Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Watcher's Council Nominations, 2/11/09



The Watcher's Council is a group of some of the most incisive blogs in the`sphere. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one of their own and one from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.

So, let's see what we have this week....and do check out the Watcher's take on what he refers to as the treason of the Senate...


COUNCIL

Joshuapundit - “60 Minutes” Libels Jews And Israel For years the Saudis and others have invested millions in America for the purposes of disinformation regarding Israel and the Middle East. While this hasn't yet born fruit in most of America , it's definitely caught on with a lot of America's Leftist elites, who now eagerly push this message into America's classrooms, media and in this case, its living rooms.

I do my best here to show exactly why this biased bit of 'journalism' shows that these days, facts are whatever fits the agenda. And that agenda may very well be to prepare the ground in America's public opinion for the day when the Israelis decide not to cooperate with their own national suicide 'for peace' and tougher measures to force them to go along with the program might be necessary...as Obama's new NSC adviser Susan Powers has suggested.


Bookworm Room - Economic incest - Ms. Bookworm provides a short explanation on elementary economics that our Harvard and Columbia educated president seems to have missed. Translation? This kind of 'economic incest' means we're screwed. ( sorry, Ms. B..couldn't resist)

The Provocateur - ACORN and Alinsky Rule #13 - Mike gives us a primer on how ACORN operates.

Rhymes With Right - MSNBC Host Calls For Gagging, Deporting, GOP Dissenter - The dogs bark and the caravan moves on. Of course in this case, since we're talking about Keith Olberman, perhaps we should say jackals instead of dogs.

As Bernard Goldberg revealed, the head of MSNBC confessed to him that the station made a conscious decision to abandon serious news and 'go left' because there was a market there. One wonders whether the noises the Democrats are making about the fairness doctrine will apply here as well.

As for what Olberman had to say, like many of his utterances this reveals that fascism and totalitarianism are actually creations and manifestations of the left, not the right as popularly supposed.

The Razor - Spending Bill: $200,000 per job - Sigh...Scott puts out the numbers on the 'stimulus' plan. But since almost all of the jobs created are government programs that will have to be paid for through taxes on non-governmental business and employment, I wonder if we're actually 'creating' any jobs at all.

Bernard Madoff's big mistake was apparently not working for the government.

Cheat-Seeking Missiles - Fair Treatment of Prisoners - Laer makes what I think is an excellent point about the treatment of prisoners.

The original purpose of the Geneva Conventions was to provide a quid pro quo as an incentive between civilized nations: if you adhere to certain guidelines in warfare and you treat your prisoners humanely,you can expect your adversaries to do the same in return.

This gentleman's agreement largely failed during WWII with the totalitarian regimes of the Germans and the Japanese, as any veteran of that conflict will tell you. With the likes of al-Qaeda, the Taliban and similar adversaries, there is not even an attempt by our adversaries of meting out humane treatment or respecting our rules of war, since they operate by an entirely different code.

That the Angry Left insists on the proprieties being observed by the West but not by our enemies should be taken as clear evidence as to whom they're rooting for to win. When the owner and main writer for one of the most prominent Leftist sites greets the torture and lynching of four non-combatant civilian contractors in Falujah with the words " Screw them...they're just mercenaries" and another prominent Leftist group gives the people that perpetrated it over half a million dollars while they're still shooting at our troops, that pretty much tells the story...

The Glittering Eye - Why What, When, and How Matters in a Stimulus Package - Dave's take on the stimulus package is interesting because he attempts to justify at least some parts of it in economic terms, and he urges that spending and infrastructure projects be debated in a second bill.

If the primary purpose of the stimulus was economic, he might have an argument.Since,based on what's in it, the 'stimulus' is primarily a payoff to President Obama's political allies and since the Democrats are unlikely to strip it of those provisions, I don't think he does, at least not in the non-ideal world.

The Colossus of Rhodey - “Hate speech” definition expanding again - Hube notes that certain groups want the mere discussion of any issue involving race or ethnicity to be a 'thought crime' worthy of punishment by the FCC and other powers that be. And they're getting a serious hearing.

Right Truth - Battle for the soul of America - Debbie mentions a number of troubling items in her piece that indicate that we might very well be.

Soccer Dad - Voting for war - Soccer Dad dissects a particularly stupid column by the WAPO's Jackson Diehl. I'd be amused to see how tolerant Mr. Diehl, Tom Friedman and others of his ilk would be towards 'negotiations' if someone was shooting Qassams and Grad missiles at their tony townhouses and co-ops and their children's schools.

I have a feeling that a single paint nick on Diehl's Prius or broken window on his digs would have him screaming like a deranged chihuahua for the most bloodthirsty revenge - as long as someone else did the fighting.


Mere Rhetoric - Austrian Jews Too Terrified To List Their Children As Jewish (Plus: Europe Reaches An Anti-Jewish Tipping Point) - Omri notes that the temperature for Jews in Europe has gotten distinctly chillier.


NON-COUNCIL


Submitted By: Bookworm Room - American Thinker - Change: The First Three Weeks

Submitted By: Joshuapundit - Nat Hentoff/Cato Institute - The Cost Of Criticizing Jihadists

Submitted By: The Provocateur - CNBC - Why Markets Don’t Like the Bailout

Submitted By: Rhymes With Right - Debbie Schlussel - What Would Lincoln Do?: Celebrating Eternal Welfare Queen John Dingell; Anti-Israel Rep. Doesn’t Live Up to the Daddy My Grandpa Knew

Submitted By: The Razor - Roadsassy - Truth Be Told: Calling a Spade a Spade

Submitted By: Cheat-Seeking Missiles - TCS Daily - Multiplier Madness

Submitted By: The Glittering Eye - Norm Geras - One-Eyed in Gaza

Submitted By: The Colossus of Rhodey - Reason.com - The Next Catastrophe

Submitted By: Right Truth - Chesler Chronicles at Pajamas Media - Conventional versus Non-Conventional Warfare and Why Israel Did Not Lose in Gaza

Submitted By: Soccer Dad - Israel Matzav - Clenching Israel’s Fists

Submitted By: Mere Rhetoric - Augean Stables - Time Magazine and Palestinian Sources: On the Origins of Modern Blood Libel



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