Watcher's Council Nominations 3/21/07

Every week, the Watcher's Council members 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




COUNCIL NEWS: Sadly, Jimmy Bise at the Sundries Shack is leaving the Council. I've truly enjoyed his take on things and will miss his input. From what I hear, he plans a new direction for his site, and I'm sure it will be worth checking out.

If any of you are interested in applying for the vacant seat on the Council, apply to the Watcher here.

OK, here's this week's Council lineup:

1. J O S H U A P U N D I T: Move it, yah big baboon! - or, scenes from the class struggle in South Africa... Oh well..there goes the neighborhood!

2. Done With Mirrors: Baited and Hooked Callimachus has one of usual strong entries and writes about the `mea culpa' attitude of a number of people on the Left who supported the war...and why it's important, regardless of the past, that we finish it.

3. Soccer Dad: Cappuccinos for peace? From Soccer Dad, a nice paen to human entrepreneurship and inventiveness....in this case, an Ethiopian who is using the detritus of war to make coffee machines! And then, Soccer Dad moves in for the kill, reminding us that the price of an M-16 could support 100 Palestinians for a year, based on the sob story figures provided by the UN! Could the Palestinians have peace for the price of a cup of coffee? Gotta love it.

4. Right Wing Nut House : SCANDAL HYSTERIA GRIPS THE CAPITOLHere, Rick examines the non-scandal surrounding the firing of US attorneys by AG Alberto Gonzales.

He quite rightly parses this as the non-scandal it is..imagine, the Bush Administration had the nerve to fire political appointees and hire others! And these particular political appointees didn't even work for the White House Travel office...


5. The Glittering Eye: Skills, Employment, and Energy Use This week, The Glittering Eye's Dave Schuler writes on
the relationship between the skills level of the labor force, the percentage of employment, taxes and what he calls fixed costs and energy use in the US...and uses it to make a point about oil consumption and dependency.


6. Rhymes With Right: Somebody finally noticed Here, Greg comments on some of the absurdities inherent in the No Child Left Behind Act. Odd and sad, to say the least that someone who billed himself as the `education president' would team up with someone like Ted Kennedy to foist this on the country...instead of school choice, which would have solved these problems quite nicely.

7. The Colossus of Rhodey: Muslim cashiers refuse to touch pork Here, Hube takes on the case of Muslim cashiers at Target who refuse to ring up alcohol or pork products. As he rightly points out, Target legally must merely make `reasonable accommodations' for their employees' religious beliefs..which in this case, involved wearing gloves or transferring to other jobs.


8. Voting for the Supremes: Bookworm Room This week, the erudite Mrs. Bookworm examines the current presidential sweepstakes and makes the cogent point that a major point for conservatives to consider is that the new president will be appointing Supreme Court justices, and vote accordingly.


9. Eternity Road: The American Ideon: Its Decay And Restoration Francis examines the state of what he calls the American Ideon - what I would call our sense of ourselves as a nation. He concludes, as I did in my piece The March of Folly , written just after the 2006 elections that this was a necessary purging, and a time to consolidate, to build, return to first principles and to gird ourselves for the struggle and the hard choices ahead.


10. The Education Wonks: The Bad Seed: 13-Year-Old Andrew Riley - EdWonk discusses the case of a 13 year old charged with allegedly committing 128 felonies, including beating up the child who turned him in!

Now, maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that we have here a kid who's exhibited unusual potential..I mean,getting away with this much stuff before being caught is pretty awesome for a kid his age, and he obviously has the ability to plan and to act decisively. Sounds like the kind of human material we need in our military, or maybe we have a real life Jack Bauer in the making, who properly channeled, directed and socialized.....OK, I'm kidding. Half.

11. Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “The Contranomics of Global Jihad” Dafydd Ab Hugh has an interesting post this week that looks at the contretemps between Iran and Russia over completion of Iran's nuclear facility at Bushehr. He posits that the main reason the Russians are pulling the plug is only partially because of economic reasons and more because the Russians fear having to spend billions to deploy troops on the border of a nuclear Iran.

I agree with him, to an extent....although I really do think that Iran missing payments is a greater weight. The Russians, after all have built Iran's conventional military, and it's not an exaggeration to say that the Mullah's purchases (along with Saddam's and a few other clients) rescued the Russian arms industry from oblivion.

If they've suddenly come to their senses about the monster they've helped create, that's all to the good. Even Stalin eventually learned thatlesson.

His points about Iran's economic weakness are well taken, and regular members of Joshua's Army will recall that I took a somewhat detailed look at Iran's crippled economy last August. However, I think that Iran's economy is a force pushing it towards war rather than the reverse. The Mullahs have to expand or stagnate and perhaps even lose power which, generally speaking is how Islam has operated for the last 1500 years - plunder or perish.

That's this week's lineup..enjoy!