Watcher's Council Nominations, 8/22/07

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


Do take the time and check out the non-Council links..they are always rewarding.


Here's this week's Council lineup:

1. JOSHUAPUNDIT - Christians And Democrats: An Open Letter To Anne Rice I've always loved Anne Rice's writing,and happened to run across a piece on her website endorsing Hillary Clinton for president. What I found fascinating was her view that Senator Clinton and the Democrats have the answer to what she refers to as `the horror of abortion' and that the Democrats best reflect her belief in the Gospels as a believing Christian.

After reading it, I took the opportunity to write her an open letter on what she had to say that covered these topics and raised what I saw as a few inconsistencies and questions. I then e-mailed her a copy of what you see here.To her credit I actually received a reply, but Ms. Rice chose the option of keeping her reply to me private.

Why does she think Senator Clinton and the Democrats have the answer to abortion and what did I have to say to her? Click on the link and see what you think...

2. Done With Mirrors: St. Nietzsche Callimachus uses an article by philosopher Roger Scruton to look at the legacy of Nietzsche and Wagner for the West in the 19th Century as a cauldron to examine the nature of faith and religion. Or, as Cal puts the question, is religion the cause of violence and sexual obsession or the solution to it?

If we leave Islam out of the discussion, I think Nietzsche and Wagner's spiritual heirs, the Nazis answered that question quite succinctly.


3. Soccer Dad:The Economic War On Terror Soccer Dad writes a fine piece on a WAPO article by Robin Wright that looks at the proposed sanctions on Iran and the proposed labeling of Iran's Republican Guard as a terrorist organization.

Aside from the fact that her article is riddled with inaccuracies ( Ahmadinejad did not `rise up from the Republican Guard', but from Iran's SA, the basiji) Ms. Wright is inadvertently correct for all the wrong reasons, IMO. Russia,China and the Islamic bloc will prevent sanctions from achieving any meaningful impact.

Moreover, Iran's Pasduran,(the Republican Guard) are not `terrrorists' in the usual sense of the word. They are part of the armed forces of a nation that has oficially been in a state of war with the US since 1979, has acted accordingly and continues to wage its war against us.

We ignore that at our peril, and it's time we dealt with it as we would any other nation engaged in hostilities with us.

4. The Glittering Eye :Iwad Allawi's Stump Speech This week, The Glittering Eye's Dave Schuler does a good job of fisking a WAPO editorial by Iraqi politician and probable PM wannabe Iwad Allawi. I think Dave is entirely correct in thinking that Allawi is making a pitch for US support for a takeover with him installed as the new Iraqi leader, and also correct to have a certain amount of skepticism about his plans for Iraq as written in the op-ed.

I would also say, however, that Maliki has proven to be an absolute disappointment and a tool of Iran, as I predicted from day one. If our political success in Iraq is going to match our military success, there needs to be a substantial change. Now that the Brits are weaseling out at a particularly bad time and turning Basra over to the Shiite militias backed by Iran, something's got to give.


5. Bookworm Room: Papa Giuliani Ms. Bookworm takes a good look at the uses of some of the candidates spotty marital and family histories as political fodder.

While the political use of such things has always been a fact, its become much more common place and egregious today, thanks to the meltdown of political morality and the increased length of time political campaigns are lasting nowadays.

6. Rhymes With Right: Noriega Rips Cornyn For Representing Texans The Way They Vote
Greg delves into local Texas politics with this one, writing about local Democrat Rick Noriega's criticism of Senator John Cornyn's voting record. As Greg points out, Cornyn's votes mirror the sentiments of the vast majority of his constituents.

Yet another Democrat with contempt for democracy, I see...

7.Colossus of Rhodey: A Misguided College Senior Hube writes about an unfortunate piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer by a local college senior on how the violence in the inner cities is `the fault of racism'.

Perhaps the highly privileged young man ( who has likely never experienced racism) merely needs a new prescription. I suggest he take one book by Thomas Sowell and one by Larry Elder and read them...and call me in the morning if his symptoms haven't improved.


8. Cheat Seeking Missiles: God's Warriors? Laer does a fine job taking apart a CNN puff piece by Islamist apologist Christiane Amanpour on religiously inspired terrorism that seeks to equate Islam's murderous jihadis with `God's Jewish Warriors' and `God's Christian Warriors'...phrases Laer claims she actually had the temerity to use repeatedly during the broadcast.

As Laer points out, there are hardly any Christians who would call an abortion clinic bomber a `martyr' or any Jews who would use "Jewish warrior" to describe the handful(with a few fingers left over) of Jews in Israeli society who resort to quid pro quo terrorism against Arabs..whereas, with Islam, such accolades and approval are far more widespread because, like it or not, they are justified by a fairly conventional and mainstream reading of what's in the Qu'ran and the hadiths.

9. On Science, Fashion & Being PC at Okie on the LamThis week, Okie writes J. Michael Bailey, a psychologist at Northwestern University, who has a hypothesis about transgender women that is diametrically opposed to the current PC views and has apparently been vilified for it.

10. Right Wing Nuthouse: Is The United States An Imperialist Power And Does It Matter? Rick's piece this week is essentially a beat down on one of his favorite targets, leftist blogger Glen Greenwald. Suffice to say that it's a pretty one-sided bout.

The US experimented with imperialism back in the early 20th century, after the Spanish American War and realized two things: (a) we didn't like it much, and (b) it was a lot cheaper and more profitable to let the `natives' rule themselves and concentrate on buying and selling with them, perhaps with a few strategic military bases as needed.

It took `sophisticated' Europeans centuries to find this out the hard way.


11.The Education Wonks: The Spellings Report: Margaret Heads South EdWonk takes on US Education Secretary Margaret Spellings elephantine pronouncements and has a few harsh and entirely justified things to say about her.

Remember when President Bush said he was going to be the `education president'?

12. Big Lizards: Horrific Nineveh Bombing Shows Counterinsurgency Working Daffyd writes about the horrendous homicide bombing in Ninevah that victimized between 250 and 500 Yazidi Kurds, and makes the argument that the location and nature of the attack show thatGeneral Petraeus's strategy is bearing fruit.


That's this week's lineup..enjoy