The Coffeespy

I caught wind of it at Common Sense Political Thought, followed it up at Gold Plated Witch on Wheels, and finally got to the source at the New York Times.  At first, it appeared simply that an academic out at George Mason University was suggesting we give people who know more about economics more votes:

If the public doesn’t know how to think, is there a solution? Caplan has some radical medicine in mind. To encourage greater economic literacy, he suggests tests of voter competence, or “giving extra votes to individuals or groups with greater economic literacy.”

Yeah, yeah, an academic wacko is what I thought, too.  Personally, I think people with Irish-level body hair and knowledge of the Incredible Hulk should get more votes, but that’s just me.  Anyway there’s still more strangeness to be found, dear reader:

The liberal blogger Ezra Klein wrote: “Obviously I, like most coastal-bred elitists, don’t think voters make terribly good decisions. But I also don’t think economic actors are particularly rational.”

Apparently there’s an entire group of people who think bigger brains equals bigger voices.  Peering through the AlternaversiScope, we catch a glimpse of this Utopia:

No thanks!  The Rogaine needs alone would cripple healthcare… but wait!  Is there even more?

Caplan’s complaint is not that special-interest groups might subvert the will of the people, or that government might ignore the will of the people. He objects to the will of the people itself.

Aha!  Now I know where I’ve heard this before.  Quick, to the Batcave!  Err… wrong universe — to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier!  It is as I suspected…  It seems Mr. Caplan isn’t Mr. Caplan at all, but rather the gamma-boosted intellect of the Leader!  Only the colossal cranium housing one of the largest egos on the planet could have come up with a plan to get himself more votes based on knowledge he specifically possesses — and pretend it’s altruistic on his part!

Josh Marshall of the Talking Points Memo compares the Bush administration’s use of the term “enhanced interrogations” to the Nazi use of the term “sharpened interrogations.”  From Talking Points Memo:

Very uncomfortable. “Enhanced interrogation”, the Bush administration’s preferred newspeak for torture, appears to have been coined by the Nazi Party in 1937.

interrogation”, the Bush administration’s preferred newspeak for torture, appears to have been .There are way too many facile comparisons of whatever group or individual we dislike to Nazis. But when the shoe fits.

I’m a little more concerned that in order for the comparison to be valid, we also have to equate a victimized Jewish population or non-Nazi citizens to Islamo-fascist terrorists captured while trying to murder Americans.  I’m also concerned that the Left seems to think this is ok to do, as long as it helps cast aspersions on U.S. operations.

Commenting on the comparison is the Coffeespy’s Nazi Subject Matter Expert, Steve Rogers:

That’s right, fearless reader!  It won’t be DC or Marvel comics bringing you the ultimate cross-over event of the year.  It won’t be Image or an indy, either.  Brace yourselves for the cross-over event of the century!

Humans meet dinosaurs, courtesy of the Creation Museum!  So says Instapundit:

THE CREATION MUSEUM: “Like most natural history museums, this one has exhibits showing dinosaurs roaming the earth. Except here, the giant reptiles share the forest with Adam and Eve. That, of course, is contradicted by science, but that’s the point of the $25 million Creation Museum rising fast in rural Kentucky.”

Hmm, I guess I’ve forgotten the part of Genesis where Adam kicks the ass of a bunch of velociraptors. It would have to be pre-apple, of course.

A preview of the Creation Museum’s exhibit can be found here. 

We know from previous experience what happens when beings are ripped out of their own time and dumped in another: glorious mayhem!  Evolution may have science behind it, but this creation stuff has summer blockbuster written all over it.  Think about it, when’s the last time you heard of a big draw movie titled “The Day the Tadpole Went Flipperless” or “Monkeys to Men II: Rise of the Neanderthal”?  NEVER, and with good reason.

Battle for the Planet of the Apes, however?  Big!  Jurassic Park?  Big!  Encino Man?  Well, was that really the premise’s fault or Paulie Shore’s? 

Anyway, it’s important to remember exactly what kind of bad can happen when you cross the timelines.  In addition to the obvious things like dinosaur conquerors:

We can also do a case study.  Take Conan for example.  Conan is hurled through time and space in order to do something worthwhile like take on the Superskrull:

This leads to the inevitable confrontation between himself and other superheroes:

When he realizes he’s out of his league, Conan decides to take out some street level crime:

Only to upgrade his arsenal and accept the culture:

Finally becoming that which he had grown to hate:

Now is this what you want to see?  It’s tragedy waiting to happen, I tell you.  If you doubt it, I give you the sworn testimony of two actual doctors:

Dr. Egon Spengler: Don’t cross the streams.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?

Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.

There you have it.

As my compadres at Common Sense Political Thought have pointed out:

Did you hear Cindy Sheehan left the Democratic Party?  Neither did I!

They’re commenting on the NewsBusters article citing an apparent lack of interest by the mainstream media concerning Sheehan’s actions when those actions oppose the Democrat(ic)s rather than bash the President.  From NewsBusters:

It’s been a full 48 hours since antiwar icon Cindy Sheehan publicly announced that she was leaving the Democrat Party due to Thursday’s bipartisan agreement on an Iraq war funding bill.

Yet, Google News and LexisNexis searches have identified that not one major media outlet has covered her announcement.

Not one.

Well that’s weird.  If I remember correctly, the media really liked to report on Sheehan’s doings.  NewsBusters reports that since August 2005, there have been 2,272 articles on Sheehan and her cause.  If we are allowed to play meaningless staticstics for one moment, since August 1, 2005 to today we have a grand total of 665 days.  That’s an average of 3.4 articles on Cindy Sheehan per day.  Not a single one of those has appeared in the past two, though, since her announcement on the Daily Kos.

And what of her announcement on the DK?  Sheehan writes:

As for myself, I am leaving the Democratic Party. You have completely failed those who put you in power to change the direction our country is heading. We did not elect you to help sink our ship of state but to guide it to safe harbor.

Spider-Man responds from New York with what most Republicans have been saying since the Sheehan circus began:

If Sheehan would just talk to John Edwards, she’d see she’s just being silly.  After all, there is no War on Terror.

UPDATE

• Ding
• Ding
• Ding

Sheehan’s own words:

When she had first taken on Bush, Sheehan was a darling of the liberal left. “However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the ‘left’ started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used,” she wrote.

Thousands of bikers arrive in DC every Memorial Day Weekend to take part in Rolling Thunder.  This year, the Great One will be riding with you.  Patriots assemble!

And just in case you hog-riding harbingers of warrior pride decide to get a little unruly, don’t forget Cap can go from mom, baseball and apple pie to Sergeant Smackdown in a New York minute:

Seriously though, roll on brothers.  Make the streets shake under those iron horses.

In a step seemingly calculated to distance himself from Ahmadinejad and David Duke’s Holocaust Denial Conference of 2006, John Edwards has gone the other way with this one and decided to deny the Global War on Terror as a myth (you know, like unicorns and stuff).  From the AP story:

Democrat John Edwards Wednesday repudiated the notion that there is a “global war on terror,” calling it an ideological doctrine advanced by the Bush administration that has strained American military resources and emboldened terrorists.

Nevermind that Edwards voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq, he was fooled by the diabolically clever Bush administration.  How was he fooled?  Something about a bumper sticker…

Anyway, Nick Fury, the former leader of S.H.I.E.L.D. was reached for comment:

Colonel Fury looks a little busy so we’ll leave him to it.

I’m starting to see that all the wisdom of the world is inside our very own comic books.  Take Obama and Clinton bending to the cut and run crowd, for example.  You have two people who are hoping to lead the nation bowing to threats from far left groups.  From Reuters:

Obama and Clinton had refused to say how they would vote, but ultimately sided with opponents of the increasingly unpopular war. Liberal advocacy groups like MoveOn.org had warned Democrats who backed the measure of possible political consequences.

If there’s even a tiny bit of speculation that Clinton and Obama were voting with bipartisan support, it should be noted that the bill passed 280-142 in the House and 80-14 in the Senate.

Iraq’s a big, burly monster, it’s true.  But running isn’t going to make it go away.  What would Frank Castle do?  I give you an exerpt from issue 7 of the Punisher War Journal where he’s fenced in with a Nazi bull (that’s right, a Nazi bull):

I should have known reading She-Hulk would bring me nothing but grief.  On May 10th, I explained what was going on that would lead up to World War Hulk.  On May 23, I was finally able to purchase the comic with events predating those explained on May 10th.  By the time World War Hulk is finished, I will probably just be able to get to read the events of April 12, 1967 at this rate.

Marvel needs to stabilize their plotting across titles.  Their Avengers titles have these problems, too.

Anyway, in She-Hulk we learn that She-Hulk is pretty badass.  She batters Iron Man around for a few pages with ease until he stabs her with de-hulkifying nanites.  Apparently, while the Hulk was on Earth, Iron Man couldn’t develop these lovely items.  Now that they’re no longer needed, he’s not only invented them but had them integrated into his suit.  Oooookay…

In true American fashion, She-Hulk, now in her Jennifer Walters form, promises to destroy Tony Stark in a manner worse than a comic book brawl: she’s going to use her lawyer skills.  If Marvel turns THAT into a cross-over event, we’re truly nearing the end-times.

Countdown #51, #50, and #49 

51… 50… 49… Boom.  Dropped from my reading list.  I can only take so many pages of Jimmy Olsen.  And since the only supporting stories are Mary Marvel without powers and the villains of the Flash hanging out talking smack to each other… meh. 

Conan #40 

I was perusing the comic offerings at the shop after missing last week and ran across Conan #40.  I’d heard some good things but, being a Howard purist, tried to keep away.  I flipped it open and immediately knew I would be buying this issue.  There, on page 6, was a decapitated sorceror chasing his own head across the desert.  Now that is quality.  I was not disappointed, either.  By the end of the book, the vile Thoth-Amon used the headless body to pull his wagon by dangling the mage’s melon by a stick in front of it.

Oh yeah, just so we know Thoth-Amon is a mean dude, he eats one of the guy’s eyes.  Add in that Conan slices off a man’s face and then skewers the mage’s head like a popsicle, to better hold a conversation with it, and you can honestly say it doesn’t get better in comics than that.

Fantastic Four #546

I’ll be blunt.  I don’t like the Black Panther and Storm filling in for Reed and Sue.  It’s possible it has something to do with Paul Pelletier forgetting how to draw lips whenever he gets to Storm.  Perhaps she’s having an allergic reaction to Vibranium or something, but it’s nowhere in the story.

The rest of it, though, isn’t bad.  They bring back the Secret Wars cosmic-power-stealing-harness of Dr. Doom, shoot Galactus in the knee, and travel through time and space by making a pair of golden frogs hump each other.  Outstanding comic-bookery, sirs.

But get Sue and Reed back where they belong, please.  I’m tired of seeing the Black Panther played up to Batman status.  He just isn’t.

The Mighty Avengers #3

As of this month, I’ve dropped the title.  I love the art, but Bendis’s writing is terrible.  The man cannot learn how to use thought bubbles.  Seriously, on a single page, the Black Widow thinks some combination of “$#%@” four times.  On page 27, the dialogue between Ms. Marvel, Wonder Man, and the Sentry is almost incomprehensible.

The Sentry: The world’s weather.  How is she controlling the entire world’s weather?

Ms. Marvel: Exactly!  One weather pattern here or there–like Storm from the X-Men, that we’ve seen.

Wonder Man: But this–

Ms. Marvel: Exactly.

“Exactly” what?!  “Exactly” what are you talking about?  The following frame is no better:

Wonder Man: Uh…

Ms. Marvel: Uh-oh.  No Ultron?

Wonder Man: Exactly.

Is it some sort of disease?  Exactly.  Is it entirely inappropriate for Ares to have a single red heart in his thought bubble?  Exactly.  Will issue #4 of Mighty Avengers be read at a bookstore comic rack next month?  Exactly.

Captain America #26

The only reason I’m mentioning this is so anyone who ever wanted to see what Peter Parker would look like as a black man can flip to page 23 and look at the top panel.  I realize there’s this whole “back in black” marketing deal going on for the movie, but switching the dude’s race is a little extreme.

Oh yeah, if you read the bottom two panels from that page you can see that Marvel editors must have read all the fan complaints.  They retroactively explain why Captain America, who has been adept at dodging bullets since the early 40s, forgot how to dodge. 

Fallen Son: Captain America

Good comic all around.  It starts off with Hawkeye announcing his return.  Goes into a canned storyline where he becomes the new Captain America.  And takes a sharp turn just before Clicheland to catapult the story into awesomeness.

I don’t care that it’s highly unlikely that Iron Man would forget to shield himself against EMP pulses because I don’t like Tony Stark right now.  I’m glad he takes a tumble.  I’m glad he stands dejected at the end with Cap’s shield and Clint Barton’s words.

Mostly, I’m glad I finally know what the hell Clint was doing between being re-existified and appearing as Ronin.  This issue finally allows New Avengers to make sense.  I’m not sure why Marvel is doing it, but their timeline is all screwed up.  You’ll see what I mean with the next World War Hulk update.

Well, I mulled over posting this explanation as to why the Coffeespy has been scarce.  I figured those who don’t care won’t care either way and those who do care would want to know so… here it is.

I’ve been looking for a new job.  I’m up agaist a hard “you don’t have a paycheck anymore as of May 25″ deadline and I’m not having a whole lot of luck.  You have to be in a certain frame of mind to write these things and with the stress of impending unemployment looming, I just don’t have the will.

I can assure you that once I find gainful employment the Coffeespy will be back on a regular schedule.  Until then, I can only say it’ll be sporadic.

That said, if anyone knows of work anywhere that requires 15 years of technical writing experience, 9 years of security/intelligence analysis (zero-based analysis is my friend), a criminal justice degree (summa cum laude, baby), and an ability to improve/develop processes that work - let me know.  My availability is profound to say the least.