The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watcher’s Council Results 03.08.13

JoshuaPundit on Mar 08 2013:

The Council Has Spoken!, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.

There’s an old saying, attributed to Albert Einstein that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.” That includes how we react as a society to certain warning signs repeated over and over again.

This week’s winner, Joshuapundit’s “Yes We Can” – Al-Qaeda’s English Mag Publishes Wanted Dead or Alive List is a reaction to what amounts to a hit list by al-Qaeda’s “Inspire” magazine, and a few questions it raises we ought to be asking. Here’s a slice:

Memri, the Middle East Media Research Institute has the latest edition of Inspire, al-Qaeda’s English language magazine. This edition features a ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ hit list of targets for ‘crimes against Islam’ , with the heading ‘Yes We Can’ and ‘A Bullet A Day Keeps the Infidel Away’. (h/t, The Weekly Standard)

The list includes Molly Norris, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Flemming Rose, Morris Swadiq, Salman Rushdie, Girt Wilders [sic], Lars Vilks, Stephane Charbonnier, Carsten Luste, Terry Jones, and Kurt Westergaard.

Geert Wilder, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Salman Rushdie, Terry Jones and Kurt Westergaard are likely familiar to you. Wilders, Ali, and Jones are noted critics of Islamism and sharia, Rushdie is still under a fatwa by the Iranian mullahs for writing The Satanic Verses, and Westergaard is one of the cartoonists who drew the famous MoToons.

Molly Norris’ huge crime was to initiate a project called ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day’ after the fracas ( which included a suspected terrorist attack) over a South Park episode that didn’t actually depict Mohamed, but made fun of the Islamo-seethe over the subject.

A fatwa was subsequently issued by a number of adherents of the Religion of Peace, and our own FBI claimed they couldn’t protect her and advised her to go into hiding. Molly is an American citizen whose rights are presumably protected by our Constitution. That apparently counts for nothing next to appeasing Islam in today’s America. She’ll be hiding and living in fear the rest of her life.

Fleming Rose was the editor of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten that originally published the MoToon cartoons. He’s already had a couple of close calls, as has Kurt Westergaard.

Lars Vilks is a noted Swedish artist who did a series of drawings of Mohammed. Swedish art galleries who planned to exhibit them were hit with numerous threats of violence and backed out, but the drawings were published in a couple of Swedish newspapers. While Swedish authorities refused to comply with demands from Swedish Muslim organizations that he be arrested and jailed, fatwas were issued, including one from the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq which has offered a bounty of $150,000 for his murder. There have been several attempts to earn it. While our FBI told Molly Norris to fend for herself, the Swedes at least defended his rights as a citizen and put Vilks under police protection. He will need it for the rest of his life.

In our non-Council category, the winner was Victor Davis Hanson’s Why Do Societies Give Up? submitted by Joshuapundit. Professor Hanson is at his finest in answering how that question has been answered historically. Do read it.

OK, here are this week’s full results:

Council Winners

*First place with 3 1/3 votes! Joshuapundit – “Yes We Can” – Al-Qaeda’s English Mag Publishes Wanted Dead or Alive List
Second place *t* with 2 votes – The Razor – Conservative Proposals for New Taxes
Second Place *t* with 2 votes – Simply Jews – Peter Beinart on Chuck Hagel: deterrence and involvement
Third place with 1 1/3 vote – Bookworm Room –Parents are good for children, and children are good for parents (especially selfish parents)
Fourth place *t* with 1 vote –The Noisy Room – Prepping Idaho: Zombie Apocalypse – UFO Alien Invasion Exercises Conducted by FEMA
Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – The Mellow Jihadi – English and Svensk Jihadis
Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Glittering Eye – The Conclave
Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD! – Sino Drones
Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Gay Patriot – The president who prefers campaigning to governing
Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Rhymes With Right – Why Do Liberals Measure Obama By What They Believe To Be The Lowest Available Standard?
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote –The Colossus of Rhodey – Mark Waid — What a “Tolerant Progressive!”
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Right Planet – One Year Later: Remembering Breitbart

Non-Council Winners

First place with 2 2/3 votes! – Victor Davis Hanson – Why Do Societies Give Up? submitted by Joshuapundit
Second place *t* with 1 2/3 votes – Mark Steyn – Government-by-fake-disaster-movie submitted by The Watcher
Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Thin Pinstriped Line – Is the end of the Aircraft Carrer nigh? The rapid decline of the ‘carrier navies’ submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
Third place*t* with 1 1/3 votes –Hit And Run Blog – The Most Openly and Transparently Thin-Skinned Administration in History submitted by The Glittering Eye
Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes Tom Doran/Jewish Journal – Why I Am A Zionist submitted by Simply Jews
Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Sultan Knish –The Road to Oligarchy submitted by The Noisy Room
Fourth place with 1 vote – American Thinker – Dangerous Times: How Euro-socialism Set off a Fascist Bomb submitted by The Political Commentator
Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Commentary – How to Save the Republican Party submitted by The Razor
Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Breitbart.Com – Reich:Tea Party ‘Conspiracy To Undermine The Government of The United States’ submitted by Rhymes with Right
Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Bergheim Follies – Why I Drink submitted by The Mellow Jihadi
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -AE Ideas – The president who cried ‘Sequester!’ submitted by Gay Patriot

Honorable Mentions

Ask Marion – They Eat Their Own… Even If Just As a Diversion
Maggie’s Notebook – Yes Drones Can See You and Your Weapon – Remember Rodney Brossart?
Liberty’s Spirit – What the Hagel Debacle Teaches Us @ Our Dysfunctional Political System
The Pirate’s Cove – Washington Post: Hey, You Warmists Are Idiots And Fighting The Wrong Battle

See you next week! Don’t forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week’s Watcher’s Forum, as the Council and their invited special guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day and with short takes and weigh in…don’t you dare miss it. And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter…..’cause we’re cool like that!