Bill’s Blog

“Not for the politically correct.”

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DrudgeReport.com

• JFK Had Affair With 19-Year-Old Intern

• Corpus Christi CBS Outlet Pulls Hitler Miniseries

• Florida Teen Faces Jail for Feeding Cat to Gator

• Columnist Accuses Jeb Bush of Florida of Using Pregnant Retarded Woman as Political Pawn

• 2 Memphis Area Men May Have SARS

• Pending Canadian Legislation Lowers Pot Penalties

• LA International Security Screeners Had Criminal Histories

• France Claims Charges of Supporting Saddam Part of Plot

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“JFK Intern Affair Shows Cultural Change.” Washington Post (AP). May 16, 2003.

The author who revealed former President John F. Kennedy's affair with a 19-year-old intern said Friday that the media's interest in the liaison underscores an extraordinary change in American culture.

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Kennedy is known to have had numerous extramarital liaisons, but "An Unfinished Life," Dallek's biography published this week, contains the first report of an affair with an intern.

We nearly had World War III because the press refused to tell the American people about JFK’s physical disabilities and compulsive philandering.

Brown, Jeremy. “Texas TV stations pull CBS 'Hitler' TV miniseries.” Knoxville News Sentinel. May 15, 2003.

The CBS affiliate in Corpus Christi, Texas, has opted not to air a two-part miniseries dramatizing the young life of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

If people don’t know why Hitler was anti-democratic it means that American education is broken. My suspicion is that this series will be politically correct by not paralleling Stalin’s evil.

Runnells, Charles. “Teen who fed cat for gator could face five years in prison.” News-Press Post: Ft, Meyers, Florida. May 16, 2003.

A teenage boy who fed a neighbor’s pet cat to an alligator Thursday told investigators he just wanted to see what the gator would do, Cape Coral police reported.

Estrich, Susan. untitled. Creators Syndicate. May 16, 2003.

Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida triggered a national controversy on Tuesday when he overruled attorneys for his own state's Department of Children and Families Services and ordered them to seek the appointment of a guardian for the fetus of a severely disabled woman who had been raped while in a state facility.

…

JDS deserved protection from intercourse. She didn't get it. Now, instead of protection, she is being used again, as a political pawn.

Powers, Mary. “2 in Shelby, DeSoto may have SARS.” Commercial Appeal: Memphis. May 16, 2003.

Two Mid-South men were quarantined at home Thursday with the high fever, cough and other symptoms that prompted public health officials to suspect the atypical pneumonia dubbed SARS.

The men - residents of Shelby and DeSoto counties - developed symptoms within 10 days of returning from Toronto and Hong Kong, both hot spots of severe acute respiratory syndrome, state health officials said.

Ibbitson, John, and Lunman, Kim. “Lighter penalties for minors in pot bill.” Globe and Mail: Toronto. May 16, 2003.

Smoking pot while driving would not be a crime and penalties for minors would be lower than for adults, according to draft legislation decriminalizing the possession of marijuana.

Goo, Sara Kehaulani. “Security May Have Lapsed With Screeners: Airports Question TSA After Workers' Criminal Pasts Are Discovered.” Washington Post. May 16, 2003.

More than two dozen federal airport screeners stationed at Los Angeles International Airport have been found to have criminal histories, prompting concern that the federal government did not complete required background probes of security personnel, people familiar with the matter said.

…

The TSA said it completed name- and fingerprint-based criminal background checks on all of its screeners. But 40 percent of its workforce of 55,600 screeners has not undergone a more in-depth investigation by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

You’d think they could have gotten all the background checks done within a couple of months after 9/11.

Knowlton, Brian. “France protests 'plot' by U.S.” International Herald Tribune. May 16, 2003.

French officials on Thursday complained formally to the White House, State Department and Congress that France had been victimized by a campaign of "repeated disinformation," allegedly fed by Bush administration sources accusing Paris of providing military and diplomatic aid to Iraq.

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 OpinionJournal.com

• What Clinton Should Have Done in 1996

• Study Used by Univ of Michigan May Show Diversity Is Not Conducive to Learning

• Dissident Documentary Shows Reality of Life in Castro’s Cuba

• American Currency Shouldn’t Be Peach–Colored

• Best of the Web Today

  • Saudis May Not Be Serious About Fighting Al Qaeda

  • Al Qaeda May Have Infiltrated Saudi Government, Military

  • France Claims US Is Plotting Revenge on Chirac

  • Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.’s Hippie Corporate Culture at New York Times

  • New York Times Questions If Arturo Moreno Is a “Minority”

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Bremer, L. Paul. “Terrorists' Friends Must Pay a Price: The advice President Clinton should have followed.” OpinionJournal.com. May 16, 2003.

(Editor's note: This article originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 5, 1996. On June 12 of that year, terrorists murdered 19 American soldiers at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, and on July 17 TWA flight 800 exploded near New York, killing all 229 aboard.)

If President Clinton means to get serious about the fight against terrorism, he should leave the White House Press Room and head downstairs to the basement Situation Room. There he should gather the National Security Council and deliver the following address:

Fighting terrorism would have alienated Slick from his Leftist base. Slick’s entire political career was to do that which advanced him politically rather than that which was best for his state and then nation.

One of Michigan's major claims, in its legal arguments, is that student diversity enhances the environment for learning and improves the quality of education. Implied is the notion that when a greater number of blacks and other minorities are introduced into the classroom, a more diverse pool of ideas and "perspectives" is generated and everyone gains.

…

But that wasn't the way the 1994 study was first understood. As it happens--through a Freedom of Information Act request--I was able to obtain a copy of the study's first "Executive Summary," submitted on May 24, 1994. It concluded that Michigan's racial preference programs actually "stigmatized" African-Americans and "increasingly polarized" the campus; that "self-segregation" was common; that "diversity of skin color" is not equivalent to "diversity of ideas" (financial disparities were more telling); and that diversity "quite simply . . . does not, in itself, lead to a more informed, educated population."

O’Grady, Mary Anastasia. “Skip Oliver Stone: Here's the real Havana on camera.” OpinionJournal.com. May 16, 2003.

Mr. Payá is an impressive figure in the film. But it is the few ordinary Cubans who agree to speak candidly who make the film extraordinary. They bravely share what few foreigners ever hear--the resentment, loathing and fear of a "static" system that abuses its own people. "It is an indignation for a government to do with its people whatever it wants," says one thin elderly woman. "Fidel is more afraid of ideas than of weapons. He is armed up to his teeth. But ideas? Ideas are dangerous." A young man in a bar vows to beat up anyone who criticizes the Comandante. But when Ms. Ewing asks him about dissent he tells her to cut the camera. Ten minutes later he is back to say: "These are things you cannot discuss here. Because you get to leave here. But I have to stay." His eyes speak fear.

“The Color of Money American dollars shouldn't be peach.” OpinionJournal.com. May 16, 2003.

Officially this new redesign--on the heels of one in 1998--was commissioned to frustrate a growing counterfeiting problem. According to the Secret Service, modern forgers have, no pun intended, capitalized on the increasingly sophisticated array of printers, scanners and software on the market: While as recently as 1995 less than 1% of counterfeit notes detected in the U.S. were digitally produced, today that share is nearly 40%.

…

But fiddling with paper currency, especially fiat currency, is a delicate business because it involves public confidence. And here, as a general rule of psychology, old and stodgy trumps light and airy. We concede that the new hues (including peach!) tinting the new notes will indeed make life more difficult for counterfeiters. But the new colorations also bring the stately greenback disturbingly closer to its pasteled cousins overseas.

The new colors could indicate that making the bills more visually attractive will keep the public from noticing that they’re steadily losing their purchasing power.

Link to Treasury Department’s “interactive bill”

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FrontPageMag.com

• Saudi Culture of Wahhabism Sustains Climate of Terrorism

• Disloyalty of Hollywood-types Reduces Audiences

• Visiting Anthropology Lecturer Uses Classroom as “Anti-war” Forum

• William Safire: Get Tough on Old Europe

• Religious Freedom Repressed in Muslin Middle Eastern States

• The Nazi Roots of the PLO

• US to Crack Down on North Korean Sales of Drugs, Missiles

• Miami United Way Cuts Off Boy Scouts

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… To separate the state ideology of the kingdom from the blood shed in Riyadh would make as much sense as separating the history of the Russian Communist party from the sufferings of prisoners in the Siberian Gulag. Yet this is the position taken by America's leaders.

Is this no more than an echo of the Kissinger age, when Communist Russia was viewed, not as the evil empire, but as a force for stability in the world? Will the philosophy of the U.S. State Department continue to prevail, according to which preservation of the status quo is the only guarantee of security, and change in Saudi Arabia is more risky than standing by while our own people are brutally murdered?

American film producers have the right to refuse to hire actors whose disloyalty may make them unpopular with audiences.

This article mentions anti-Hollywood Web sites:

• HollywoodHalfwits.com
• Celiberal.com
• HollywoodPeace.com
• Boycott-Hollywood.net

This article also mentions the NewsMax.com “Deck of Weasels.”

That many movie fans have vowed to do their best not to enrich the most vocal of the celebrity antiwar activists is a well-known fact in Hollywood. …

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“Penn crossed over a bright line into unprotected speech when he publicly advocated the violent overthrow of the United States government,” Bing contends in court papers, referring to statements made by Penn that appeared in a British newspaper article.

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… So it makes perfect sense if Bing decided not to cast Penn because he thought a significant portion of the public doesn’t want to pay to see Penn.

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Average Americans have fewer ways of getting their views across. Not buying movie tickets is one of them that Bing is keenly aware of.

True or False: This is Academic Bias
By Christopher Speck
A University of North Carolina professor graded her students' opinons about the Iraqi war. More>

PoliticallyRight.com link to this article

In a gesture that only Eastern Europeans with long memories can fully grasp, the Polish defense minister sweetly invited his German counterpart to contribute troops to this Polish-led European force. Officials under the anti-American Chancellor Gerhard Schröder seethed at the notion of German soldiers' saluting Polish officers, and angrily rejected the generous Polish offer.

…

Polish jokes are out; French jokes are in. …

Link to The Annual Report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom

… another reminder of how little some Islamic-dominated states care for the most basic human rights. On Wednesday, the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom released its annual report and to no one’s surprise, “religious tolerance” is not a phrase linked with Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Iran, among others.

The birth of "Palestinianism" can be dated to November of 1941 when German Chancellor Adolf Hitler met with Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti or supreme religious and secular leader of Muslim Arabs, on the west bank of the Jordan River. The idea of a Palestinian nation--something that had never existed in thought or actuality in history--was, thus, gestated over tea and cakes in the Fuhrer's salon. In addition, in the Mufti's own words his people would be forever agents and instigators of the Holocaust: "Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world."

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And the Grand Mufti? He was sought for war crimes by the Yugoslav government after 1945 but lived on in pampered exile in Egypt and Lebanon--both, of course, "moderate" Arab countries--until his death in 1974. His family is still prominent in the Palestinian territories. Yasser Arafat, who called al-Husseini "my dear Uncle," modeled the PLO and Palestine on what the old fellow taught him about the Nazi movement.

The Bush administration, aiming to increase pressure on North Korea to abandon nuclear arms, intends to crack down on narcotics and missile exports that earn hard currency for Pyongyang and may agree on a plan in the next few weeks, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

They also said the United States would soon ask the U.N. Security Council to again consider adopting a statement demanding that North Korea address the nuclear issue.

The United Way of Miami-Dade on Tuesday discontinued its funding for boy scouting programs, saying the local Boy Scouts of America affiliate failed to abide by an agreement requiring it to help gay youths cope with their sexuality.

As if volunteer scoutmasters have the qualifications to help deal with this complex psychological problem.

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Jewish World Review.com

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 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
 (Subscription Site)

• In the news

• Thousands of Aliens Who Have Committed Crimes Remain in US

• Missed Filing Deadline Costs Mother of Corliss Williamson’s Son More Child Support

• Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau Gets $75,000 in State Tourism Funds

• NW Ark Hispanic Group Condones Illegal Immigrants

• Shades of Grand Gult – Louisiana Wants to Shift Electricity Costs to Arkansas

• Short Bob Dylan Time Line

• Pot Calling the Kettle Black Editorial

• Thomas Sowell’s Take on the Jayson Blair Scandal

• Meredith Oakley on the Jayson Blair Scandal

• Dana Kelley: JFK Profile in Courage Awards Given for Political Correctness

• Letters

  • x

  • x

• Former New Orleans mayor Marc Morial has set raising the organization’s profile as his first goal as the new head of the Urban League.
• A jury awarded Victoria Gallegos $5.27 million for being fired after a complaint that cigarette smoke in her office aggravated her asthma.
• Chairman of the Columbia space shuttle disaster commission Admiral Harold Gehman Jr. told a Senate committee that NASA’s safety engineers are “few and poorly supported.”

Maybe he should try turning the Urban League into a patriotic civil rights organization. That should get plenty of publicity.

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ArkDemocrat

Federal authorities Wednesday announced a renewed crackdown on immigrants who have committed crimes in the United States but have managed to avoid deportation.

About 80,000 "criminal alien absconders" are estimated to be on the loose, many of them keeping a low profile after having served state and local sentences for their crimes.

Another 300,000 immigrant "absconders" have received deportation orders but have eluded immigration agents. With a $10 million appropriation from Congress, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it will redouble efforts to find and deport them.

You’d think that the courts that convicted them would turn them over to the immigrations authorities right after the trial.

Former Arkansas Razorback basketball star Corliss Williamson prevailed Thursday in a child-support case filed against him by the mother of his son. The state Supreme Court refused her lawyer’s request that it bend a rule that set a deadline the lawyer had missed.

John Tull of Little Rock, a lawyer for Williamson, said the ruling ends the mother’s appeal. The high court ruled that the mother’s lawyer failed to meet court filing deadlines.

Letting a client lose a case because of a filing deadline should be punished by suspension of the lawyer’s license.

It’s really disappointing to learn that an athlete of Williamson’s stature has fathered an illegitimate child.

The state Parks and Tourism Commission agreed Thursday to spend $75,000 to help market Little Rock as an international destination.

The state commission, meeting at Queen Wilhelmina State Park, voted unanimously to transfer the money from its advertising agency budget to the Destination: Arkansas program of the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The Little Rock advertising firm Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods, which serves both the state commission and the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation, will use the money to start promotions targeting overseas tourist-packaging companies. The campaign will tout the fall 2004 openings of the Clinton presidential library and Heifer International’s new headquarters nearby.

Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods is a Little Rock establishment advertising firm.

Two thousand dollars paid to an undercover police officer for crystal methamphetamine should be returned to the wouldbe buyer, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The court said Peter Hoffman was never charged by officers after he was arrested in Ouachita County on Jan. 18, 2000.

The 13th Judicial District Drug Task Force kept the money, the methamphetamine and some other personal property found on Hoffman when he was arrested, according to the court.

The state can’t prosecute Hoffman now because of it is too late to comply with the speedy trial provisions that Arkansas follows.

The state also let pass a 120-day period in which it could have filed a forfeiture proceeding for the money Hoffman paid for the drugs, the court said.

With this kind of incompetence it’s hard to see how we’re going to win the “War on Drugs.”

This case raises the question of why this went to the Supreme Court. The circuit court apparently didn’t follow the law in this case.

This can also be seen as the contempt for property rights of the drug enforcement authorities.

Members of an advocacy group will discuss their desire to get more Hispanics elected to state and local-level offices during a state convention that starts today in Rogers.

"We really believe representation should reflect the community, and right now it doesn’t," said R. Shawn McGrew, president of the Northwest Arkansas council of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

…

Still, the League of United Latin American Citizens has started to build some political clout. He said the organization helped to kill a bill during the recent legislative session that would have limited the forms of identification that could be used to obtain a driver’s license.

The participation in blocking a law to make it harder for illegal immigrants to get an Arkansas drivers licenses indicates that this is a Leftist organization.

In a rational society the Federal government would cut off federal funds from states which encourage illegal immigration.

Regulators in New Orleans and for Louisiana in June 2001 jointly filed a federal complaint against Entergy Corp., saying the company’s division of production costs among its affiliates was not equitable. They asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to impose a formula that would permanently balance the costs.

Entergy and utility regulators in Arkansas and Mississippi are arguing against a permanent balance. Arkansas regulators have said Louisiana’s proposal would cost Entergy’s Arkansas customers $200 million to $400 million a year.

This looks like Grand Gulf all over again. Instead of minding its own business Louisiana wants to take advantage of Arkansas.

August 1962: Robert Allen Zimmerman legally becomes Bob Dylan.

Jayson Blair has already stopped being a person; he’s now an Incident. He’s a Janet Cooke, a Stephen Glass, a Patricia Smith—reporters who are infamous for being notorious liars, fabricators, or plagiarists. …

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This is the newspaper, remember, that employed Walter Duranty. The Times’ man on the Stalin beat in the 1930s assured readers that there was "no actual starvation" in Russia even as millions died in Stalin’s manufactured famine. And don’t forget Herbert Matthews. As the Sun reminds us, Mr. Matthews became "emotionally involved" with Fidel Castro. Always a cardinal sin for any newspaperman. Based in Havana, Mr. Emotionally Involved reported the evolution of a "free, honest and democratic" regime under Fidel’s kindly tutelage—sort of like a free, honest and democratic gulag.

…

The Times may still have standards, but they tend to be invoked only selectively. …

The Democrat-Gazette does a good job of pointing out the Times’ misdeeds, but you wouldn’t know that it has plenty of its own, particularly if you count the Arkansas Gazette.

Isolated scandals can strike anywhere. But this was no isolated scandal. Those who run the New York Times were warned again and again over the years by their own people that reporter Jayson Blair was doing things that crossed the line.

There’s another irony here—in the Times’ placement of Sunday’s story with its headline, "Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception." It appeared on the front page, above the fold, right beneath the venerated Times’ motto, "All the News That’s Fit to Print."

The Profile in Courage Award is a political award, however, given to politicians for what more and more seems to be allegiance to politically correct causes, which I would argue is the exact opposite of courage.

The award winners for 2003 are two Southern governors who took stands against Confederate insignia on their state flags and a relatively obscure Southern state legislator who gave an impassioned speech in favor of hate-crime legislation.

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It’s also a practical misstep for a courage award to take sides on issues such as Confederate emblems and hate crime laws, issues that have no clearly defined "moral superiority" as do those involving civil rights, for which the first two PICA were honored.

… If the people of Georgia want to include the Stars and Bars on their state flag, that decision doesn’t affect in the least whether they will still be bound by all civil rights laws.

Instead, Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes rammed his flag change through a Democratic-controlled legislature in barely a week, confident that his $20 million war chest would offset any ill political effects. He outspent his Republican opponent 6-to-1 in the 2002 campaign and still lost by 100,000 votes.

Next they’ll be giving the award to politicians who use their offices to prey on young women.

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