Click here for the cost of the war so far from costofwar.comCatalystBlogging from "The City of Evil", Ithaca, NY "Radical Activist U", Oberlin, OH

Warning: include(): http:// wrapper is disabled in the server configuration by allow_url_include=0 in /home/catalyze/www/www/cnews/archives/archives-21.php on line 24

Warning: include(http://www.catalyzerjournal.com/news/sidebar.inc.php): failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /home/catalyze/www/www/cnews/archives/archives-21.php on line 24

Warning: include(): Failed opening 'http://www.catalyzerjournal.com/news/sidebar.inc.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/php56/lib/php') in /home/catalyze/www/www/cnews/archives/archives-21.php on line 24
Posts starting May 3 2005:

Ben Regenspan A ho in a china shop 1:39AM EST Tuesday, 5/17/2005 [link to this item]

(Ignore that last post)

In a brilliant use of mixed metaphor on Sunday, one of the Power Line blokes argued that the US was "the cop in the brothel" as opposed to "the bull in the china shop" re: its role in the United Nations.

(He didn't bother to identify any of the US's policemanly deeds at the UN, presumably because he tired himself out metaphoring. Oh, and actually he just took Mark Steyn's already too-ridiculous argument and added the symbolism, but, again: nice metaphors).

In any case, a new Guardian report suggests that this plagiarized dichotomy needs to account for another role of the US—namely, that of "a total ho in the brothel". This un-mixes the metaphors a bit, and, trust me, if you read the article, makes a lot more sense.

-Ben | Comments | Topics: ,

Ben Regenspan Finals week... 9:39PM EST Monday, 5/16/2005 [link to this item]

...don't expect any updates for a bit.

-Ben | Comments | Topic:

Ben Regenspan Credit where it's due 9:12PM EST Sunday, 5/15/2005 [link to this item]

Keeping in mind that it's probably not realistic to expect the guy to suddenly abandon his customary bad lede, elite tone, and sweeping generalizations, Brooks' latest column is actually pretty decent, offering up a number of statistics Republicans should be taking into account when making policy decisions:
That's because on important issues, the poor Republicans differ from their richer brethren. Poor Republicans aspire to middle-class respectability [remember the disclaimer back there re: generalizations -Ben], but they are suspicious of the rich and of big business. About 83 percent of poor Republicans say big business has too much power, according to Pew, compared with 26 percent of affluent Republicans. If the Ownership Society means owning a home, they're for it. If it means putting their retirement in the hands of Wall Street, they become queasy.

[...] Poorer Republicans support government programs that offer security, so long as they don't undermine the work ethic. Eighty percent believe government should do more to help the needy, even if it means going deeper into debt. Only 19 percent of affluent Republicans believe that.

Of course, the time Republican policymakers actually do start responding to the needs of their constituencies (when pigs fly, give or take a few years) is the time when Democrats become royally screwed and truly need to start making changes. That's why whenever I encounter smart, truly populist conservative thinking lately [insert another plug to Balloon Juice here; tell me if there are any other worthwhile Right blogs I should be checking out], I get seriously worried for the future of the donkey. So long as the Republicans manage to keep people-over-business conservatives confined to their party's margins, the Democrats are guaranteed a large constituency of rural voters, whatever the party's failures* in courting them. Of course, you then have to wonder whether it's this sort of lack of moral competition from the right that enables the rise of half-ass Dems like Lieberman, so it's hard to know who to root for here.

In any case, Kristof's column is also worth a read, raising the old issue of how Dems should approach voters of faith rather well:

Liberals can and should confront Bible-thumping preachers on their own terms, for the scriptural emphasis on justice and compassion gives the left plenty of ammunition. After all, the Bible depicts Jesus as healing lepers, not slashing Medicaid.

*If you take a look at the Pew report Brooks refers to in today's column, you'll definitely see some statistics that Democrats should be keeping in mind as well. You don't have to be into focus-group-style politics to, for instance, see this and consider that public display of the Ten Commandments could be an area worthy of compromise.

-Ben | Comments | Topics: ,

Ben Regenspan 7:11PM EST Saturday, 5/14/2005 [link to this item]

Ben Regenspan 3:34PM EST Saturday, 5/14/2005 [link to this item]

Ben Regenspan John H. Hinderaker and The Coprophagous K'ball 1:19PM EST Thursday, 5/12/2005 [link to this item]

This guy's a class act (via Lefarkins):
It's great to see someone [Roger Kimball] standing up for colonialism, especially British colonialism. I agree wholeheartedly with this observation, for example:
Had Britain had the courage to face down Gandhi and his rabble a few years longer, the tragedy that was the partititon of India might have been avoided.
I do have one word of advice for Roger: Stay off the college lecture circuit. I don't think they're ready for this much diversity!
Before assuming that he's joking or intentionally self-parodying, take a look here and decide for yourself whether he's got a funny bone in his body. And remember this little thing. Anybody know if the Minnesota Bar can expel someone on grounds of general prickery/inciting hatred towards lawyers?

He is right that Roger Kimball, who is kept by the Bureau of Weights and Measures as the standard wanker unit (SWU) from which all other hyper-elitist wankers are judged by, probably isn't welcome at any self-respecting university. Here's more of what Arserocket quoted, a cute response from not-so-special-K to one of the unenlightened savages who doesn't like him all that much:

As for colonialism, this third-world feminist of color should get down on her knees and thank Siva that her country was the beneficiary of British colonialism. Without it, she would never have heard of feminism or even of the third world, since the very concept depends upon the freedom, education, and language that the West brought to savages countries in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Some more daring historical revisionism from this bold combatant against the menace of political correctness:
Europe once sought to bring enlightenment—literacy, civil society, modern technology—to benighted parts of the world. It did so in the name of progress and civilization.
(In case you were wondering, Kimball is a big defender, and presumably beneficiary, of home-schooling).

-Ben | Comments | Topic:

Ben Regenspan 10:36AM EST Thursday, 5/12/2005 [link to this item]

Ben Regenspan The lucky bastard 5:25PM EST Wednesday, 5/11/2005 [link to this item]

Ben Regenspan Twilight in the Desert 5:00PM EST Tuesday, 5/10/2005 [link to this item]

I just got an advance copy of Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, by Matthew Simmons, a veteran energy analyst who is predicting a "twilight" in Saudi oil production to come far sooner than many have forecast, with potentially disastrous economic consequences.

It's a dense and citation-heavy book but by all accounts will be informing the public debate significantly when out at the end of the month, especially given Simmons' claim that Saudi estimates substantially overvalue the Kingdom's actual reserves. I haven't had much time with it yet, but what I have read is alarming given that the author is definitely not your usual "sky is falling" type.

Should have a review up within a few weeks.

-Ben | Comments | Topics: ,

Ben Regenspan Tuesday Morning Insomniac Palm Civet and Dog-Cockatoo Blogging 4:02AM EST Tuesday, 5/10/2005 [link to this item]

You've naturally always wanted to try Kopi Luwak, a coffee brewed from beans eaten by, and, err, passed through a Luwak, (a small Indonesian marsupial). But have you ever noticed how amazing Luwaks (or "palm civets") themselves are, fancy poop or not?:

(from Hayatozoo)
They eat palm sap and (of course) coffee, and I want one. Not sure how the college would feel about me having a rare Indonesian critter running around shitting coffee beans in my dorm, though, and, looking at this photo from back home, I'm also not sure if we'd be spreading the animal toys too thin if we adopted one of these guys:
...Whoa, it's late. I really like making these animal posts a la Bob Harris, and they're a refreshing departure from torture, religious-profiling-based detention of 16-year-old girls, etc. But it's 4AM, I have a Google search for "buy palm civet pet" open and my dedit card out of my wallet, and all this probably means I should go to bed.

-Ben | Comments | Topic:

Ben Regenspan 11:53PM EST Sunday, 5/8/2005 [link to this item]

I'm proud to be an American:
T.’s mother, breaking into tears, told the New York Times, "I always thought that this country is better for my children, but now...I just want my daughter. Please, can you help me?"
Update: This shit makes me too sick for words. Read Ted Rall's account of the girls' arrests.

-Ben | Comments | Topics: , ,

Ben Regenspan 1:36AM EST Saturday, 5/7/2005 [link to this item]

Ben Regenspan Update on Sgrena shooting incident PDF 4:32PM EST Thursday, 5/5/2005 [link to this item]

Because I posted not too long ago on the Sgrena PDF that has been making the rounds, I feel the need to counter some comments made by NPR's ombudsman yesterday: "NPR's Vicky O'Hara reported on a Defense...
 [Click here for the rest of this post] 
-Ben | Comments | Topics: , ,

Ben Regenspan Some good diagnoses of Brooks et al. 10:11PM EST Wednesday, 5/4/2005 [link to this item]

Atrios catches a good post over at Kos, which caught another good post from Tom Tomorrow:
[Tom]
Of course, Tierney and Brooks aren't really writing about red states and blue states. They're writing about the assumptions about red states and blue states which seem prevalent at the cocktail parties they attend, the dinners they go to. This isn't about liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans--it's about the elites trying to comprehend the lower classes, spinning out competing fantasies at those cocktail parties and on the op-ed pages of major newspapers: you don't understand real Americans like I do! And in a way, it's true--you'll never understand someone else's fantasies as well as they do...

[Hunter on Kos]
Brooks, Tierney, et al take a bizarre and unabashedly elitist view of America, in which they incessantly examine the normal, mainstream, middle-class that makes up most of the country as if it were a paleontological specimen before pronouncing, after ten or twenty minutes of deep thought, that their most recent primitive discovery indeed has opposable thumbs, listens to music, or prefers lemon scented dishwashing soap.

They write about mainstream America, and they write about mainstream America from the view of top-tier editorial newspaper columnists sitting in the very midst of the political powerbroker class, every one invited to the correct parties and appearing regularly on the same small set of television shows, and they tell us patiently that their view from this distant closed-circuit perch is much, much more illuminating than the view from our own cars and sidewalks and porches. Because we, living in that mainstream America, don't understand.

Who says we don't have an echo chamber? Ours just happens to echo very smart thinking.

-Ben | Comments | Topics: , , ,

Ben Regenspan 12:43AM EST Tuesday, 5/3/2005 [link to this item]

currently on page 21 of archivesgo to page: previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 next

Latest blog posts:

Warning: include(): http:// wrapper is disabled in the server configuration by allow_url_include=0 in /home/catalyze/www/www/cnews/archives/archives-21.php on line 163

Warning: include(http://www.catalyzerjournal.com/cnews/latestnews.txt): failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /home/catalyze/www/www/cnews/archives/archives-21.php on line 163

Warning: include(): Failed opening 'http://www.catalyzerjournal.com/cnews/latestnews.txt' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/php56/lib/php') in /home/catalyze/www/www/cnews/archives/archives-21.php on line 163

Latest art section additions:

Warning: include(): http:// wrapper is disabled in the server configuration by allow_url_include=0 in /home/catalyze/www/www/cnews/archives/archives-21.php on line 165

Warning: include(http://www.catalyzerjournal.com/cnews/latestart.txt): failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /home/catalyze/www/www/cnews/archives/archives-21.php on line 165

Warning: include(): Failed opening 'http://www.catalyzerjournal.com/cnews/latestart.txt' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/php56/lib/php') in /home/catalyze/www/www/cnews/archives/archives-21.php on line 165

Humor:

Warning: include(): http:// wrapper is disabled in the server configuration by allow_url_include=0 in /home/catalyze/www/www/cnews/archives/archives-21.php on line 174

Warning: include(http://www.catalyzerjournal.com/links/humor.php): failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /home/catalyze/www/www/cnews/archives/archives-21.php on line 174

Warning: include(): Failed opening 'http://www.catalyzerjournal.com/links/humor.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/php56/lib/php') in /home/catalyze/www/www/cnews/archives/archives-21.php on line 174
More links...

Latest headlines from Electronic Iraq:

This webpage uses Javascript to display some content.

Please enable Javascript in your browser and reload this page.

Powered by Coranto