Right Wing Nut House

The Watchers Council vote was close this week. In fact, three articles, including my take on the President’s speech in Riga, tied for first place. The Watcher hisself had to break the tie with his rarely used voting privilege and in the end, I won out over the other two posts.

This post by Dymphna of Gates of Vienna on Political Correctness run amok got my primary vote this week:

The malignant organism that rips the social fabric of American life, leveling differences while it pretends to celebrate them, PC everywhere insinuates itself into the crevices, using a cover of well-meaning to create vacuous, bizzare realities like “zero-tolerance” and unattended college sports programs for women (while men’s programs are eliminated).

Pornography is our constitutional right but we shouldn’t be looking at images of the Twin Towers falling.

And Dr. Sanity got my secondary vote this week for the funny and touching story of her young daughter’s early fascination with Darth Vader. This is what happened when she invited a Vader look alike to her daughter’s 5th Birthday party:

For her 5th birthday, my husband and I arranged a special surprise visit from a Darth Vader impersonator (very realistic, with light saber and ominous breathing) who arrived in the middle of her birthday party to surprise her. There were about 10 other kids at the party. Unfortunately, it was a total and complete disaster–an event that she will likely mention in any future psychotherapy as being one of the more traumatic ones in her life. Kids started screaming and crying and running away in terror. The adults watched in horror at the sudden conversion of a happy birthday party into a frenzy of frightened and hysterical 5 year olds.

Sobbing, and gasping for breath as I held her shaking little body that day and tried to explain that it was only someone pretending to be the Sith Lord; she told me that she thought that our imitation Darth Vader had been real and that he had come to her party to kill her and all her friends.

“But I thought you liked him!” I wailed (definitely no “mother of the year” award for me).

“Mommy, I like him in my imagination. Not for real.”

All the Council posts can be found here as well as other great posts from around the Sphere. This week’s non-Council winner is “Jihad Begot the Crusades; Part 1″ from the American Thinker.

This weeks Watcher’s Vote is in and the winners are:

In the Council category, Carpe Bonum’s excellent post on the status of our forgotten hostages in Iraq entitled : “Hostages: Time for America to Act.”

And in the Non-Council category New Sisyphus’s “The Great Islamic Warrior: Stewardresses, Elementary Schoolchildren and Wounded Crash Survivors.”

Congratulations to this week’s winners!

The results are in and once again, the House is triumphant! My post on Paul Revere’s ride “Founding Brother” narrowly prevailed in this week’s Watcher’s Vote. I had to beat out some pretty stiff competition including the second place winner “NARCISSISM AND SOCIETY: Part I” from the good Doctor Sanity.

The winning non-Council post was from Terrorism Unveiled entitled “A Change in Tactics.” The runner-up was “Unholy Alliance: Mubarak & the Muslim Brotherhood” from Rantings of a Sandmonkey.
In addition to those excellent posts above, you can visit Watcher of Weasels for more excellent writing from across the blogosphere. If you’d like to participate in the vote, read and follow the instructions here.

Finally, a spot has opened up in the Council’s membership. If you’re interested in applying, read all about it here.

I’ve been remiss in announcing this week’s results from the Watchers Council Vote, perhaps because I was throwing a tantrum over the fact that newbie Glittering Eye wrote a much better post than I did and deserved to win in the Council category. Entitled “China’s Time Bombs,” the post reveals some very interesting information about China’s growing environmental problems.

And continuing with the Chinese theme, The Redhunter brings us “War with China: 2008-2012″ which won in the non-Council category. The post draws the same conclusions we did about Chinese intentions toward Taipei; the Chicoms seem to have just about run out of patience and are gearing up for war. While 2008 seems to me a long way off and Beijing may be waiting until we’re engaged somewhere else (Iran? North Korea?), that date would make a lot of sense. The Chinese naval expansion would have been completed in 2007 which would give them the amphib capability to attack and quickly overrun the island.

China will bear watching over the next few years.

The Watcher’s Council’s vote this week featured some excellent posts from both Council and non-Council members. But when the dust cleared, yours truly came out on top in the Council category for my post on the pope’s death “Taming the Whirlwinds of History.” :

John Paul’s alliance with the Anglo-Americans was never set down on paper and coordination was superficial at best. But where Reagan and Thatcher’s hard-headed actions to defeat Soviet Communism stopped, the Pope’s moral authority took root and turned the tide toward people power by giving legitimacy to the aspirations for freedom so longed for by so many in that captive part of the world.

In short, Pope John Paul II gave a final answer to Josef Stalin’s contemptuous question when conflict with the Catholic Church in Russia seemed unavoidable. “How many divisions does the Pope have?” Stalin asked. This Pope could have told him he not only had the heavenly host of angels on his side but the millions of hearts and minds of people that yearned to breathe free, ready to march at his command.

There was a tie for second among 4 other Council blogs. And my favorite of those was submitted by Alpha Patriot entitled “Moving Melancholy.”

Second, I have evidently reached that age in which placing things in a box is like packing away a lifetime of memories. And nothing has brought that on more than putting away my oldest and dearest friends — my books. Mostly tattered paperbacks, some read so many times that pages threaten to detach from the binding with every turn.

The books that molded me and are as much a part of me as any real experience. A hefty collection of Heinlein and Asimov (some of which are replacements because the first copies really did fall apart from too much use). A translation of War Commentaries of [Julius] Ceaser. The entire Hornblower series by C. S. Forrester. Helter Skelter. Herbert’s Dune. 1984. A Brave New World. Even a copy of the Anarchist’s Cookbook.

The non-Council winner this week was Polipundit for their excellent analysis of the recently released report by the Commission investigating intelligence failures in finding WMD in Iraq, “WMD - or How W Made a Difference:”

Now, one might believe that writing a phone-book sized report shows the diligence these ten members displayed in their effort. On closer review, however, the tome is largely a self-serving buffet, something for everybody. The Left has been quick to help themselves to large slices of the part where the Commission declared the Intelligence effort before the Iraq War “one of the most public - and most damaging - intelligence failures in recent American history.” (page 3 of the report, page 19 printout) The angry mob that is American Liberalism has spent the past week trying to twist that statement into an indictment of the Bush Administration. The Commission, however, also said “we recognize that other reasonable observers could come to a different conclusion” (page 7 of the report, page 23 printout), a vague acknowledgment that they didn’t prove their case, but just printed out a wish list of what they want.

And finally, there was a three way tie for second with the post from Powerline entitled “The Pulitzer Prize for Felony Murder” being my favorite:

So the AP admitted that its photographer was “tipped off” by the terrorists. The only quibble asserted by the AP was that the photographer expected only a “demonstration,” not a murder. So the terrorists wanted to be photographed carrying out the murder, to sow more terror in Iraq and to demoralize American voters. That’s why they tipped off the photographer, and that’s why they dragged the two election workers from their car, so they could be shot in front of the AP’s obliging camera. And the AP was happy to cooperate with the terrorists in all respects…

As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher’s Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around… per the Watcher’s instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.
Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

This is a great way for you to get exposure for your blog and your writing.

I’m pleased to announce that Rightwing Nuthouse has been chosen to sit on the prestigious Watcher’s Council sponsored by Watcher of Weasels. Each week the Council members choose posts from around the blogosphere and a vote is held amongst the Council to determine which post is most worthy. The Council also votes on posts submitted by members themselves. Results of the latest vote can be found here.

The winning Council post is from Alpha Patriot and is entitled “Iraqi Bravery.” It highlights several positive developments in Iraq recently.

I might add that I can learn much from Mr. Patriot about begging (and whining and crying and gnashing of teeth as well) as this weepy, angst-ridden post about not ever winning the Council vote shows:

Are you freakin’ kidding me? How am I ever expected to win with competition like Dr. Sanity, Sundries Shack, Wallo World, Education Wonks, Little Red Blog, and so on?!

Doris, take a memo: It worked.

The winning non-Council post comes to us via Husayne at Democracy in Iraq. This is a must read, emotional post about the last two years in Iraq and how all the blood spilled-both Iraqi and American-has been worth it.

Yours truly received 2/3 of a vote finishing tied for a distant third.