Operation: Grab Your Ankles And Prepare For Our Bankers

For some time I've been disappointed in the US Government's crappy names for their military operations. I almost vomited when they came out with Operation: Infinite Justice shortly after the 9/11 attacks. I can only hope that anyone with any sort of spiritual sensibility found that as appalling as I did. And when they backpedaled on that name, the new result wasn't a whole lot better.

And the title "Operation: Iraqi Freedom" was, well, kind of blah. Our military can do better then that.

What they need is the "American Military Operation Name Generating Device" found here. One can only hope that when we inevitably initiate a "regime change" against the (relatively moderate) government of Iran, we have a snappy name along the lines of "Operation: Ejaculating Bear," "Operation: Oil-Lusting Minotaur," or "Operation: Ceaseless Defense Industry."

They sure don't make 'em like they used to: Index of 80s toys.

Long time no blog

A few things-

1. Some interesting developments in my teaching career have come to pass. I'll send out a mass email to my out-of-state peeps, as I'm not ready to make these announcements in a public forum (even one as obscure as this).

2. The South Beach Chorus just keeps sounding better and better. Our run-through last night was great. I'm rehearsing the pit orchestra tomorrow, and we have our rehearsals in the Lincoln Theatre (home of the New World Symphony) all next week.

3. Old news, but still funny: An Ohio National Guardsman legally changes his name to Optimus Prime (the leader of the Transformers).

Oh my God. This journal is the bizzity-bomb:

Kim Jong Il's Live Journal

Typing Monkeys Don't Write Shakespeare

May 9, 8:56 AM (ET)
By JILL LAWLESS

LONDON (AP) - Give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters, the theory goes, and they will eventually produce the works of Shakespeare.

Give six monkeys one computer for a month, and they will produce a mess.

Researchers at Plymouth University in England reported this week that primates left alone with a computer attacked the machine and failed to produce a single word.

"They pressed a lot of S's," researcher Mike Phillips said Friday. "Obviously, English isn't their first language."

A group of faculty and students in the university's media program left a computer in the monkey enclosure at Paignton Zoo in southwest England, home to six Sulawesi crested macaques. Then, they waited.

At first, said Phillips, "the lead male got a stone and started bashing the hell out of it.

"Another thing they were interested in was in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard," added Phillips, who runs the university's Institute of Digital Arts and Technologies.

Eventually, monkeys Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe and Rowan produced five pages of text, composed primarily of the letter S. Later, the letters A, J, L and M crept in - not quite literature.

Phillips said the project - funded by England's Arts Council rather than by scientific bodies - was intended more as performance art than scientific experiment.

The notion that monkeys typing at random will eventually produce literature is often attributed to Thomas Huxley, a 19th-century scientist who supported Charles Darwin's theories of evolution. Mathematicians have also used it to illustrate concepts of chance.

The Plymouth experiment was part of the Vivaria Project, which plans to install computers in zoos across Europe to study differences between animal and artificial life.

Phillips said the experiment showed that monkeys "are not random generators. They're more complex than that.

"They were quite interested in the screen, and they saw that when they typed a letter, something happened. There was a level of intention there."

The monkeys' output:

http://www.vivaria.net/experiments/notes/publication

An abbreviated calendar for the next few weeks

Monday: Dress rehearsal for the spring concert at the high school, followed by a tenor sectional for the South Beach Men's Chorus.

Tuesday: Spring Concert at HML.

Wednesday: Performance for the "Greater Miami Visitor's Bureau" (or something like that) with the SBGMC.

Thursday: SBGMC rehearsal, 6:30-10:30

Friday: Performance with the SBGMC for the "Miami Beach Gay/Lesbian Chamber of Commerce" or somesuch (too lazy to check the email right now). Hopefully I'll catch "Matrix: Kingdom of Ass-Kicking" afterwards.

Week of 5/19: I'm coordinating the all-county high school honor choir, running at least one rehearsal with the pit orchestra for the SBGMC's ABBA show, and running my usual Thursday night rehearsal. That weekend is the bachelor party of an old college friend, so I will be debauching myself in Miami Beach for a day or two.

Week of 5/26: I'm running auditions for next year's "HML Singers" all this week, and doing dress rehearsals for the ABBA show at the Lincoln Theatre. "ExtrABBAganza" (the SBGMC's spring choral concert) runs 5/30 and 5/31, and is going to be completely and totally rad.

I will not be regularly updating this site for the next few weeks, for obvious reasons.

Old news, but still funny: Bill Bennett, moralizing author of "The Book of Virtues," has a huge gambling problem. Hey Bill, is "schadenfreude" a virtue? (Last link goes to "Get Your War On." Hysterical).

Politicows: A bovine guide to political theory

Feudalism: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.

Pure Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

Pure Communism: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

Bureaucratic Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and as many eggs as the regulations say you should need.

Russian Communism: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

Pure Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

Representative Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

American Democracy: The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures.

Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

Hong Kong Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt-equity swap with associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows’ milk back to the listed company. The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because the feng shui is bad.

Totalitarianism: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.

Dictatorship: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

Surrealism: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

Random net stuff

The blog of a porn spammer/sysadmin. Funny.

Sure, this seems fair: Average executive pay relative to average worker pay, by country.

Neill Cumpston, a denizen of Ain't It Cool News, has a great review of X2 posted on that site, and a review of Matrix: Unloaded that is one of the funnier things I've ever read (thanks to Casey for originally sending that one to me)

And lastly: Ninjas!

There was an honest-to-God fraternity party at my house Friday night. The Beta Tau chapter of Phi Mu Alpha (my old chapter from the University of Miami) used my house for the end-of-year chapter retreat. Not too much drinking, as it was mostly a business meeting, but still fun.

As soon as people staggered out of my house around noon, I hopped in the car and saw X-Men 2. It was really good. The opening scene alone, with Nightcrawler teleporting through the White House, was worth the price of admission (albeit at the matinee rate).

In honor of Julie's matriculation (her M.S. in Communication Sciences and Disorders was granted today), I offer...

Julie is a Google Search

julie is her name/julie is her
julie is cold
julie is
julie is going to be massive in da states
julie is taking your name in vain over on general
julie is a beaver
julie is the world champ
julie is a bitch
julie is a serious and conscientious employee
julie is the redhead next door
julie is cured
julie is embroiled in a fight against city hall regarding leaf blowers
julie is such a wonderful person
julie is pregnant
julie is a voice performance music major [I did NOT make this one up! –CR]
julie is a bad ass
julie is a proud member of the canadian association of professional speakers
julie is at high risk of schizophrenia
julie is a super hot redhead featured at busty beauties
julie is adding to her online store
julie is an experienced and respected workshop leader
julie is eager to read books that will tell her about life outside her culture
julie is a 10 year old girl who lives in manila with her family
julie is hesitant to set herself up for further heartbreak
julie is no more
julie is irate at the pregnancy
julie is forced to give it up
julie is playing next
julie is identified
julie is far from being some crass yank
julie is our foundation bitch
julie is a real estate agent that is known in the community of westmount for their dedicated client service
julie is an innovator who visualizes how software will actually function in the real world

The Teen Blog of the Day:

today was alrite, boring but alrite. we went on this field trip for the "gifted girls" or w/e gifted is such a retarted word i hate it. me and kaycee decided we're not GIFTED we're CREATIVE. lol. (I would agree with you and kaycee about your giftedness, or lack thereof. As for "creative"... your spelling is very creative).

Wow. I'm a dick.

Tom Tomorrow is one of the greatest political cartoonists around (up there with Ted Rall, Aaron MacGruder, and David Rees). His latest offering made my jaw drop so fast and far, my sternum has a bruise.

It's a brief breakdown of the Bechtel/Iraq connection. It talks about Donald Rumsfeld's 1983 trip to Iraq as a special envoy from the Reagan Administration.

Inserted into panel three of the strip is a publicity photo from that trip featuring Rumsfeld... shaking hands with Saddam Hussein.

It's a good thing multinational corporations and their government lackeys are destroying the world. This place is too fucking ridiculous to be allowed to continue.

HML Singers received a "superior" rating at state chorus evaluation today. Yay!