Hussein trial and makes an interesting comparison with the post WWII Nuremburg trials.
That's this week's lineup..enjoy
3 comments:
I believe you are mistaken about the theme from Right Wing Nut House. He isn't saying that Evangelical Christianity and Islam are an equal threat to our liberties. Indeed, he even states that
"For I actually agree with some of the left’s critique of the religious right and their drive to impose their beliefs on the rest of us, although I think the threat is vastly overstated for purely political purposes", thereby implying that he doesn't regard Evangelical Christianity as a mortal threat.
What he's really trying to say is that some conservatives are using religion as a reason for intolerance against Islam, and that they paint Islam with one brush. You can agree or disagree with that, but it has nothing to do with Evangelicals being as much a threat as Islamists.
Not the way I read it, but you could be right.
Indeed, I hope so!
Perhaps I was influenced in my analysis by Rick's column last week.
I was aware of that; it just was beyond the scope of my posting. I am still amazed by the number of liberal supporters of Israel who see Democrats as being more sympathetic to Israel than Republicans. And let's not forget that former Michigan Rep. Dave Bonior, who's extremely anti-Israel (possibly even more so than Conyers), made it to minority whip.
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