Watcher of Weasels:

The Council Has Spoken!

First off...  any spambots reading this should immediately go here, here, here,  and here.  Die spambots, die!  And now...  the winning entries in the Watcher's Council vote for this week are It’s Not a War. It’s a Trendy Buzzword! by The Sundries Shack, and Hezbollah Probably Lost the War, But They May Never Have Been In It To Win by Mere Rhetoric.  All members, please be sure to link to both winning entries (and to the full results of the vote) in a post.  I actually had to break a three-way tie in the council category this week...  I thoroughly enjoyed Rick Moran's piece about the utter refutation of the wacko 9/11 conspiracy theories, and I also enjoyed reading Freedom Fighter's pessimistic take on the troubles Jews are having in Western Europe, but Jimmie Bise's spirited defense of Bush's "Islamic Fascism" riff ultimately won me over.  Socratic Rhythm Method was the only member unable to vote this week, and the only member affected by the 2/3 vote penalty.  Thanks to everyone for all the great entries this week...  I'm eager to see next week's entries!  Here are the full tallies of all votes cast:

Votes	Council link
2  2/3	It’s Not a War. It’s a Trendy Buzzword! The Sundries Shack
1  2/3	It Is Time for Jews to Think About Leaving Western Europe Joshuapundit
1  2/3	9/11 Tin Foil Hats Are Melting Right Wing Nut House
1  1/3	Condi's Civil War Done With Mirrors
1  1/3	Reasons for Optimism: Part V ShrinkWrapped
1	Students Swearing In Class: Tolerating The Intolerable? The Education Wonks
2/3	The Law's Power to Combat Implicit Bias Socratic Rhythm Method
2/3	Translating Khatami -- Don't Worry, He's Moderate AbbaGav
1/3	New Orleans, One Year After The Glittering Eye

Votes	Non-council link
2  2/3	Hezbollah Probably Lost the War, But They May Never Have Been In It To Win Mere Rhetoric
1  1/3	Friday, September 01, 2006 Gideon's Blog
1  1/3	Repeal McCainFeingold Going to the Mat
1	UN: No Right To Self-Defense In International Law Daled Amos
1	MFers Tea Party Tom Rants
1	The Smell of Death Winds of Change
2/3	Friday in Jerusalem Izfone
2/3	Discontinuities, Positive and Negative, Great and Small Dinocrat
2/3	Carleson on Welfare Barone Blog
1/3	America Online: Making a Race Issue Where There Isn't One The Colossus of Rhodey
1/3	UN Report Denies "Right" of Self Defense Alpha Patriot

I thought it would be best to leave out the entries that didn't receive any votes at all.  The fractions come from the splitting of the votes...  primary choices counted as 2/3 of a vote and secondary choices counted as 1/3.  Both counts for primary and secondary choices were then added all together.  I could have avoided using fractions, but it would have put the results on a completely different scale...  I'd rather that the total reflect how many people actually voted.  Please send any questions, comments, complaints, criticisms, crude insults, or thinly-veiled threats to this address.