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The Watcher’s Council

This week’s contest is dedicated to Ted Cruz, the toughest guy in the US Senate.

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 says: “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.

Okay, 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 Carrier 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

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 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!