Bill’s Blog

“Not for the politically correct.”

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DrudgeReport.com

  Morale Low in Iraqi Army | Woman Dies When Operating Table Breaks | Oprah a Billionaire 
 Arafat, Castro Millionaires | Bullet Train Engineer Asleep at Throttle | Billionaire Soros Blasts Bush 
6th Grader Avoids Felony Trial

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Military units which are below 50% effectiveness are generally ineffective in combat. One of the goals of the aerial bombardment in the Gulf War was to reduce the combat-effectiveness of Iraqi army units to below 50%.

Morale is low in the Iraqi army and many soldiers are preparing white flags of surrender, we are told by someone in northern Iraq who recently interviewed two defectors from Saddam Hussein's army.

One was a captain who defected from the 5th Mechanized Division of the 1st Corps, based near the northern city of Kirkuk. The captain told our informant that the heavy division was only 35 percent combat-effective. The captain said morale was so low that younger soldiers are speaking openly about surrendering — before the first shot has been fired.

One wonders how much Britain’s socialized medicine contributed to this by letting the physical facilities run down.

They must envy Saddam, whom Forbes claims has $2 billion. Oprah has more than Arafat and Castro, and she’s not a dictator.

The driver of a bullet train in Japan is under investigation after falling asleep for nearly ten minutes at the helm. The train was travelling at 170mph with 800 passengers on board.

No one was hurt in the incident because the train was on autopilot at the time.

The president’s foremost duty is to safeguard the United States and protect its interests. Allowing foreigners to dictate our actions is an abnegation of American sovereignty, pure and simple.

A capitalist using socialist language suggests fascism.

Billionaire capitalist George Soros, whose shrewd speculation conquered world markets, delivered a scathing denunciation of Bush administration policies yesterday, accusing the White House of shirking its responsibility as the world's only superpower.

In a speech before 500 at Carnegie Mellon University, Soros said the Bush administration had a "visceral aversion to international cooperation," which is why it is willing to ignore world opinion in its rush to wage war with Iraq.

"President Bush is pushing the wrong buttons when he says, 'Those who are not with us, are against us,' " Soros said. "This is an imperialist vision in which the U.S. leads and the rest of the world follows."

A sixth-grader arrested two weeks ago for using his reading teacher's computer to change some grades won't be prosecuted as a felon, the state attorney's office said Thursday. Instead, he'll be routed through a diversionary program for first time, nonviolent offenders.

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 OpinionJournal.com

Hyper Partisanism Behind Antiwar Sentiment | Radical Feminist Censorship at Harvard

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Maybe it's possible that in the age of information, more is less. More information breeds more opinion, and when that opinion is political opinion, the result is not greater agreement on the facts, but merely deeper division along well-chiseled fault lines. That's obviously what we have now on Iraq. Political belief--and animosity toward one's political opposition--trumps everything, including mortal danger.

Joseph Schumpeter, the eminent political economist, believed that while the average person was logical enough in personal matters, he "drops down to a lower level of mental performance . . . as soon as he enters the political field"--and stays there "in the face of meritorious efforts" to put facts before his face.

If Schumpeter is correct, much of the opposition to war with Iraq is more than anything the politics of liberals here and the left in Europe who would not abide being led anywhere by a conservative U.S. administration. Hell no, they won't go, no matter how many resolutions are outputted by the Security Council.

Radical feminist censorship

In the time of Socrates, ancient Athens was rocked by a scandal when, in the stealth of night, all the city's statues had their phalluses knocked off. The perpetrator was never found, but many suspected that Alcibiades, a military leader and protégé of Socrates, did the blasphemous deed.

In Cambridge, Mass., a similar scandal has been unfolding this month. In the wee hours of Feb. 12, two Harvard students knocked down and broke apart a nine-foot-high snow-and-ice sculpture, erected hours earlier by members of Harvard's crew team, that bore a strong resemblance to a certain part of the male anatomy.

Was this destruction a shocking attempt to stifle artistic expression? A callous act of censorship? No, it was the right thing to do. A one-story-tall snow phallus, whether prank or "art," is intolerable in a public place like Harvard Yard. More to the point, it is obscene, in the old-fashioned sense of the word--something that, at a minimum, should be kept out of sight.

… 

In a letter to the editor two days later, Amy Keel, Class of 2004, owned up to "dismantling" the sculpture. And this is where the story turns strange. For we learned that, while Ms. Keel's actions were admirable, her motives were a muddle, a jumble of academic feminism and strained logic.

Her letter argued in earnest that she was justified in defiling the phallus because it was put up "without permission" from the university. "The only thing it did was create an uncomfortable environment for the women of Harvard." Its "only purpose could be to assert male dominance." This leaves one imagining men walking around campus saying, "Gee, that snow sculpture is reassuring. Let's go harass some Radcliffe girls."

But it gets better. "No one," she wrote, "should be subjected to an erect penis without his or her express permission or consent." She was, she said, a victim of "gendered violence": Some Harvard males had tried to intimidate her and her accomplice while they knocked the thing down.

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FrontPageMag.com

 Maoists for Peace | Hillary Coy on War | Pan African Racism | Berkeley the Unpatriotic University 
 American Blood Shed for France | Kid Rock Supports Disarming Saddam
 Scorsese a Badfella

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Putting “progressive” causes ahead of loyalty to his country: the sure sign of a Leftist.

This column goes on to say that C. Clark Kissinger supported the Iranian Revolution and went to Iran in 1979, when the Iranians were holding Americans hostage.

By now, most Americans have heard, somewhere along the way, at least a passing reference to the Not In Our Name (NION) project – a self-described “peace” movement that has produced, most notably, two documents publicly denouncing our country’s post-9/11 policies, both foreign and domestic. These documents have received a groundswell of support from many prominent artists, academicians, and activists. Among the tens of thousands to publicly endorse NION’s objectives are Ed Asner, Oliver Stone, Ossie Davis, Danny Glover, Susan Sarandon, Alice Walker, Ramsey Clark, Tom Hayden, Al Sharpton, Martin Luther King III, Gloria Steinem, Medea Benjamin, Leslie Cagan, and Noam Chomsky.

Even a former US president is on the list: Jimmy Carter. By signing the pledge, Carter broke two traditionally respected precedents. First, as an ex-president, he publicly criticized the policies of the current Commander-in-Chief. Second, as an opposition leader, he broke ranks with the government at a time when his country was under attack and at war.

…

The NION project was initiated by a man named C. Clark Kissinger, a longtime Maoist activist. Currently a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party and a contributing writer for the socialist publication Revolutionary Worker, Kissinger began his public activism in the early 1960s when he was the national secretary of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), founded by Tom Hayden. The leading radical organization of its day, SDS later split into several groups, among which was the militant, revolutionary Weathermen.

Kissinger also worked closely with Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party, and openly supported Mao Tse-tung’s notoriously oppressive Cultural Revolution in China. Kissinger continues to enjoy strong support from the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM), which, by its own words, "upholds the revolutionary communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism," and views the Chinese Cultural Revolution as "the farthest advance of communism in human history."

Keeping himself in office was Slick’s highest goal, compared to which the lives of American servicemen were immaterial.

“Democrats love ‘Homeland Security’ because they see it as a ruse for more socialist programs.”

AFTER VOTING in favor of the war with Iraq right before the November elections, Sen. Hillary Clinton never had another kind word to say for the war. Just a few weeks ago, Sen. Clinton gave an interview on Irish TV in which she said she opposed precipitous action against Iraq. She said Bush should give the U.N. weapons inspectors more time.

Hillary did not object to precipitous action against Iraq when her husband bombed it on the day of his scheduled impeachment. President Clinton attacked Saddam Hussein without first asking approval from the United Nations, the U.S. Congress or even France. But now we have a president who wants to attack Iraq for purposes of national security rather than his own personal interests, and Hillary thinks he's being rash. President Bush has gotten a war resolution from Congress, yet another U.N. Security Council resolution, and we've been talking about this war for 14 months. But he's being precipitous.

When Clinton bombed Iraq to delay his impeachment, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle was ablaze with war fever. Daschle said: "This is a time to send Saddam Hussein as clear a message as we know how to send that we will not tolerate the broken promises and the tremendous acceleration of development of weapons that we've seen time and time again in Iraq." Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said of the impeachment bombing: "Month after month, we have given Iraq chance after chance to move from confrontation to cooperation, and we have explored and exhausted every diplomatic action. We will see now whether force can persuade Iraq's misguided leaders to reverse course and to accept at long last the need to abide by the rule of law and the will of the world."

…

Hillary hasn't shied away from talking about the war on terrorism. She has repeatedly bashed Bush for not doing enough to protect the country from another terrorist attack. Democrats love "Homeland Security" because they see it as a ruse for more socialist programs. They think Bush won't show he's serious about fighting terrorism until we have full prescription-drug care for the elderly.

Hillary's idea for "Homeland Security" is a federal program to fund local police and fire departments. I've noticed that feminists have become big fans of firemen since 9-11. Anti-war activist Susan Sarandon was in a play directed by her anti-war partner, Tim Robbins, titled "The Guys," about New York City firemen after the terrorist attack. Renowned feminist harpy Anna Quindlen has been on television gushing that "firefighters" are "aces." And Hillary's anti-terrorist initiative is federally funded firemen.

Mozambique taking in the white farmers expelled by Zimbabwe is truly ironic since Mozambique provided refuge to the guerillas who fought the Rhodesian regime.

Alas, most of Africa, at least subsaharan Africa, clearly is and for at least three decades has been the world’s sick continent. It is the only part of the world that is consistently behind, and falling further behind, on all economic, social, and political rankings. It is the most dependent on debt forgiveness for its very survival as a plausible collection of states, and often dependent on food and health care handouts for the survival of its people.

…

… Not all – fortunately, and this makes the point – Mozambique, itself ruined by decades of “socialism” has invited (yes, invited !) the very “white colonialist” farmers Mugabe has expelled and persecuted to set up farms on government provided land. But that example of common sense is more than obscured by the anti – white rantings of Sam Nujoma, the aging Marxist dictator of Namibia , and even by some voices in South Africa, all of whom think that today’s stealing of “white” property by their clique’s aces the inevitable starvation of blacks that will follow tomorrow.

As Mario Savio spoke in front of the University of California-Berkeley’s Sproul Hall on December 2, 1964, carried by nervous energy and a restless mass of students who hung on his every syllable, he hadn’t a clue that immortality beckoned. Yet in the 39 years since that windswept day when Savio delivered an emotion-dripped speech denouncing University Chancellor Clark Kerr, "the operation of the machine" and "The Man" in general, he has gained an exalted, almost deified position in the eyes of the left. The Savio-led march into Sproul Hall and subsequent "sit-in" gave impetus to the Free Speech Movement (FSM) and became the blueprint for the widespread campus uprisings and anti-Vietnam protests that followed. Savio’s influence can be seen today not only in the halls of academia (his December, 1964 speech is still cited as a call to arms by campus radicals from coast to coast) but also in the socialistic worldviews of Phil Donahue, Howard Zinn and Ralph Nader, all of whom are on the Advisory Board of UC Berkeley’s Mario Savio Memorial Lecture Fund. Moreover, as we survey the present politically correct campus landscape, it’s obvious that Savio, who died in 1996, helped accomplish what was always the FSM’s real and primary goal: establishing a political power base at U.S. universities from which the Anti-American left could run amok.

In his book, Uncivil Wars, David Horowitz alludes to this unspoken truth, writing,

"The FSM was ultimately not a movement about free speech. It was about the right of the political left to agitate for its agendas within the confines of the campus itself…this was the real achievement of the FSM—the insertion of ideological politics into the heart of the university community."

…

… There are people walking the streets of Berkeley today who make Noam Chomsky look like Audie Murphy. …

… "The flag has become a symbol of U.S. aggression towards other countries," said [Jessica] Quindel. "It seems hostile." …

…

In 2003, Berkeley has finally become the repressive, exclusionary machine that Savio described in his famous speech. And the voice being shut out is that of America.

All told, 405,399 Americans lost their lives during World War II.

Janeane Garofolo apparently thinks that patriotism is conditional on which party is in power. See Daniel Henninger

Diamonds, the politically incorrect gemstones. Leftist anti-FOX sentiment indicates that they only support freedom of speech for their own causes and that they don’t want people to have alternative sources of information.

At a pre-Grammy party, Kid answered a reporter's question about the War in Iraq, and made it clear that he isn't part of the music industry's anti-war faction. "Why is everybody trying to stop the war? George Bush ain't been saying, 'You all, make sh*#%y records.' Politicians and music don't mix. It's like whiskey and wine. We ought to stay out of it."

Kid knows he's no policy wonk or geo-political strategist, but couldn't resist adding, "We got to kill that mother-f@cker Saddam," he says. "Slit his throat. Kill him and the guy in North Korea."

Asked about innocent Iraqi civilians casualties, Kid answered pragmatically, "Yeah. But [Bush] is doing the right thing. You got money; you sit around talking about peace. People who don't have money need some help."

…

Sheryl's [Crow]  journey from sweet little USO Girl to Saddam's Little Helper is hardly the exception among Hollywood's conscientious objector class. Despite comprehensive probing, and we looked everywhere, there is scant evidence of a similar celebrity outcry at Democratic President Bill Clinton's military excursions in Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, and yes, Iraq.

Earlier this week, actress/activist Janeane Garofalo bluntly admitted that it just "wasn't hip" to protest back then. Apparently, war is not a problem if the U.S. President has a (D) next to his name.

In fact, when Clinton deployed U.S. Armed Forces in Bosnia, Sheryl Crow seemed to support the policy-even accompanying First Lady Hillary Clinton to the frontlines, where she performed for the troops.

…

Blood diamonds, as any good liberal can tell you, are the product of third world violence and oppression, often resulting in the exploitation of women and children. In fact, purchasing diamonds may even rank higher than driving an SUV on the liberal's list of unacceptable behavior-although not quite as bad as watching the Fox News Channel.

Martin Scorsese.

He’s joined the anti-American Hate-Fest in regards to Iraq.

For another article on Mr. Bjerre see “Danish pizzeria bans French and Germans” (Tuesday, February 25, 2003).

A pot of herbs was thrown through the window of his restaurant at the weekend, but Mr Bjerre says that apart from that incident he has been getting a lot of positive reaction to his stand.

"I have never sold as much as I did over the weekend," he said.

Mr Bjerre could be in breach of Denmark's anti-racism legislation, but told the newspaper he would carry on with the ban regardless.

…

The island, 320 kilometres (200 miles) south-west of the capital, Copenhagen, is a popular spot for visitors from neighbouring Germany.

Of the approximately 100,000 tourists who come, some 60 percent are German, and then mostly Scandinavians and Dutch.

There are few French visitors to the island, which has a year-round population of 3,300.

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Jewish World Review.com

 Palestinians Restless Under Arafat | Dan Rather Shills for Saddam
 Real Beverly Hillbillies Disparages the Disadvantaged

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This is an encouraging sign that Palestinians are becoming fed up with the corrupt, dictatorial Arafat regime. Getting Arafat out of power would be the best start for a real peace instead of a “peace process.”

All of which underscores something I discovered on a recent visit to Jerusalem. While most of the media fail to talk about it, there is an emerging silent majority of Palestinians. They are fed up with senseless bloodshed and terror, with a no-win uprising and a monumentally corrupt leadership.

The Arafat regime's corruption spreads heavy salt on Palestinian wounds. Multimillions in aid have flowed to the Palestinian Authority in the past 10 years. But most of it has gone into the black hole of thievery - from two-bit bureaucrats who demand bribes to deliver much-needed medical supplies to senior members of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's inner circle.

Ramsey Clark went to Hanoi with Jane Fonda during the Vietnam War. Does his cachet with Saddam mean that he’s in contact with Iraq?

The “mainstream” media’s stock in trade are creampuff interviews for “progressive” personages.

Maybe so. Rather and CBS went to no little trouble snagging this interview with the Big Fish. When has CBS ever permitted an American president to control the cameras? They reportedly permitted that privilege to Saddam's men. There may have been other ground rules as well. And CBS does not deny that it enlisted the good offices of none other than Ramsey Clark, who took time away from his busy schedule indicting the United States for war crimes (which he has done in Libya, North Korea, Iran, Vietnam and Panama, to name just a few) to put in a word for Rather with his friend Saddam.

The Ramsey Clark endorsement set the tone for the whole interview, because it was all about personality -- Dan Rather's mostly, but also Saddam's. And while Rather claims, in response to White House criticism, that everything was placed in its proper context, that's not quite true.

…

… In the hallowed tradition of left of center journalism, Rather did not see fit to ask this particular dictator any embarrassing questions about his human rights abuses, his murders or his torture chambers. He preferred the "how do you feel" sort of questions. …

The problem is, CBS is not dealing with characters here, but with real, live human beings. Worse, human beings from a population that has not enjoyed the material and educational advantages others have, a population that has been mocked, caricatured and marginalized - sometimes cruelly - by the society at large. Now those same people are offered up for the rest of us to laugh at. We are supposed to find humor in the ways they are Not Like Us.

As if you and I were the standard to which they ought to aspire. Our lives the ones by which they ought to be measured.

The sheer gall of it is astonishing, of course. But there is more than gall here. There is meanness and contempt. And ultimately, as already noted, not just for rural Southerners.

Krauthammer suggests that France be left out of of the war and reconstruction arrangements, to be last in line for settlement of Saddam’s debts.

Many of the states which were satellites of Nazi Germany were officially counted as “occupied” countries.

Bush also has some blame, since he approved Powell’s approach of going to the UN. Powell’s advice to stop the hostilities when he did helped crate the current Iraq crisis.

It is only slightly less absurd that we should require the assent of France. France pretends to great-power status but hasn't had it in 50 years. It was given its permanent seat on the Security Council to preserve the fiction that heroic France was part of the great anti-Nazi alliance rather than a country that surrendered and collaborated.

A half-century later, that charade has proved costly. In order to appease the French, we negotiated Security Council Resolution 1441, which France has thoroughly trashed and yet which has delayed American action for months.

Months for the opposition to mobilize itself, particularly in Britain, where Tony Blair is now hanging by a thread. Months for Hussein to augment his defenses and plan the sabotage and other surprises he has in store when the war starts. Months, most importantly, that threaten to push the fighting into a season of heat and sandstorms that may cost the lives of brave Americans. We will have France to thank for that.

 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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End of INS | Will North Korea Cull Plutonium | Nevada Looks at Taxing Hookers
   Vatican Eases Ousters of Pedophile Priests | Bosnian Serb Gets 11 Years for War Crimes
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The big question is whether the new agency will do a better job.

At least 325 of the 46,000 priests in the United States have either been dismissed from their duties or resigned since the crisis began in Boston in January 2002.

You’d think they would have put this in place and started using it years ago.

The French claim to be smart, but if they were they would have figured this out before they implemented the policy.

The INS confused America with a roach hotel where once they get in they never get out.

Why is police corruption so common in Arkansas?

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