The Coffeespy

If you don’t agree with their politics, they will attempt to harm you personally.  Now I’m sure you all know the Red Skull, Cobra Commander and Baron Strucker and may be asking “who is that third man doing his best Jack Bauer?”  The third man is Mike Rogers, who will “out” you if you’re gay and disagree with him.

When you fail to attack the issue, attack the man.

It’s a sad tale, just ask the recently outed Skeletor and Prince Adam.  The pair were guest speakers at “Eternians for Family Values 2003″ and suffered the Rogers treatment.  Recently, the pair starred in the soft core porn film “Grayskull Mountain” claiming financial hardship drove them to it.

Your tactics have consequences, Mr. Rogers.

Step 1 - Finally get your biggest enemies at the bargaining table.

Step 2 - Aim for the crotch.

From the Captain’s Quarters:

The Iranians extended their response to American diplomatic overtures by arresting another American in Iran. Ali Shakeri, who ironically works as a peace activist in Irvine, California, now faces charges of espionage and potentially the death penalty:

The United States confirmed that a missing Irvine peace activist has become the fourth Iranian American detained by Iran on suspicion of espionage, and warned U.S. citizens against traveling to the country.

Unfortunately for Iran, they have not read Image’s Girls #9 or they’d know how this turns out.

I feel I must prepare you.  It would be cruelly painful and potentially render me medically culpable if your brain explodes by what you are about to read, so here’s the warm-up:

Ok, so if you can wrap your mind around hyper-intelligence apes racing dinosaurs like they were down at the harness track, you may possibly be ready for the next item.

Brace yourselves.  The last man on earth yet to see Star Wars has finally done so!  While the very concept that someone has been such a shut-in for the past 30 years is somewhat unbelievable and provokes a profound feeling of pity at the necessary lack of social contact, the unpossible statements he makes leaves a man wheezing for the air of reality.  From Wired:

It was a movie made a long time ago, in a galaxy apparently lacking even one competent screenwriter. I’ve heard dialog that clanked before, but I haven’t seen writing this lame since Deep Throat (another flick with some pretty good special effects).

No wonder Guinness bailed out after the first movie. When you’ve played Col. Nicholson in Bridge on the River Kwai and Prince Feisal in Lawrence of Arabia, donning the threadbare cosset of a washed-up Jedi knight and swapping sophmoric banalities with third-rate actors must have been a severe shock to the system.

Sometimes, no paycheck is big enough.

Gah!  *Cough*Wheeze*  Can’t breathe…

Robert Lindeman (not to be confused with the bad guy from Heroes, even though they both have apparent healing abilities), super-blogging pediatrician, was forced to eat his words when his secret identity was revealed recently.  From the Boston Globe:

As Ivy League-educated pediatrician Robert P. Lindeman sat on the stand in Suffolk Superior Court this month, defending himself in a malpractice suit involving the death of a 12-year-old patient, the opposing counsel startled him with a question.

Was Lindeman Flea?

Flea, jurors in the case didn’t know, was the screen name for a blogger who had written often and at length about a trial remarkably similar to the one that was going on in the courtroom that day.

In his blog, Flea had ridiculed the plaintiff’s case and the plaintiff’s lawyer. He had revealed the defense strategy. He had accused members of the jury of dozing.

I’m reminded of a similar landmark moment in legal history:

With only two exceptions, no good ever comes from unmasking a superhero.  In the example above, Karen Page couldn’t handle the truth and left Daredevil with a quickness.  When she turned back up again, she was a heroin addict tricked into thinking she had HIV.  Shortly afterward, she was led to believe her love interest, Daredevil, was protecting the Antichrist in infant form, a conviction that led to her death when she was pelted in the chest with Daredevil’s own baton.

Those exceptions I mentioned?

Exception 1 - Admitting you’re the Highlander.  According to the Highlander documentaries (because they are real), no woman can resist the line, “I am immortal,” when followed with a demonstration.  Each time this fact is presented, uproarious lovemaking ensues.

Exception 2 - Admitting you’re Batman.  After admitting you are Batman, you will be slapped and then ravaged.  Usually, though, your love interest will die within a few days.  Not always, but it does happen with alarming regularity.

Anyway, I wonder if the Ivy League doctor would have done well on the Leader’s voting test.

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.