Good stuff to read today *UPDATED*

I’ve been writing this post for over three hours now, with an unending stream of interruptions. Some days are just like that.

I started out my morning cleaning my already very clean car. I’m not a car cleaning obsessive by any means. However, today is the day the inspection company comes by to check the car — which is leased — so that we can return it. So, having already taken it to the car wash, I appointed myself the “detailer” and have been trying to give it that little extra polish. I’m a little disheartened, though, because during the night, someone gouged a big chip of paint off the back of the car — and I know it was last night, because I had looked the car over yesterday in connection with the first round of cleaning. Sigh….

Since then it’s been phone call after phone call after phone call. Between calls, laundry, dishes, tidying, and even a smidgen of legal work.

Anyhoo, I’ve had reading time, but not writing time this morning. That reading time, though, has been enough for me to assemble a vast amount of good material for you.

First off, of course, are the Watcher’s Council winners. On the Council side, first place, by an overwhelming number, went to Wolf Howling for First Moves in an Existential Chess Match, which carefully examines Iran’s moves, our actual counter-moves and our potential counter-moves. I would recommend it for anyone seeking more information about the way in which Iran will inevitably affect our future. Second place went to Hillbilly White Trash for Does America Need a New Enemy? One Brit Thinks So…, which excellently fisks an article written by one of those writers — someone from the Right who moved Left.

On the non-Council side, first place went to Baldilocks, for It’s the “White” Church that Obama’s Talking About (UPDATED), her excellent post about Obama’s attack on religion in his bitterness speech. Second place was for a Zombie photoessay at Pajama’s Media entitled Zombie Chronicles the Olympic Torch Relay in SF.

And here’s a list of my other morning reading, in no particular order:

Thomas Lifson writes a wonderful essay about The Obama Aesthetic, in which he examines the way in which Leftist iconography swirls around Obama, whether from the grassroots (over which he arguably has no control) or directly from his own campaign.

In the, “I wish I’d said that category” (and, in fact, I have said many of these things, although not so lucidly), John Hawkin’s expounds on Seven Uncomfortable Truths For Liberals.

Paul Kengor exposes the media’s double standard when it comes to religion: religion from Democrats is good; from Republicans, bad. This is not a new notion, but Kengor writes beautifully and highlights only the most recent example of this approach.

David Brooks, the NYT’s pet conservative, has an interesting opinion piece that pays lip service to Obama’s virtues, but that really hones in on his increasing weaknesses.

Jonah Goldberg is in fine form (is he ever in any other form?) discussing the Supreme Court. For those who have their doubts about McCain — and many do and they are very valid doubts — they should consider the Supreme Court problem before abstaining from voting. If the Hillbama candidate wins, the Supreme Court will go on a trajectory that most on the Right will be very, very, very unhappy about, and I’m not just talking abortion. I’m talking about a wholesale re-do of the Constitution, without the bother of any pesky Amendments. UPDATE: For more on the Supreme Court, the difference between the Left and the Right, and the way in which a once decent legal writer will lie to make a point, read Burt Prelutsky’s review of Jeffrey Toobin’s book about the current Supreme Court.

I’m going to publish this now, because I’ve just got to get it off my screen, but I’ll revisit it in a little while with updates to more articles I’ve read.

UPDATE: Here is the amazing story of a courageous 8 year old and the horrific world of child brides or, as we in America more appropriately call it, child abuse.

David Klinghoffer examines the connection between Darwinism and Hiterlism, which is being debated again today because of Ben Stein’s new film, Expelled : No Intelligence Allowed. The latter film examines the way in which academia has shut the door on any discussions that aren’t about Darwin, and about the hostility the most famous modern Darwinists have to religion. (And one can believe in the theory of evolution without being hostile to religion. I believe in evolution, but also believe that, going backwards in time, there comes a point at which we know nothing. We do not know what started the whole thing moving, and I am not so arrogant as to believe that, in the face of that vast nothingness, we can categorically state that there is no God.)

I’m actually surprised at the debate, because anyone who has read any contemporary materials from the late 19th and early 20th century knows that the liberals of that era latched onto Darwinism with a vengeance to explain their dislike for minorities (think of Margaret Sanger). Indeed, one of the most charming novelists of that era, Jean Webster, who wrote the perennial favorite, Daddy Long Legs, also wrote Dear Enemy, which has long discussions (in a charming way) about eugenics. This was orthodox and acceptable Progressive thought.

People hadn’t liked minorities before, but felt that they were God’s creatures, no matter how inadequate, and it wasn’t man’s responsibility to re-engineer the whole situation. With Darwinism, people suddenly got the bright idea that they could re-engineer humankind to their liking, and it was a short step from Planned Parenthood (let’s stop the poor from reproducing) to Hitler (let’s destroy anything we don’t like).

For your day’s laugh, read David Kahane’s tongue-in-cheek defense of Obama in the face of all those horribly unfair fact-based attacks against him.