Bill’s Blog

“Not for the politically correct.”

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DrudgeReport.com

 Per American War Expense | Chirac as Worm | Senator Blasts Real Hillbillies Show

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I believe that the Gulf War cost $30 million, of which $23 million was paid by allied states, mostly from the Middle Eastern oil-producing states. One wonders how this would compare to the inflation-adjusted per American cost of WW II.

If $90 million maximum includes the costs of occupation, then it should be spread over the duration. The figure drops to $160 per American for two years and even lower if cleanup last more than two years. If oil and natural gas prices drop after Saddam is defeated then many Americans may save more than the war cost them.

The $95 billion would be to cover a war, its aftermath and new expenses to fight terrorism, officials told the newspaper [The Wall Street Journal]. The total could be as low as $60 billion because Pentagon budget planners don't know how long a conflict will last, whether U.S. allies will contribute more than token sums and what damage Saddam Hussein might do to his own country to retaliate against conquering forces, the Journal said.

The Sun apparently supports the disarmament of Saddam.

Chirac as worm picture

AMERICA last night dramatically warned French President Jacques “Le Worm” Chirac not to veto UN moves to disarm Saddam Hussein.

In an astonishing slap-down, the US envoy to France said any attempt by France to scupper military action would be seen as “very unfriendly”.

If the senators aren’t aware of cultural trends what else are they missing?

Zell Miller interrupted debate over the stalled judicial nomination of Miguel Estrada in the Senate yesterday to come to the defense of hillbillies.

"Mr. President: CBS Television is currently planning what this great company called 'a hillbilly reality show'!" the Georgia Democrat warned his esteemed colleagues.

You could sense the alarm that spread in the chamber with this news, the other senators having not read any of the 2,000 newspaper and magazine stories written on the subject since August, when word first got out about "The Real Beverly Hillbillies," CBS's planned reality version of its popular '60s sitcom. In it, a real-life family from Appalachia would be moved to Beverly Hills for a year.

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"What CBS and CEO Moonves propose to do with this cracker comedy is bigotry, pure and simple. Bigotry for big bucks," Miller said.

"They know that the only minority left in this country that you can make fun of and demean and humiliate . . . are hillbillies in particular and rural people in general."

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 OpinionJournal.com

Containment Was a Cold War Strategy | Credit Card Censorship

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Containment worked in the Cold War because both sides had nuclear weapons.

A powerful argument.

It's not surprising that containment has been invoked. It's had a good diplomatic history--quite illustrious really. It described the West's successful response to the Soviet Union's expansionism after World War II and stretching into the 1950s. We all know that in the end the Soviet Union imploded. The liberal democratic values of the West won the ideological contest, and the U.S. has emerged as the one superpower. With a track record like that, why wouldn't America's opponents over Iraq want to annex "containment" to their cause?

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Then [during the Cold War], the potential cost of doing something was greater than the cost of doing nothing. Now, in the case of Iraq, the potential cost of doing nothing is clearly much greater than the cost of doing something.

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In other words doing nothing about Iraq, potentially, is much more costly than using force, if necessary, to ensure the disarmament of Iraq.

Incidentally, in the very short term, the failure of the U.N. to deal effectively with Iraq will have consequences for the world's dealings with North Korea. Can it seriously be suggested that the Security Council can discipline North Korea if it fails to discipline Iraq?

 Scene & Heard BY COLLIN LEVEY
Where discredit is due: Visa cracks down on child porn.

Link to my response “This Can Be Turned on the Right.”

This has the potential to be a REALLY BAD idea.

The downside of rock ’n’ roll

Rock may be the only form of entertainment that regularly abuses its audience, and I've long feared that such a tragedy, though perhaps not one of that magnitude, was inevitable in a club like The Station, whose crowd capacity was listed as 300 people. I've been going to music clubs for more than 30 years, and only once have I seen a fire marshal shut down a venue--a small hall in Union City, N.J., hosting a local band--though I've been in countless clubs where capacity exceeded legal limits, exits were hard to locate, and club owners and promoters had all but abandoned their audience.

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For the audience, amenities are minimal: You may find seats somewhere off to the side of the room, those cables and wires on the floor may not trip you, and it's possible that the toilets might work. But a single bottle of beer will cost what a six-pack does elsewhere, the jostling crowd will prevent you from seeing the stage, and before the night is over someone is going to either step or fall on you.

Over the years, I've been caught in a crush only a couple of times. But once at the Odeon in Cleveland, while trying to wade through the crowd to meet a musician backstage, I found myself absolutely unable to move. And last year, at New York's Bowery Ballroom, I was pressed against a cast-iron railing on a balcony I feared might collapse at any moment. I've slipped on puddles of vomit, stumbled over drunken men prone on the floor and been hit by a flying bottle when a fight broke out.

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FrontPageMag.com

 Palestinian Prime Minister Holocaust Denier | French Cardinal Sins In War On Terror
 

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Maybe David Duke will be appointed as well.

Abbas’ degree from a Soviet college isn’t encouraging. One wonders if it was accredited.

While European Union officials praised Yasser Arafat's decision to appoint his first-ever prime minister, historians of the Holocaust winced at the news that a leading candidate for the job is the author of a book denying that the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews.

The candidate is Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen), Arafat's second in command, and his book, published in Arabic in 1983, translates as "The Other Side: The Secret Relations Between Nazism and the Leadership of the Zionist Movement." It was originally his doctoral dissertation, completed at Moscow Oriental College.

Syria provides a safe haven for  Nazi war criminal Alois Brunner; who participated in rounding up French Jews.

Note the term “proper democracy.” The term “peoples’ democracy” indicates the Leninist principle of “democratic centralism.”

 … The French-German-Russian coalition (joined by China and Syria) proclaims itself the "moral" axis, the "peace camp." But this "anti-war party" has its feet firmly planted in war. For those who may have forgotten, think of the Caucasus, where the Russian Army razed Chechnya's capital city, Grozny, and left from 100,000 to 300,000 cadavers in its wake.

… Draping themselves in "global opinion" and scoffing at other governments as "vassals" of the war clique, Paris and Berlin are recycling arguments used by the Stalinist "peace movements." The revolutionaries of yesteryear pitted "peoples" against "formal democracy." Do Chirac and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany today question the notion that, in a proper democracy, decisions are made not by polling institutes, or at the stock market, or in the streets, but in the voting booth? The elected representatives in London, Prague, Sofia, Madrid, and Warsaw are as legitimate as those in Paris and Berlin.

The question here is whether the high taxes for the welfare states suppresses the white European birth rate.

In the second week of January, Cincinnati's Playhouse In The Park cancelled its tour of a specially commissioned new play by Glyn O'Malley called Paradise. The subject of the work was the suicide bombing of March last year by an 18-year old Palestinian girl, Ayat al-Akhras. My old friend, the Saudi Minister of Water Ghazi Algosaibi, wrote a poem in praise of Miss al-Akhras as "the bride of loftiness." O'Malley's approach was a little subtler. His starting point was a Newsweek cover story contrasting young Ayat with one of the Jews she killed, another teenage girl, a 17-year old Israeli, Rachel Levy. To some of us, this is already obscene -- the idea that murdered and murderer are both "victims." They're linked only because Ayat couldn't care less whom she slaughtered as long as they were Jews.

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What normally happens with "controversial" art? I'm thinking of such cultural landmarks of recent years as Andres Serrano's Piss Christ -- a crucifix sunk in the artist's urine -- or Terrence McNally's Broadway play Corpus Christi, in which a gay Jesus is liberated by the joys of anal sex with Judas. When, say, Catholic groups complain about these abominations, the arts world says you squares need to get with the beat: A healthy society has to have "artists" with the "courage" to "explore" "transgressive" "ideas," etc. Yet with this play, faced with Muslim objections, the big courageous transgressive arts guys fold like a Bedouin tent.

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… You may be aware that some waggish Western Muslims refer to the Continent as "Eurabia." The great issue of our time is whether Islam -- the fastest growing religion in Europe and North America -- is compatible with the multicultural, super-diverse, boundlessly tolerant society of Western liberals. This is the paradox of multiculturalism: Is it illiberal to force liberalism on others? Is it liberal to accommodate illiberalism? …

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Given Europe's birthrates, the survival of the West depends on conversion -- on ensuring that the unprecedently high numbers of immigrants to the Continent embrace Western pluralism. Some of us think it would be easier to do this if the countries from which they emigrate are themselves democratic and pluralist. But to say there's no problem here except Texan cowboy fundamentalist paranoia is to blind yourself to reality, to march to suicide as surely as Ayat al-Akhras did.

After seeing the worldwide peace demonstrations last weekend, I have to admit that my confidence in human judgment, wisdom and learning from history has been greatly diminished. These demonstrators never stood by or demonstrated for the victims of the cruelty of Saddam. They do not see the relationship between their demonstrations and the empowerment of the terrorists, who will not miss one opportunity to terrorize the West. Saddam has a sick mind, burdened with pride and arrogance, yet he is being strengthened and legitimized by these demonstrators.

Many of these demonstrators have different motivations -- mostly naïve idealism. However, all protest organizers agree on one thing: they hate America and want to see it transformed from the democratic and capitalist entity that it is.

A new German study reveals a global media bias against the United States.

Increasingly negative coverage has given the United States an all-time low image according to Media Tenor, a Bonn-based watchdog group founded in 1993 by investigative journalists and academics to "ensure and protect balanced journalism."

Yankee-bashing is rampant on international television, which is turning more and more negative against the United States, the study found. The German researchers predict it will get worse.

While most stories were judged to be neither clearly positive nor clearly negative, South Africa was the only country last year whose television presented an overall positive image of the United States, and even then only during five sporadic months.

The United States was portrayed positively in about 22 percent of the South African stories, which researchers attributed to the nation's keen interest in American sports. Coverage was more negative on both British and German TV, where more than one-third of all British stories and 20 percent of German stories last year were deemed anti-American.

This hasn’t translated into support for America’s foreign policy; the South African government is pro-Saddam, a Leftist policy which validates those who found the Apartheid regime the lesser of two evils. See Ponte’s “Marxist Madness” and CNN article.

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Jewish World Review.com

 Dems Want America to Imitate Europe | 

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Pathetic. She doesn’t even remember her major. I believe that she was friendly with the military dictators of Nigeria.

Woodrow Wilson also wanted to surrender American sovereignty, which means that they haven’t learned anything since WW I.

Apparently the Democrats have forgotten that we started this country so we wouldn’t have Europeans bossing us around.

Thank Heaven for C-Span. For two days it broadcast the speeches by Democratic presidential hopefuls attending their party's winter meeting, and for two days we were reminded why the Dems keep losing elections. They claimed to speak up for "the regular people," but it became clear that their "regular people" are more like George Clooney than Ward Cleaver.

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Former Senator Carol-Mosely Braun, who avoided prison a few years back, wowed the crowd with: "Duct tape is no substitute for diplomacy!" When she was asked what her college major had been, she responded haltingly, "Uh…I think history…but I'll get back to you on that." (nervous laughter)

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But perhaps the most disturbing speech was that given by so-called Demohawk Sen. Joe Lieberman. Lieberman fell all over himself to explain how you can be for a war against Saddam in Iraq and still wage war against Bush at home … Translation: If America becomes as liberal as France and Germany on issues unrelated to Iraq, France and Germany will help us in Iraq.

Strip away the Democratic rhetoric, and what you'll find is the core belief that America should really stop acting like a super power. The Democrats believe the best way to protect against terrorist attacks is to act less like a dominant force and more like a domesticated global partner. This essentially requires that we sign on to treaties such as the one creating the International Criminal Court, or remain bound by accords like the ABM treaty, regardless of whether they are in our national interest.

Why stop there? Let the Europeans dictate our tax policy as well. In recent days the heads of the European Central Bank and euro-zone finance ministers have expressed "deep skepticism" about President Bush's tax cut plan. Whether the issue is tax policy, gun control, health care, abortion, the environment, or the death penalty, Democrats are more in sync with Europe than America.

 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
 (Subscription Site)

Cardinal Bernard Law Testifies | Justice Cracks Down on Human Smuggling
 North Korea Tells Its People America Will Attack | Arkansas Snowstorm 1
Antiwar Types Flood Congressional Delegation | Arkansas Snowstorm 2
Preschool Tax | Trash Pickup Delayed | Gim Guy Tries to Reverse Conviction
 Richardson vs Broyles | Arkansas Firms Keep Trucking | Qwest Execs Indicted
Au Revoir, French Fries | Indian Delicacy – Pakoras | Gene Lyons Rant

Richard Armitage has curious views on human rights. He correctly condemns this form of servitude, but his statement in support of the Vietnamese Communists over the Commonwealth of Virginia indicates that he’s unbothered by the forms of servitude imposed on the peoples of Indochina by the Communist victory.

The State Department estimates that 4 million victims, mostly women and children, are taken each year and sold into the sex trade or forced labor. About 50,000 are trafficked into the United States, mainly from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Latin America and Southeast Asia.

"This is an industry that already brings the hard criminals running it some $7 billion a year in [a] business so lucrative that our intelligence community estimates that it will outstrip the illicit trade of guns and narcotics within a decade," Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said at the conference in separate remarks.

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ArkDemocrat

It seems unlikely that we’ll attack North Korea while we’re running our operation against Saddam. Of course, if North Korea attacks another country it will start a war.

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ArkDemocrat

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ArkDemocrat

The Democratic congressmen and senators may use this as an excuse to oppose disarming Saddam in spite of the fact that they didn’t campaign as “anti-war” types. Most likely offender: Vic Snyder.

As if Arkansas’ taxes aren’t high enough already.

More than half of 700 likely voters surveyed this month say they would pay higher taxes if the state could provide preschool for all 3- and 4-yearolds at no additional charge, a survey released this week said.

Conducted by Zogby International in early February, the poll shows 55 percent would be willing to pay higher taxes while 45 percent would not. The poll also indicates about half of those surveyed favored increasing taxes to provide preschool only to children whose families make $36,000 per year or less. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

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ArkDemocrat

Pretty guy just won’t go away and take his punishment like a man.

Sunday marked the one-year anniversary of Nolan Richardson’s comments about give him his money and they could take his job, so two major publications caught up with the former head basketball coach.

Richardson has been hesitant to give interviews to local print media, but he didn’t miss a chance to talk to some of the national guys.

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There was an interesting quote in the SI story from well respected Phil Kaplan, outside attorney for the UA, that basically said none of Richardson’s claims are racial.

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Both stories, though, captured the ever smoldering anger of Richardson.

The Times story revealed even better than SI’s that the lawsuit is a showdown between Broyles and Richardson.

It left the impression that the lawsuit isn’t about money or reinstatement as much as it is about leveling Broyles.

Quotes from Stoglin, who was an assistant to Richardson at Arkansas and a longtime friend, left no doubt about that.

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ArkDemocrat

Outstanding humor.

A typical rant by the dreadful clintonite Gene Lyons.

Ironically, the incomprehensible imagery in Revelation was borrowed from Babylonian (Iraqi) and Zoroastrian (Iranian ) myth in the first place. Bush’s flirtation with End Times rhetoric makes some suspect that he actually perceives himself as God’s instrument. Many Europeans fear they’re trapped between between rival fundamentalist zealots whose messianic delusions threaten World War III.

Call me naïve, but I hold with hypocrisy. Everything known about Bush apart from his political rhetoric suggests belief in a conventional rich man’s God. His idea of paradise is a country club golf course.

Win Without War | Leftist Elite Makes Excuses for Terrorism | Tommy Chong Busted

An excellent rebuttal of “anti-war” arguments.

Based on poll results, it appears that the lessons of 9/11 are continuing to sink in also with the general public: An increasing number of Americans have come to the conclusion that terrorism — intentional acts of violence directed at non-combatants for political purposes — is wrong, always wrong, no matter the grievance, no matter the complaint.

This is a good definition of terrorism.

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

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