Two weeks of Watcher’s Council winners
Life’s been a little crazy, so I managed to miss two weeks of Watcher’s Council winners. I’m combining both into this post. You can see them below the fold:
Winners for April 22:
The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.
“Holly came from Miami F.L.A.
Hitch-hiked her way across the U.S.A.
Plucked her eyebrows on the way
Shaved her legs and then he was a she…” – Lou Reed, “Walk On The Wild Side”
“All men are liars, said Roberta Muldoon, who knew this was true because she had once been a man.” – John Irving, “The World According to Garp”
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” – Aldous Huxley
This week’s winning essay,Bookworm Room’s It’s time for conservatives to take advantage of the Left’s reality denial Focuses on what she sees as a the Left’s reality denial…the fashionable confusion over what’s male and what’s female, what’s right and what’s wrong, and who gets free speech and who doesn’t particularly in our universities. Here’s a slice:
I finally got around to watching last week’s 60 Minutes, which had a segment devoted to Schuyler Bailar, a person who got admitted to Harvard as to swim on its women’s swim team, but who had breast removal surgery over the summer and presented at Harvard asking to swim on the men’s team. Harvard, reeking of political correctness (you can see oleaginous pride oozing off of the interviewed coaches), agreed, which infuriated me. Schuyler, as a woman, would have set breaststroke records deserving of a place on a highly competitive swim team. Schuyler, as a man, is a chubby, hip-heavy slow poke, who routinely comes in last.
Given that I loathe Harvard, why does this infuriate me? Shouldn’t I be cheering anything that lowers Harvard’s standing in the world?
Well, in theory, yes. In fact, though, I think it just stinks that, in the name of political correctness, some deserving young man with good grades and a fast breaststroke couldn’t get into Harvard (presuming, as I do, that such a man exists) because chubby little Schuyler got his place. It seems to me that if Schuyler wants to play with the big boys, Schuyler should also have to play by big boy rules — one of which is, if you’re really slow, you’re not on the team.
As far as I’m concerned, Schulyer’s gender “bait and switch” is tantamount to committing fraud against Harvard, although Harvard is happily complicit in its own victimization. Thinking in terms of fraud, though, has legal ramifications. If there is no reality anymore — in other words, if reality is shaped by our subjective desires rather than by any objective “facts” (and isn’t “facts” such a silly, old-fashioned word?) — we truly have entered a brave new world legally.
Once you start down that road, it’s a short stop to rethinking entirely the latest chapter in the Left’s despicable and un-American efforts to stifle free speech and association. I’m speaking, of course, of the lawsuit that 20 Democrat attorney generals have launched against ExxonMobile for “fraudulently” denying climate change. In the course of this litigation, the same attorney generals are attacking any conservative institutions that are speaking out against these Stasi tactics:
[U]nder the pretext of combatting fraud, these officials, clothed in immense power, have started what can only be termed a campaign of intimidation against businesses and organizations advocating a thoughtful, cautious approach to public policies dealing with man’s role in impacting the global climate.
Begun by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, and followed-on by California AG Kamala Harris, this effort started by looking at the efforts of ExxonMobil in dealing with proposals that would have a tremendous impact on the energy sector in the United States. Among their concerns were the research and education organizations that ExxonMobil may have supported.
Schneiderman and Harris were soon joined by another eighteen attorneys general — and when this effort was questioned by CEI’s Hans Bader in January, CEI found itself to be the target!
Last week, Claude Walker, the AG for the U.S. Virgin Islands, subpoenaed the donor records for CEI — sending a clear signal to both CEI and its donors that such dissent simply will not be tolerated.
Let’s be clear here: Exxon has a fundamental right to support whatever non-profit organizations it wants to, and to do so privately. CEI has a right to accept donations from any U.S. Citizen or U.S. company it wants to. Both have the right to keep their donations private, a right that is protected under the First Amendment, and enshrined in the Supreme Court’s 1957 NAACP v. Alabama decision.
As it happens, after practicing law for almost three decades, I know a little bit about fraud: A fraud claim requires some semblance of objective fact as the standard by which to measure the defendant’s actionable deviation from those facts. Thus, an essential element in any fraud claim is the existence of a “material fact” as to which the defendant lied.
Much more at the link.
In our non-Council category, the we had a three way tie for first place between Caroline Glick’s Obama’s Political Legacy submitted by The Noisy Room, Andrew McCarthy’s piece in Pajamas MediaPay Attention! While Primaries Distract, Obama Shreds Constitutional Governance submitted by Nice Deb , and David P. Goldman (AKA Spengler) withTo be kind is to be cruel, to be cruel is to be kindsubmitted by Bookworm Room .
According to our bylaws, on such occasions I get to put on my Watcher’s hat and break the tie, which in this case means I have two Council members peeved at me instead of just one. Well, they don’t pay me the big bucks for nothing…
David Goldman’s ‘To Be Kind is To Be Cruel’ is yet another one of Spengler’s masterful pieces. His take on how Islamofaschism uses the West’s humane impulses against it to intimidate and ultimately subjugate it as well as how to combat this tactic should be required reading for anyone at all interested in turning this tide and saving our freedom. I had no problem picking it as this weeks’ winner in our non-Council category.
Here are this week’s full results: Fausta and Puma By Design were unable to vote this week, but were either unaffected or not subject to our usual 2/3 vote penalty for not voting. Two other members voted partially, one whom picked only a first choice in both categories and another who did not pick a second choice in the Council category.
Council Winners
- *First place with 3 votes!–Bookworm Room – It’s time for conservatives to take advantage of the Left’s reality denial
- Second place with 1 2/3 votes – Nice Deb – Survey: What British Muslims Really Think
- Third place with 1 1/3 votes –Stately McDaniel Manor – An Educator’s Dilemma: Whoa, That’s Disturbing!
- Fourth place with 1 vote –The Noisy Room – Rush Limbaugh: ‘BEST DIRTY TRICK I’VE EVER SEEN!!’ Ted Cruz Silenced In New York
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –The Glittering Eye –Keep Your Enemies Closer
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –The Razor – The North Carolina Boycott – The HB2 Hypocrites
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Puma By Design – New York State Primary: Chaotic!
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –The Daley Gator – Trump And The Politic Of Victimhood
- Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote –VA Right! – Mechanicsville Walmart Profiled, Discriminated Against Young White Couple
- Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote –Fausta’s Blog – The Carnival Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean
Non-Council Winners
- First place with 2 votes! –David P. Goldman (AKA Spengler)/Asia Times–To be kind is to be cruel, to be cruel is to be kindsubmitted by Bookworm Room
- Second place *t* with 1 2/3 votes –Andrew McCarthy/Pajamas Media –Pay Attention! While Primaries Distract, Obama Shreds Constitutional Governance submitted by Nice Deb
- Second place *t* with 1 2/3 votes –Caroline Glick –Obama’s Political Legacy submitted byThe Noisy Room
- Third place with 1 1/3 votes – Simply Jews – Israel To Europe: Can We be Of Assistance?submitted by The Watcher
- Fourth place with 1 vote – Defining Ideas –The Climate Wars Get Ugly submitted by Stately McDaniel Manor
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes –The American Interest – Democrats, Not Republicans, Have Moved on Immigration submitted by The Glittering Eye
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes –al-Monitor – Is Hamas on the offensive or defensive?submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes –The Investigative Project On Terrorism – How Radicalization Was Allowed to Fester in Belgiumsubmitted by VA Right!
- Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote –Anthony Fisher/Reason.Com –Saudi Arabia’s Alleged 9/11 Connection Just One of Many Reasons the U.S. Ally is a Problem submitted by The Razor
- Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote –OGN – How Do Syrian Women Feel about the Men Leaving for Europe as Refugees? submitted by The Right Planet
- Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote –Christopher Caldwell/The Federalist – Why Vladimir Putin’s People Love Him submitted by The Watcher
Winners for April 29:
The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.
“As an American liberal with impeccable credentials, I would like to say that political correctness is going to kill American liberalism if it is not fought to the death by people like me for the dangers it represents to free speech, to the exchange of ideas, to openheartedness, or to the spirit of art itself.” – Best selling author Pat Conroy
“Those who make conversations impossible, make escalation inevitable.” – Stephen Molyneux
“The idea that you have to be protected from any kind of uncomfortable emotion is what I absolutely do not subscribe to.” – John Cleese
This week’s winning essay,Staely McDaniel Manor’s Progressives: Bayoneting Their Wounded is his account of exactly what goes on in academia at your typical Orwellian White Privilege and Male Bashing conference, this one ironically held in Philadelphia where our freedoms began! Here’s a slice:
As regular readers will doubtless remember, I have often written about leftist ideology. Paramount in leftist thought—such as it is—is the principle that leftist policies, no matter how idiotic on their face, no matter how spectacularly and often they fail, can never be wrong. They’re not wrong; the people who thought they were wrong were mistaken. This unfortunate tendency to double down on disaster was nowhere in greater evidence of late than at the 17th annual White Privilege Conference held in Philadelphia.
I was not aware that there had been 16 prior conferences, but that omission is no doubt due to my white privilege. And to think: I’ve been missing out on 16 years of self-flagellation for working my buns off my entire life and believing the world owed me nothing at all, despite my general blue-eyed, pale-skinned whiteness.
One would think such a conference would be a safe and diversity-friendly place, however, as John Belushi used to say: “but noooooooooooooo! Consider the horrific reality from participants of the conference, courtesy of heatst.com:
Even at the White Privilege Conference, blatant, brutal racism runs amok! It’s just like Democrat-controlled cities: they’re all cesspools of racism, sexism, and violence. And imagine the horror of this:
Certainly no white person of the same gender and approximately the same size, shape and hair color—brown—has ever been mistaken for another white person. And imagine the unimaginable horror of this:
It’s almost unfathomable. POC and indigenous ppl come to their very own white people bashing conference and find themselves unsafe! Who coulda thunk it? But the horror was just beginning:
The disaster of understanding culminated in the keynote speech, delivered by Jim Loewen, a demonstrably progressive sociologist, respected professor of African American Studies and perhaps the country’s leading expert on racism in the deep south during the Confederacy and beyond. Little did Prof. Loewen know, as he was delivering his speech, that his very act of speaking to the audience was cause for concern.
Imagine the consternation of poor Professor Loewen, a man who doubtless imagined himself an intolerant, politically correct, perpetually outraged progressive, a man ashamed of his own privilege and whiteness, when people at the White Privilege conference, a conference whose premises he unquestionably believed and took to heart, was accused of white supremacy. And for what? Allegedly running over the time allotted for his speech about white supremacy:
But wait a white privileged moment! He didn’t go over his allotted time; so what’s the problem?
Of course. The facts don’t matter. The accused must lay down and accept the death sentence. Aeriel A. Ashlee was completely wrong, but because she’s non-white, she has absolute moral authority and can’t possibly be wrong. The issue is that Professor Loewen is demonstrating his white privilege defensiveness instead of accepting responsibility for what he didn’t do wrong. Progressive ideology cannot possibly be wrong!
But it’s even worse, gentle readers, than we, with our white privilege, can possibly imagine. Professor Loewen used the “N” word!
More at the link.
In our non-Council category, the winner was Andrew McCarthy with First, Let’s Get the Facts on Saudi and Iranian Involvement in 9/11 submitted byJoshuapundit. Commenting about the pending bill in congress to allow the families of victims of 9/11 to sue the Saudi government for what appears to be it’s obvious complicity, he comments that great nations do not address acts of war with lawsuits. That is, unless your president is George W. Bush. He wants us to get the facts about Iranian and Saudi complicity and then decide how to proceed.
For what it’s worth, Iranian complicity in the 9/11 attacks is already proven fact and verified by a US federal court decision, something I wrote about some time ago. That two U.S. presidents, including our current one knew about this and did nothing about it is a clue as to why Iran has no respect for America anymore. Especially when that attitude was underlines by President Barack Hussein Obama’s blatant appeasement of the islamo-fascist regime in Teheran.
Here are this week’s full results. Bookworm Room, GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD, the Noisy Room, the Razor, and The Right Planet were unable to vote this week, but all were not subject to or not affected by our usual two thirds vote penalty for not voting :
Council Winners
- *First place with 2 2/3 votes!–Stately McDaniel Manor–Progressives: Bayoneting Their Wounded
- Second place with 2 votes – Joshuapundit–When The Cannibals Eat Their Own…
- Third place with 1 2/3 votes –Bookworm Room – The infantile Left
- Fourth place with 2/3 votes –Fausta’s Blog – Mexico: Investigators call it quits
- Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote –Puma By Design – Parents demand privacy protection after school approves transgender bathroom use
- Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote –The Right Planet – Baofeng UV-5R Counterfeit Cable Madness
- Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote –Nice Deb – Bizarre New Super PAC Ad Has Kasich Winning the Nomination at Convention
Non-Council Winners
- First place with 2 votes! –Andrew McCarthy – First, Let’s Get the Facts on Saudi and Iranian Involvement in 9/11 submitted byJoshuapundit
- Second place with 1 2/3 votes –PJ Media: Klavan On The Culture –UnAmerican ESPN submitted by Stately McDaniel Manor
- Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes –Ben Shapiro/The Daily Wire –10 Signs You’ve Joined The Trump Cult submitted by Nice Deb
- Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes –38 Pitches/Curt Schilling–The hunt to be offended…submitted by The Watcher
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes –Richard Fernandez/PJ Media– The Surprising Weakness of Invincible Institutions submitted byFausta’s Blog
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes –Carolyn Zelikow/Market Urbanism – Richard Florida Should Replace The Term ‘Creative Class’ With ‘Country Club submitted by The Glittering Eye
- Fifth place with 1/3 votes – The Other McCain –Feminism: It’s about SCIENCE submitted by The Razor
See you next week!
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