Eye on the Watcher’s Council

As you may know the members of the Watcher’s Council each nominate one of his or her own posts and one non-Council post for consideration by the whole Council. The complete list of this week’s Council nominations is here.

Done With Mirrors, “What Did I Miss?”

Callimachus returns from vacations and wonders what happened while he was away. Not bloody much, I’m afraid.

Rhymes With Right, “California Legislature Intent On Violating California Constitution”

As should be apparent from posts of mine for some time, I think that what you accomplish is not all that’s important—how you go about accomplishing it is important, too. Greg delves into some of the same territory with his submission this week.

Bookworm Room, “Freedom, But From What?”

In this fine post Bookworm considers anonymity, privacy, proximity, bureaucracy, and who finds what violations of privacy tolerable and why.

Soccer Dad, “Detering the Deterrers”

Soccer Dad ponders what may possibly become another instance of lawfare, wondering whether if it serves to inhibit successful combatting of terrorism.

The Glittering Eye, “Why? What? When?”

Have you noticed that a grand strategy in the War on Terror is AWOL?

The Colossus of Rhodey, “I’d Like To Buy Into It, But Then I Read On…”

The only point I’d like to make on Hube’s story of educational research is that everything is either positively or negatively correlated.

Big Lizards, “”Surge a Failure, Democrats Tell General””

Dafydd ab Hugh analyzes the coverage of Gen. Petraeus’s report and subsequent testimony before Congress. While we’re on the subject, did you notice the Congressmen complaining that Gen. Petraeus’s answers were getting in the way of their value question-asking time?

‘Okie’ on the Lam, “Just When You Thought You Had Something Figured Out”

‘Okie’ takes note of the same comments by the French Foreign Minister that I posted on a few days ago. I think we need to be cautious about over-interpreting the remarks.

Cheat Seeking Missiles, “LA Times: “No Blood For Oil” Lackey”

Laer isn’t happy with the Los Angeles Times’s latest flogging of the “Blood for Oil” over-simplification.

The Education Wonks, “Exploitation?”

EdWonk is concerned about the case of a very young model working at a major fashion show. I feel roughly the same way about underage models. Women’s clothing should be designed to be worn by grown women and should be modelled by grown women. What kind of body image is it presenting when pre-teens model “women’s” fashions?

Joshuapundit, “America Must Be Defeated!”

While I think that there are some Democrats who are invested in a U. S. defeat in Iraq (which still seems like a pretty fair bet to me), I don’t think that even a bare majority of Democrats see their position this way. They just haven’t considered the question “and then what?” But while we’re on the subject why don’t more people think about how nice a loss of American influence in the world is for currency speculators?

Right Wing Nut House, “Is War With Iran Now Just a Matter of Time?”

Rick Moran believes that war with Iran is much more inevitable than I do; I believe that, short of some monumental error on the part of the Iranians, it’s not going to happen. I do think that it’s necessary to start defusing tensions rapidly and that to do that we’re going to need to offer the Iranians something they actually want (which we don’t want to do).

Well, I’ve decided which posts I’ll vote for this week. Which posts would get your votes?