It’s time for me to struggle to pick the best from an always wonderful bunch of submissions at the Watcher’s Council.  See what I mean about “wonderful”:

Council Submissions

• Joshuapundit-Glorifying Evil
• Simply Jews – Tehran: HOT under the collar
• The Political Commentator – Obama: Are Jews finally catching on?
• The Noisy Room – On the Road to Armageddon – Moving Ragnarok to the Middle East
• VA Right! - For Unto Whom Much is Given
• Bookworm Room – The Narcissistic Mindset of Today’s World
• The Mellow Jihadi – Slab City, Navy Town
• Rhymes With Right – Is The Tea Party Dead?
• The Glittering Eye -Where the Wheel Hits the Road on Education
• The Razor – Automate This – The Nature of Work in the 21st Century
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – The Little Satan Paradox
• The Right Planet – Video: Obama Opposed Super-PACs, Before He Was for Them
• The Colossus of Rhodey – OK to rip the KKK; al Qaeda, not so much 
• New Zeal – “Iran’s Latin America Ties Pose Threat to US”

Honorable Mentions

• Crazy Bald Guy – Mitt vs. Newt
• Maggie’s Notebook – Obama Blames Founders: He Can’t Force Congress: Founders Make it Difficult
• The Independent Sentinel – Obama Signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Treaty & Ceded Internet Rights to the UN
• Capitalist Preservation – Attention Christians: Barack Obama is on your side

Non-Council Submissions

• Niall Ferguson – Israel and Iran on the Eve of Destruction in a New Six-Day War submitted by Joshuapundit
• Sad Red Earth – ‘Israel Firster’: Anatomy of a Smear submitted by Simply Jews
• World Net Daily/Reza Kahlili -Ayatollah: Kill all Jews, annihilate Israel submitted by The Political Commentator
• Sultan Knish –A Tale of Two Republican Parties submitted by The Noisy Room
• Big Jounalism – Credit Where It’s Due: Tablet Calls Out Media Matters, Center for American Progress, J Street on Antisemitism submitted by VA Right!
• Michael Ramirez-“We’re behind you 100%” submitted by Bookworm Room
• The Chicago Boyz –To the Lifeboats submitted by The Mellow Jihadi
• The Economic Collapse Blog – If The Economy Is Improving…. submitted by Rhymes with Right
• The People’s Cube – The Teachings of Jesus and Obama: A Reference Chart submitted by The Glittering Eye
• James Delingpole –How Green Zealots Are Destroying The Planet submitted by The Razor
• ZenPundit – Nagl: “COIN is not Dead!” submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Now Lebanon – Egypt’s Christians, post-Mubarak submitted by The Watcher
• Armed Forces Journal – Truth, lies and Afghanistan submitted by The Watcher
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali – The Global War on Christians in the Muslim World submitted by The Watcher
• Seraphic Secret – Three Notable War Movies submitted by The Watcher

When I lived in England, those who could afford to escape from government medicine by paying twice did so.  I addition to their high taxes, they bought a private insurance that I remember rejoiced in the name BUPA.  Things haven’t changed.  I don’t know why I’m on the mailing list, but I just got this announcement in today’s email:

NHS Waiting Lists Soar by 50% in the Last Year !!

Can you afford to be without Health Insurance ??

With the NHS waiting lists out of control, it’s no surprise millions of UK residents are protecting themselves with medical cover.

Premiums have dropped dramatically in recent years and are now at an all time low due to increased competition.

There are more providers and more plans available which has had an impact on price. Providers also offer more flexible underwriting terms which means helps people switch even if they have pre-existing conditions.

For many people, medical insurance may seem like a luxury that they just cannot afford to have. The reality is that medical insurance is a necessity that they cannot afford to live without.

Whether you have still not yet taken out Medical Cover, or wish to review an old one – let us do the hard work for you and compare the leading providers for you.

If you don’t have Health Insurance Click here

If you are about to renew Click here

We’re actually all familiar with this situation. Everyone pays for public schools. Thanks to unions, though, even the best public schools indoctrinate as much as they teach. The worst public schools are dangerous slums where children learn basic survival skills. Parents who want out, in addition to paying high taxes, also end up paying tuition for private schools. Poor parents, of course, are trapped, and beg for vouchers, which their elite Democrat masters deny them. (And yet they still vote Democrat. Go figure.)

Socialized anything is low-quality, crowded anything. Only the rich, who can afford to double pay, escape.

Liberals/Progressives/Democrats (the whole crew on the Left) voted for Obama in significant part because they thought he was the antidote to the wars that Bush fought.  I wonder if any of them have noticed that, on Obama’s watch, there’s actually been more war in the headlines.  To his credit Obama continued the fights in Iraq and Afghanistan for quite a while, although he destroyed that credit when he announced in advance planned “pre-victory” withdrawals, giving Islamists time to re-group and turning our troops into sitting ducks.  He also expanded the fight to include Pakistan, he took the fight to Libya, and now there is every indication that our troops will be in Syria sometime soon.  In addition, civil wars are simmering and boiling all over, and there’s no doubt that the situation between Iran and Israel will soon come to a head.

(It’s worth noting that, even if the liberals have gotten their heads out of their . . . um, whatevers, they’ve been remarkably silent.  That is, they’ve ceased entirely the incessant anti-War squawking that characterized the Bush presidency.)

Unlike those few observant liberals who might be surprised by the global war frenzy, I am not surprised at all.  First, I’m not surprised that various pots are boiling over.  A weak American president is an absent cat — which means that the war-mongering mice can play all over.  Nor am I surprised that Obama himself has escalated fights, made them more vicious and impersonal, and taken us to battlefields that Americans haven’t seen before.  There is no more aggressive fighter than a cornered narcissist.  Cowardice flees when his own sense of self is finally at stake.

I’ve got to run, so this isn’t a very well-developed post, but I just wanted to get it in writing after reading the headlines today.

Guns are the great equalizer — and nobody on the Left likes equality.  This is why the Left twists itself in knots to avoid the implications of the 2nd Amendment.  Here are Penn & Teller with one interpretation:

There’s a differing interpretation of the 2nd Amendment that also sees the comma being just as important.  During the 18th century, a militia was a people’s army, as opposed to a government’s standing army. Under that understanding, the 2nd amendment reads, “Because a people’s army is absolutely vital to protect individuals from a government’s standing army, the government may not take people’s weapons away.”  Considering that the newly founded United States had just fought a war in which the people’s militia turned its guns on Britain’s standing army, it’s not a stretch, either grammatically, historically, or vocabulary-ily, to appreciate that the language says what it means and means what it says.

Either way, the 2nd Amendment is as clear as clear can be.

As regular readers know, back in my liberal days, I was totally for gun control, a feat I managed simply by ignoring the 2nd amendment, or by saying that our government-controlled army was “a well regulated militia” (which still didn’t deal with that comma). By 9/11, I’d pretty much changed my views, but the nail in the coffin for me when it came to turning my back on gun control was Hurricane Katrina. I finally figured out then that law abiding citizens must be able to protect themselves. Also, I’d finally figured out that, in places with strict gun control, law-abiding citizens morphed into fish packed tightly in barrels, just waiting for the criminal class to come and pick them off.

There are no more aggressive religious proselytizers than atheists.  They sell their religion with ferocity and would willingly burn at the stake anyone who stands in their way.

Last I looked, the First Amendment prevented the government from creating a religion from above or interfering with someone’s religion.  It didn’t nullify God.

Apparently someone forgot to explain those simple constitutional facts to the suits running the Air Force:

The patch logo was changed after a military atheist group, the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, protested the reference to God on the patch. The patch has a saying on it in Latin, which is common for military patches, that tranlates [sic] to: “Doing God’s Work with Other People’s Money.”

The saying was then changed last month to say: “Doing Miracles with Other People’s Money.”

I find William Shatner quite amusing.  I have no idea what show this clip is from, but I find this amusing too:

Hat tip: Michal

I managed to miss most of the music from the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st Century.  Don’t ask me how.  I just did.  So I also  managed to miss Ricky Martin entirely.  Here’s how I learned about him, and one of his songs:

The other day, my husband and I watched the movie The Eagle (which started off okay and then jumped the shark so badly, I walked out on it).  As yet another part of my two decade pop culture amnesia, I had no idea who the star, Channing Tatum, was.  I looked him up and learned that he got his big break in Ricky Martin’s She Bangs video.

The next step was to find out who Ricky Martin is.  I learned that he’s a former Menudo singer (even I’d heard of that group), who developed a massively popular solo career singing Latino pop fusion songs.  I like Latino pop (great for dancing), so I checked out She Bangs.  I saw neither hide nor hair of Tatum when I watched the video, but I decided that I really liked the song.

Here’s the video.  It’s a very vulgar video, with women whose hips are so loose they look as if they’re going to disintegrate in the middle, kind of like a paper clip bent once too often.  But for those of us who like to dance (that would be me), it’s a fun song:

(If you’d like to see a less salacious version, please enjoy William Hung doing his version for American Idol.)

Believe it or not, I’m still working my way up to a matched set here. Considering how much I liked the song, it occurred to me that I might want to try a Zumba class. I understand that it’s aerobics to Latino pop music. I’d probably like it, but I have to admit that it seems too ordinary for this martial artist. Fortunately, America’s First Sergeant has a much better idea for mixing Zumba and martial arts.

And lastly, this is not quite part of the match, but related enough to belong here (it is about music and dancing, after all): The Mellow Jihadi riffs off of the vulgarity that the slightly loopy, paranoid, and hypocritical MIA managed to slip in the Superbowl half-time show.

The last two times I fisked, I was attacking solo acts.  This time, I get a triumvirate, as the three most liberal women in the United States Senate, Barbara Boxer, Patty Murray, and Jeanne Shaheen, have joined together to write an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, justifying ObamaCare’s intrusion into the realm of religion.  I cannot resist the fisk.

It was a historic victory for women’s health when the Obama administration changed the law to require private health plans to provide preventive services including breast exams, HIV screening and contraception for free. This new policy will help millions of women get the affordable care they need.

[This is simply ideology blah-blah.  Women get free stuff.  Men don't.  It hardly seems fair to me.]

Now, sadly, there is an aggressive and misleading campaign to deny this benefit to women. It is being waged in the name of religious liberty. But the real forces behind it are the same ones that sought to shut down the federal government last year over funding for women’s health care. They are the same forces that just tried to pressure the Susan G. Komen Foundation into cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood for breast-cancer screenings. Once again, they are trying to force their politics on women’s personal health-care decisions.

[The above is an impressively misleading paragraph, conflating core constitutional rights with marketplace pressures.  The ObamaCare fight is a war of religious liberty, insofar as the Obama administration, contrary to the limitation that the First Amendment imposes upon the federal government, is trying to force religious organizations to engage in practices that directly contradict core doctrinal matters.  The other fight arose from the fact that a privately funded charity wanted to stop providing money to an organization that (a) is being investigated for corruption; (b) receives massive amounts of federal dollars; (c) is one of the largest abortion providers in the country; and (d) does almost no "breast-cancer screenings" but, instead, simply refers women to other providers.  Having the facts kind of makes a mockery out the triumvirate's claim that those opposed to the ObamaCare mandate "are trying to force their politics on women's personal health-care decisions."]

We are very glad that the president has stood up to these forces while protecting religious freedom on all sides. His administration should be commended, not criticized.

[There's that new-speak again -- the president "protects" religious freedom by imposing doctrinal mandates on religious organizations.]

Contraception was included as a required preventive service on the recommendation of the independent, nonprofit Institute of Medicine and other medical experts because it is essential to the health of women and families. Access to birth control is directly linked to declines in maternal and infant mortality, can reduce the risk of ovarian cancer, and is linked to overall good health outcomes. Nationwide, 1.5 million women use contraceptives only as treatment for serious medical conditions. Most importantly, broadening access to birth control will help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions, a goal we all should share.

[Been here, done that.  This is the big lie at the heart of the Obama administration's attack on traditional religious institutions.  These harpies constantly conflate the availability of birth control with funding for birth control.  They are not the same.  Women in America can get birth control.  The government can fund organizations -- indeed, it already does with the monies that go to Planned Parenthood -- that provide all these birth control options.  Forcing religious organizations to pay for birth control, sterilization and abortifacients, however, both exceeds the government's power and contravenes the limitations the Bill of Rights imposes on government.  This is not about whether women should have birth control; it's about with the government can force churches to pay for it.]

Proper family planning through birth control results in healthier mothers and children, which benefits all of us. It saves us money too: The National Business Group on Health—a nonprofit whose members are primarily Fortune 500 companies and large public-sector employers—estimated that it costs 15% to 17% more for employers to exclude birth-control coverage, both because other medical costs rise and because of lost productivity.

[See above.  Apples and oranges.  Even accepting as true every single statement in the above paragraph, that still doesn't give the administration the right or power to force churches to fund birth control, sterilization and abortifacients.]

Contraception is not a controversial issue for the vast majority of Americans. Some 99% of women in the U.S. who are or have been sexually active at some point in their lives have used birth control, including 98% of Catholic women, according to the Guttmacher Institute. A recent survey by Hart Research shows 71% of American voters, including 77% of Catholic women voters, supported this provision broadening access to birth control.

[Ditto.]

Consistent with other federal policies, churches and other groups dedicated to teaching religious doctrine are exempted from providing this coverage under a “conscience clause.” But the law does include institutions that have historic religious ties but also have a broader mission, such as hospitals and universities. That’s also consistent with federal policy—and with laws that already exist in many states.

[Boot strapping argument here.  The second sentence assumes that the law is allowed to include institutions that aren't dedicated solely to religious activity, and staffed solely by core religious employees, and then says that, because the law includes them, therefore the inclusion is consistent with federal policy.  And, as did Sebelius, these gals wrongly look to state law, as if the states' acts give the federal government powers denied it under the Constitution.]

Those now attacking the new health-coverage requirement claim it is an assault on religious liberty, but the opposite is true. Religious freedom means that Catholic women who want to follow their church’s doctrine can do so, avoiding the use of contraception in any form. But the millions of American women who choose to use contraception should not be forced to follow religious doctrine, whether Catholic or non-Catholic.

[Nothing now prevents church employees from buying and using contraception.  They've been able to do so freely, in all 50 states, since the Griswold case in 1965.  What does exist now is a Big Rule saying that the government cannot force religious organizations to engage in acts that violate doctrine.  The First Amendment is explicit:  "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...."  Right now, there are no laws prohibiting Catholic women from doing whatever the heck they please regarding their health care and contraceptive choices.  The only difference now is that never before has the federal government had the temerity to make laws, rules, and regulations that directly implicate an establishment of religion, prohibiting it from freely exercising its faith.]

Catholic hospitals and charities are woven into the fabric of our broader society. They serve the public, receive government funds, and get special tax benefits. We have a long history of asking these institutions to play by the same rules as all our other public institutions.

[Rhetorical sleight of hand.  When it comes to playing by workplace rules, the previous rules didn't attack doctrine.  This here is a different type of rule.]

So let’s remember who this controversy is really about—the women of America. Already too many women struggle to pay for birth control. According to the Hart Research survey cited above, more than one-third of women have reported having difficulty affording birth control. It can cost $600 a year for prescription contraceptives. That’s a lot of money for a mother working as a medical technician in a Catholic hospital, or a teacher in a private religious school.

[And we're right back to the cost-shifting argument.  See my discussion, above.]

Improving access to birth control is good health policy and good economic policy. It will mean healthier women, healthier children and healthier families. It will save money for businesses and consumers. We should hold to the promise we made women and provide this access broadly. Our nation will be better for it.

[Ditto.]

I was going to wrap this up by saying I’ve seldom seen a more ignorant and dishonest piece of advocacy writing. I’ve decided, though, that it’s not ignorant. These gals know what they’re doing and what game they are playing. This is simply dishonest.  It is, however, a fine piece of writing coming from acolytes of the Constitutional law professor who now discovers, seemly for the first time in his intellectual life, that the Founders wisely wanted to limit a nascent dictator’s power:

[T]his week Barack Obama proved himself once again the perfect epigone of Woodrow Wilson—the first president to criticize the Constitution and the principles of the American Founding—with his remarks to NBC’s Matt Lauer that one reason he hasn’t succeeded in fulfilling his campaign promises to transform the world is that “it turns out our Founders designed a system that makes it more difficult to bring about change than I would like sometimes.”  It turns out?  He’s just discovering this now?  (Well, one thing that “turns out” is that the only constitutional law Obama actually taught at the University of Chicago was the equal protection clause.  Apparently he skipped over that whole “separation of powers” stuff.)

Last week, I posted a Planned Parenthood of San Francisco video that was so extreme and biased, I raised the possibility that it was a fake, intended to discredit PP.  The inestimable Zombie, bless his (or her) heart, did the leg work for me and discovered that it is the real deal.  Here are the links Zombie sent me establishing that fact:

The Religious Affiliation of Comic Book Character

Dionysus, God of Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood’s Most Recent Gaffe

Inside Planned Parenthood Golden Gate’s Building Design

Double Standard : There’s The Left, And Then There’s The Rest Of Us

I mentioned in an earlier post the interesting fact that, on my Facebook page, it is my straight friends, not my gay friends, who are the most enthusiastic supporters of gay marriage.  This is not to say that my gay friends are slacking in their support.  They just lack the enthusiasm.  For every one pro-gay marriage Facebook post from a gay friend, there seem to be two from a straight friend.  As I said, I find this enthusiasm a little surprising.  Usually, when people don’t have a dog in the fight, while they may be passively interested in the outcome, they don’t normally become actively engaged in promoting the fight.

While I was mulling this curiosity over in my mind, one of my Facebook friends (a straight one, of course) posted this image:

That sentiment is true, of course, but it also obscures the difference between supporting gay rights and animals rights.  Animals can’t speak for themselves.  If we don’t act as their spokesmen, no one will speak on their behalf.  The same is not true for members of the LGBT community.

Help me out here, please.  I am not seeking comments about the validity of the various causes within the gay rights movement.  Instead, I’m just wondering (a) why members of the LGBT movement are now being analogized to mute animals and (b) why the fever is higher in the audience (so to speak) than amongst the players themselves.