Coming up next on Lexicographical Mockery

Previously Undescribed: The Journal of Abstracted Breaking Research

In the previous post, I used the term "CONOPS", and a number of readers have asked for a further explanation of that term. In the jargon of the military and of other government organizations, the notion of a brief statement concerning the ways in which a proposed entity would be deployed and used is known as a Concept of Operations. This has been shortened to CONOPS under the requirements of the federal Acronymic or Mnemonic Notational/Operational Theme (which, itself, came into being after an engineering executive characterized his Director of Business Development as a Fuzz-Brained Fumble-Mouthed Imbecile (FBFMI), and the head of BD replied, "AMNOT!"). But I digress.

The CONOPS (which, it should be remembered, doesn't address requirements, design, or production in great detail, but rather talks about how the thing in question will be used, once it's escaped been deployed) has been in use for a long time, but only recently have we come to know exactly how long. In 2010, excavations at a Paleolithic site in Eastern Europe, dated to around 47,000 years BCE, turned up a mastodon scapula (Mammuthus meridionalis), covered with scratches (Figure 1).
Subjected to a lengthy computerized analysis, it has now been deciphered and tentatively identified as the world's oldest known CONOPS. (The authors of the article describing it, which was published last month in the open-access Journal of Hopeful Science, believe it is part of a longer document, proposing a firm-fixed-price program to the Talking Chief of the tribe of The Hirsute One (Figure 2), known from other early epigraphical finds as the center of a notorious procurement scandal, "The Sloth Stew for Sex" affair.)

The proposed (and still somewhat conjectural) translation is as follows:

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Yearly Augmentation of Anti-Animal Weaponry Program (YAAAWP) for the Year-When-the-Auditors-Sleep, respectfully submitted to his unshaven muscularity, the Great Talking Chief. Greeting.

This program entails (might actually read "entrails". Ed.) selection of a number of the currently deployed Tribal Forces and re-equipping them with a new Meat Procurement Device (MPD), based on the Flame-Involved Reconfiguration Experiment (FIRE) concept, proven in earlier programs. The new equipment which is proposed here will be called the Sharply-Pointed-Element Augmentation of Reach (SPEAR). It will require three separate phases and, as noted below, one additional sub-program.

Phase one will call for identifying the individual tribe members who are to receive the SPEAR equipment, and for storing their current weaponry (the BluntInst mark 2 club and/or the BigRox throwing projectiles). Simultaneously, contractors will gather a number of linearly-consistent tree parts (straight-STIX) equal to the number of program participants. Note that successful completion of this phase will depend on the outcome of an algorithm development sub-program, Beyond The Thumb, which will provide a computational capability for handling numbers greater than three.

Phase two will involve training the participants in techniques for weaponry readiness and maintenance, relying on FIRE technology to render the distal ends of the straight-STIX pointier and more robust. Each SPEAR-equipped meat acquisition specialist will be issued a maintenance and user's guide covering topics such as "Starting a fire", "Finding a flat rock", "Rubbing things on rocks versus hammering things with rocks", and "Reading".

Phase three will provide final training in the use of the SPEAR technology. This will require construction of a simulator, including a large circular enclosure made of very big rocks, in which SPEAR-equipped trainees and one or more volunteer mammoths will be introduced. (This may be seen as "final" training in more than one sense of the logogram.)

Phase four is considered out of scope of this document, since the Beyond The Thumb sub-program has not yet been ...

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At this point, the writer of the CONOPS ran out of room on the scapula he (or she) was using, and no additional pages have been identified. An almost-unmarked femur of Ursus spelaeus (Figure 3) was found in association with the scapula, but all it said was "This bone intentionally left blank."

Summer pasta

CONOPS: use up some of the vegetables obsessively purchased at the Farmer's Market.

Ingredients
Summer squash and/or zucchini, 1 or 2, diced
Sweet corn, 2 ears, kernels cut off, cobs reserved
Tomatoes, 1/4 cup, diced
Dried porcini mushrooms, 2 TBSP, tied up in cheesecloth
Onion, diced, 2 TBSP or scallions, 3 or 4, chopped
Fresh greens (any kind), 1/2 cup, torn
Pine nuts, 2 TBSP
Butter, 1 Oz
Parmigiano or Romano, 1/4 cup, grated
Bacon, 2 slices, finely diced
Mild pork sausage, 1 cup, diced, sliced, or crumbled
Heavy cream, 1 1/2 cups
Beef bullion concentrate, 1 TSP
Garlic clove, 1/2
Dried pasta, 1/2 lb
Olive oil

Prep
Prepare the ingredients in 7 batches:
Batch 1: bacon and sausage
Batch 2: corn cobs, cut in two so as to fit in a sauce pan, and the porcini
Batch 3: cream, beef bullion concentrate, garlic
Batch 4: squash / zucchini, corn kernels, tomatoes, onion, pine nuts
Batch 5: cheese, butter
Batch 6: greens
Batch 7: pasta

Add Batch 2 to a large sauce pan. Add 2 cups of water, bring to a boil, reduce to simmer, and cook, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Drain, reserve 1 cup of the water, and discard solids.

Firing
Heat oil in a large saute pan. Cook Batch 1 until slightly browned - 10 to 15 minutes. Remove to a bowl. Do not clean the pan.

Combine Batch 3 in a large sauce pan. Heat gently, covered. Check frequently to avoid boiling over or boiling dry.

In a stock pot or pasta pot, boil water for the pasta.

Add Batch 4 to the saute pan (with more oil if necessary). Cook, stirring occasionally, over low heat for 30 minutes.

12-15 minutes before the vegetables will be done, add the reserved corn cob/porcini water to the stock pot and cook the pasta. When pasta is done, remove cream sauce from heat, discard the garlic, and stir in the cheese. Add the meat back into the saute pan for a minute or two to re-heat. Drain pasta and place in a large bowl. Add vegetables and meat. Toss. Add sauce. Toss. Add greens. Toss. Serve immediately.

As if wage disputes weren't bad enough

While fast food workers across the country agitate for higher pay and for working conditions that are not modeled on sodium chloride mining operations in Siberia, smaller groups are also demanding recognition and, unusually, better lexical treatment. Here are three stories from recent news coverage.

Spain is a major source of wine corks, and the industry provides substantial employment for agrarian workers. However, some specialists in the work force object to the dismissive manner in which management addresses them. Specifically, the teams of skilled technicians (many of whom suffer from severe speech disorders) who gather the shaped final product and bulk-package it are asking for a more dignified term for their profession. They object strongly to being listed in personnel rosters as "that bunch of dumb cork sackers."

Closer to home, US obstetric facilities are experiencing periodic spikes in demand, days when large numbers of women simultaneously go into labor (usually during full moons or nine months after widespread power outages). When this happens, normal ambulance service can be overwhelmed, and other vehicles are pressed into service, including delivery vans and even semi trucks. In order to regularize the employment status of the temporary personnel who operate this ad hoc patient transportation, a study was done and the age, sex, income, ethnic background, and other attributes of the operators were collected and analyzed. One individual, a man in New Jersey, was identified as having all the average characteristics, and there were plans to use him as a spokesman, but he refused to participate after an NIH administrator referred to him as "a mean mother trucker."

Finally, concerns over semantics are not limited to the human species. Here in Ann Arbor, a quadrupedally-advantaged person of fur is involved in a close primary race for a city council seat. After his opponent made what would, under other taxonomic circumstances, have been a derogatory reference, Mr. Hamilton "Ham" Mudd stated for the record, "Yes! I admit it! I'm a son of a bitch. So is he. And that guy over there. We're all sons of bitches! Now, can we get on with it?"

Management at Wood-Charles regrets that it finds itself unable to find better material than the above, but it promises to try.

Will the congregaton please rise?

I take my text today from the book of Camping, chapter 21, verses 119-223.

And there were three men who came unto the Campground of Wilderness, by the shore. The first man brought his wife, who was comely and well-shapen, and golden of hair, and scanty was her raiment. The second man brought also his wife, who was similarly golden of hair, though her robes were more modest, and brought he also bicycles of many gears, bound with bonds of bungy to the posterior of his SUV. The third man came in his richly caparisoned pickup truck, and hitched to it was his fishing vessel, shiny and new, gleaming like the cohorts of the Assyrian.

And the first and second men did pitch their tents near to one another. The second man and his wife unpacked their goods, and they unstrapped their two-wheeled steeds, and prepared they to ride forth upon them. The first man and his wife also unpacked their belongings, and they did strew them in an untidy manner upon the ground.

Then the third man came by, riding in his pickup truck and dragging behind it his splendid boat.

And God prepared for the faithful a lesson. Lo, the second man nearly fell off his bicycle, so did he covet the first man's wife, while the first man saw this not, so busy was he that he nearly tripped over his baggage, coveting the third man's bass boat. And the wives took no notice, so accustomed were they to their husbands' ways.

And God did laugh. And he forbore to punish them for coveting each others' bling, but instead he summoned Moses and ordered him to tighten up the wording of the tenth commandment. And Moses did protest, saying "Verily, we are ready to ship!" And God said unto him, "Oh, come on. It is but a small matter of programming."

Here endeth the lesson.

Do not adjust your set

2013 07 06: Update

Well, the new book is out there. Clash by Night. Caveat emptor.

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J. Francis McLuggage, Divine Spiritual Leader of the Wood-Charles cult publishing empire, would like to apologize for the shortage of new content. He has been retained to edit the upcoming masterpiece of rubbish fiction from Joseph McConnell (which the author describes as a work of rare sensitivity, dog-consciousness, and occasional fits of random violence), to be titled Clash by Night. Besides all that, it's also a sequel to his first novel, Many Believable Lies, which was inflicted on an unsuspecting world published last year.

"This guy needs a lot of editing," said McLuggage.

No, sorry, it doesn't work. It really doesn't work.

Not alternative medicine, although that doesn't work, either. What really, really doesn't work is self-regulation.

Viz, a body sets itself up to regulate practitioners of quackery Complementary and Alternative Medicine. It makes grandiose pronouncements regarding what it will require of those who want to receive a "quality mark" (things like not making false or misleading statements in advertising, training practitioners in what they can and cannot treat, etc.), and eventually petitions to become a member of a larger body, the Professional Standards Authority. But since there's money (in fact, profit) involved for those making the claims, providing treatment, and promoting patently absurd and physically impossible regimens of care, this voluntary oversight group appears to do essentially nothing. Where is this travesty taking place? Somewhere in the undeveloped world, where superstition rules and patients prefer to see local witch doctors? Well, sort of. It's in the UK. (Of course, this could never happen in the US.)

Everybody's friend, whether they know it or not, Stephen Barrett, M.D. , reports on the inactivities of the UK's Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC) and the various beefs it is receiving (and apparently ignoring) about its members, people who practice a whole range of black arts, from aromatherapy to yoga.

One group beefing about CNHC and its gang of forty thieves members is The Nightingale Collaboration. The front page of their website lists some of the more interesting examples of outright lying, for example an acupuncturist who lists 80 conditions that her art can treat (yet again, acupuncture has been shown to be ineffective and its resurgence in popularity traced to a hoax perpetrated on the journalist James Reston, in 1971, when he was traveling in China with then-President Nixon. Reston observed the technique being used on another patient (which physicians later admitted had been given large doses of sedatives beforehand), and Reston then had acupuncture himself during a procedure. Can you say "placebo"? I knew you could.) His article, "Now about my operation in Peking," published in the New York Times, set off a wave of interest and miraculously, an industry grew up. The fact that for many years, no license, no education, and no sense of responsibility were required to practice the technique could, of course, have had no influence on its growth.)

Another practitioner advertised "It is vitally important never to lose sight of the fact that any kind of cancer can be healed in a split second, regardless of how far advanced it is or how many areas of the body are affected... For energetic healing it is unimportant where the cancer has manifested or how many parts of the body have been affected. Once the client is embracing the healing process fully, all cancer vanishes, for it no longer has any reason to exist within the person's physique..."

To see why this sort of thing is important, you have to remember that this isn't someone's personal opinion, mentioned in conversation. It isn't from an anonymous posting to a blog. It's from an advertisement, intended to draw customers and convince them to make payments. It's fraud.

Nor does the community of quackery just focus on those dying of a serious disease. Here's a quote from another CNHC member: "Breast Enlargement... (No, don't laugh - this really works!)... The earliest report I could find on the successful use of hypnosis to increase breast size ..."

Go ahead, laugh.

Anyway, I realize this is preaching to the choir. (At least I hope I am.) My real point is to flack for Dr. Barrett, whose newsletter and plethora of websites are full of such lighthearted fun as this. Give him a try.

You learn something every day

Did you know that Michigan has a state senator named Hoon-Yung Hopgood? I didn't. Even though I conduct regular electronic and drone-based surveillance of most of southeastern Michigan, I'd never heard of him or her. This serious lapse in intelligence gathering will be the subject of an official inquiry, I assure you.

A pity, really

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Update 2013 06 11: The artillery bombardment has demolished the whole south set of buildings now, leaving the northern block still standing. The sappers are pushing forward their approach trenches steadily, with an eye to running a mine under the remaining curtain wall. Trebuchets had been flinging dead woodchucks into the citadel for several days, but this tactic was suspended when deserters from the garrison revealed that they'd been making a tasty stew of 'em. The Duke of Alba was unavailable for comment, but AnnArbor.com reported rumors that Don John of Austria (that bastard!) was coming up the Huron with a fleet of war galleys and canoes.

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Now that the demolition of the Georgetown Mall is finally underway, I'll have nothing to whine about (unless, of course, they run out of money and have to quit partway through, leaving a vast mound of rubble; but that won't happen, will it?).

Instead, I'll have to wait until it's down and has been sitting there for months without any apparent progress on building the pipe dream mixed use development that has been pitched to Council. How do I know this will be the case? Well, the word on the street is that the developer had so much trouble even getting funding in place to tear the old stuff down, his chances of getting money to build new stuff are ... let's just say, poor. Yeah, that's a good word for it. Poor.

Anyway, here are some photos I took this morning. Demolition is at least colorful if not especially aesthetic.

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Update: Ed from Vacuum sent me this link about the Georgetown Developer's other fiasco.

A strange way of speaking

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, who narrowly defeated Sarah Palin on the short-lived reality show, "Babbling with the Stars", is not going to run for re-election when her term expires in 2016. She offers as a reason this strange statement:

"The law limits anyone from serving as president of the United States for more than eight years. And in my opinion, well eight years is also long enough for an individual to serve as a representative for a specific congressional district."

This veiled threat hint that she might be considering a run for the Presidency again was discounted by many pundits, since the law also limits presidential candidates to those with an IQ greater than 37. However, the P word kept cropping up in her statements:

"(Her decision) was not in any way influenced by" concerns about her re-election prospects, nor by the "recent inquiries into the activities of my former presidential campaign or my former presidential staff."

Of course, she doesn't have any "former presidential staff", since she never had a snowball's chance in hell of winning in the primaries, let alone in a national election. And she only won in her district by a very small margin, defeating a Democratic candidate who says he's going to run again. Her reference to staff is apparently about investigations into campaign finance abuses.

Anyway, until she changes her mind (which is a pretty safe bet), we'll have to look elsewhere for the architype of a far-right loonie. Fortunately, Donald Trump has just spent a million bucks to determine what states he'd carry if he ran in 2016. The results of that research were not released, surprisingly enough. Wonder why?

Oh, and here's a better-written, less blatantly biased article on the subject.

How many people do you know ...

... who meet this description?

"... persistent and pervasive elevated (euphoric) or irritable mood, as well as thoughts and behaviors that are consistent with such a mood state. ... extremely energetic, talkative, confident, and assertive. They may have a flight of ideas and feel creative."

Like every single sales rep I've ever had to deal with. Certain kinds of consultants. People who have high-touch jobs, customer-facing positions, celebrity chefs ... and people who creep into positions of authority and then find themselves in trouble generated by their way of approaching the universe. People, perhaps, like Wayne County Circuit Judge Wade McCree.

Physicians and those who play them on TV call this set of behaviors hypomania, and a doc who treated Judge McCree ("Ain't no shame in my game!") says he thinks this condition may be present. The Judge is one of many Michigan officials who seem to have difficulties keeping their pants zipped, their pictures off Twitter, and their financial situations straight. But he's the first one I've heard of to claim that a mental condition that makes him act like an Oracle salesman is to blame.

Here's an article; judge (haw, haw) for yourself if McCree is a victim of a mental condition with a name or without one.