Bill’s Blog

“Not for the politically correct.”

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DrudgeReport.com

 Fred Thompson Rebuts “President Sheen” | Canadian MP Calls Americans Bastards
FOX Network Wins Sweeps | Judge Upholds FBI Surveillance | Mr Rogers Dies
Hillary on Fence on War | Condi for California Gov | Guru Volunteers to Be Human Shield
 Maine Teachers Harass Children of Marines

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Apparently playing a president on television has given Martin Sheen delusions of grandeur and his thinks of himself as a president. One suspects that “The West Wing” is a podium for “anti-war” sentiment.

The only thing worse than Sheen confusing himself with a president is viewers who see him as one.

Starting this weekend, two peacock stars will be at media and political odds when actor Fred Thompson launches an advertising campaign which supports President Bush's position on Iraq, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

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In an interview with a local Memphis newspaper, Thompson did not hide his disdain for what he considers WEST WING's preachy liberalism. "I've been thinking about the possibility of having my character run against Martin Sheen (Bartlet) for president," Thompson declared.

Ms. Parrish is not helping improve relations with the U.S. One wonders if this is a form of moral posturing for her constituents. This makes one wish that the next airliner will crash into a building in Ottawa.

OTTAWA - A Liberal MP has apologized for saying about Americans: "I hate those bastards."

MP Carolyn Parrish was speaking to reporters about Canada's diplomatic initiative on Iraq. At the end of her comments, after most of the cameras were turned off, Parrish said, "Damn Americans … I hate those bastards."

LOS ANGELES (The Hollywood Reporter) --- Crazy? Like a Fox. With rivals shaking their heads over a "crazy" February chockablock with Michael Jackson, fake millionaires, real hotties and D-list celebs, Fox executives Wednesday basked in their first-ever sweep victory in the key 18-49 demographic, beating second-place NBC by a convincing 19% margin.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - The FBI does not have to explain why it applied for search warrants to bug homes and tap phones of defendants in a terrorism case, a federal judge ruled Wednesday in an early test of the government's new and expanded spying powers.

Who does she think she’s fooling. She demonstrated for the Vietnamese Communists in the 1960s and she’s pro-Saddam now. The “superior” New Yorkers still elected her to the senate in spite of her exchanging kisses with the wife of the world’s terrorist emeritus, Yasser Arafat.

February 27, 2003 -- ANTI-WAR fever is all the rage in the Democratic Party these days, but candidate-in-waiting Hillary Clinton is carefully sidestepping it, even though the left is often seen as her natural base.

Sen. Clinton (D-N.Y.) voted to authorize an Iraq attack last fall but she's just about invisible on the issue lately, not speaking out for or against military action even though she's on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Deepak Chopra, the doctor who is bringing his brand of East-meets-West philosophy to Memphis, proposed Wednesday that the Pope, the Dalai Lama and himself serve as human shields to avoid bombing in Iraq and to rid the world of Saddam Hussein.

Despicable to the extreme and reminiscent of the Vietnam Era. Schools used to teach patriotism.

The fact that this is happening shows that Bush has failed to sharply define the line between legitimate dissent and treason. Would this be legal if we declared war on Iraq?

If the winning the war on terrorism is a pressing government goal, then the offending schools should be deprived of federal funding, just as the government threatened to do with Bob Jones University.

The case law could be a problem. See BOND v. FLOYD, 385 U.S. 116 (1966).

Members of the Maine National Guard, called up to prepare for an attack on Iraq, have asserted that their children are being harassed at school by teachers who oppose the war.

Guard members say their children are "coming home upset, depressed, crying," said Maj. Peter Rogers, a spokesman for the Maine National Guard. "This was based on some incidents that were happening in school, both in the classroom and on the playground."

In an e-mail sent to the parents of one child who had complained of harassment at school, National Guard officials said they had "over 30 complaints that name schools and individual principals, teachers and guidance counselors."

It was still not clear yesterday whether the state will discipline any of the named teachers or schools over the incidents.

"In Maine, local superintendents make local policy for local schools," said Tammy Morrill, assistant to J. Duke Albanese, state commissioner of education.

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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

 Liberals Deny Illiberal Nature of Islam | Feckless UN Inspections

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This is why they are Leftists rather than “liberals.” Ho Chi Minh’s regime was the antithesis of liberal values, too, but it was a “progressive” cause so they supported it anyway.

They're both right. It's clear that the organisational muscle in the 'peace' movement is provided by the crack troops of the West's self-loathers - those who believe Amerikkka and capitalism are responsible for all the evils of the world. The heavy dependence on clapped-out D-list celebs like Bianca Jagger, Jesse Jackson and Harold Pinter tends to support the Amiel thesis. On the other hand, if you'll pardon a colonial's assessment of the mother country, I'd say the reason the Vicki Woodses of the world lined up behind them is the simple fact that life in sad, grey Britain is so bloody miserable. From my recent limited experience of your wretched hospitals and crummy trains, I can understand why it must be supremely irritating to switch on the TV night after night and hear that Tony Blair will be tied up indefinitely rebuilding Iraq rather than, say, Humberside. Of course, this presupposes that it's the job of the head of the national government to run every geriatric ward and suburban rail line, a theory not all of us subscribe to. But if like most Britons you do subscribe to it, Mr Blair's priorities must be infuriating.

Last summer, Syria, one of the leading sponsors of international terrorism whose troops have occupied Lebanon since 1975, assumed the temporary presidency of the Security Council. Last month, Libya, whose human rights record of abduction, torture and assassination was described by Human Rights Watch as "appalling," was elected president of the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

And if there were any doubt that the patients have taken over the U.N. asylum, Iraq had been scheduled to chair the U.N. Disarmament Commission in March, until the Iraqi mission unexpectedly informed the commission on Feb. 15 that it intended to decline its leadership position.

The moral vacuousness of the United Nations doesn't, however, only afflict an international bureaucracy; it affects the lives of Iraqi people yearning to be free from the despotic rule of Saddam Hussein.

In one of the most under-reported stories of the past month, television cameras on Jan. 25 captured an Iraqi man with a notebook struggling to get into the jeep of a U.N. weapons inspector as he screamed, "Save me! Save me!" in Arabic. The inspector sat unmoved, physically and emotionally, as Iraqi security forces pulled the man away by his arms and legs.

Anyone who claims to have compassion for the Iraqi people cannot possibly endorse the idea of more worthless inspections by Blix's inspectors or granting the United Nations primacy in protecting Saddam's brutal regime. To do so is not just a pointless diplomatic exercise, it is an act of inhumanity.

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The "make love, not war" crowd reincarnated rants again because moral relativists cannot grasp absolutes. Principle cannot speak to the unprincipled. They pick, they choose, they compromise. Their only principle is the right to waffle. Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair sacrifice all as the airhead heathens around them claim the high moral ground and the media coverage at no personal cost.

 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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No Improvement in Nations Schools | Washington Snipers a Unit
 Rwandan Genocide Participant Admits Guilt Is Freed | Israel Responds to Threat of Annihilation
Arabs Charged in Iraq Cash Transfers | Jermaine Brooks Gets 20 Years
 Man Sues for Sexual Harrassment | Tommy Robinson Faces Foreclosure
 K Mart Execs Indicted | No Run On Duct Tape in NW Ark | Gitz On Hollywood Disloyalty
Pat Lynch Uniformed on Civil War

Huh? At the time we were told that Slick’s education plan would “fix” Arkansas’ education problems.

WASHINGTON — Despite 20 years of education reform, the nation’s public schools are still failing students and endangering the nation’s future, a new report on educational progress said Wednesday.

The lack of progress is apparent despite significant increases in education spending and efforts to raise teacher salaries. Spending on public schools has increased 50 percent since the 1983 report, it said.

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Alexander, a former Tennessee governor, said he and other Southern governors in the 1980s, including Bill Clinton of Arkansas, were duly alarmed by the 1983 "A Nation at Risk" report and tried hard to turn their education systems around.

Sniper-case brief says teen, adult were ‘unit’
FAIRFAX, Va. — Sniper suspects Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad worked as a team, randomly killing 10 people without any particular strategy for choosing their victims, a prosecutor said in a court filing. BY MATTHEW BARAKAT THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Four Arab men were indicted Wednesday on federal charges accusing them of illegally sending at least $4 million to Iraq through a Syracuse-area charity called Help the Needy.

What a deal. His sentence is for 20 years, but he may get off with only 4 months in a “boot camp.”

FAYETTEVILLE — Former Arkansas Razorbacks defensive tackle Jermaine Brooks hopes to play in the NFL, finish his master’s degree in education and get a pardon from the governor of Arkansas.

It might sound like a pipe dream considering the Hogs’ former co-captain was sentenced Wednesday to 20 years in prison with 10 years suspended on felony drug and gun charges.

A plea bargain in the case will let Brooks try for acceptance into an Arkansas Department of Correction boot-camp program that could reduce his prison time to four months.

"There have been other players who’ve been in trouble with the law but gotten in the NFL," Brooks said after Wednesday’s sentencing hearing in Washington County Circuit Court. "I’m hoping that will be the case for me. If not, then God has a better plan for me."

Fayetteville police arrested Brooks on Oct. 22 after he sold a total of three pounds of marijuana to a man who cooperated with police and to an undercover drug agent.

The men entrusted with running large, publicly-owned corporations should be setting the standards for integrity. The fact that there are so many corporate crooks means that corporate governance is in need of real reform.

Lynch obviously didn’t get a good education. The American history texts I used said there were four or five reasons, including tariffs.

Here is a Civil War story told from the Southern perspective, and that challenges the popular notions of sensitivity. Of course, the rebellious states were wrong. Any nitwit—except perhaps a few loud and strident letter writers to certain newspapers—knows that slavery caused the War Between the States. Indeed, the Confederates were protecting so-called states’ rights, which would include the presumed legal authority to force some folks to provide personal services for economic elites without the benefit of getting paid.

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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