News you can use from the Watcher’s Council

I’ve been so buried with work (and I keep reminding myself that it is good to be buried with work), that I’m forgetting other, equally important obligations, such as giving you the news about the most recent vote over at the Watcher’s Council. It was stunningly good week for articles and, frankly, my submission didn’t stand a chance (although someone was nice enough to vote for it, so it wasn’t a complete flail).

On the Council side, first place went to Done with Mirrors for Carrolling, which examines a fatuous James Carroll column that, in a ham-handed way, tried to draw lessons (all negative) from American history.  Carroll, of course, is no match for Callimachus.  Second place belonged to Joshuapundit for Texas Gang Rape and Murder Case Puts America’s Sovereignty In Jeopardy.  In it, Joshuspundit examines murders that illegal immigrants committed on American soil, in which the Bush government is backing the claims of 50 illegal immigrants who demand their instant release from various prisons and death rows on the ground that they weren’t advised that they could contact the their own consulates.

On the “other” side, first place, by a large and deserved margin, went to Dumb Looks Still Free for The Problems and Course of Rebuilding in Iraq. It’s a fact-packed, really interesting analysis of infrastructure problems in Iraq.  Second place saw ShrinkWrapped’s MSM Bias and Pallywood: Incompetence or Malice?, which examines the really profound ignorance (or malice?) that allows media types constantly to mischaracterize “news” from the Palestinians. And in third place was my nomination, from the Brussels Journal, When Heidi Met Mehmet in the Meadow, which looks at Switzerland’s immigration problems (something that resonated with me, since my Mom lived in Switzerland in the 30s, and I’ve visited Switzerland at periodic intervals over the last 20 years, including a visit at the beginning of this year).