Overlord
Back in the day, they knew how to name military operations. Ops used to have cool names, or at least random codewordy sounding names; now, they are the height of lame. The liberation of Iraq? Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. The Hunt for bin Ladin? Operation ULTIMATE JUSTICE. Please. On a smaller scale, some modern ops still have decent names, like Operation Anaconda, the assault on Tora Bora. Operation DESERT SHIELD and Operation DESERT STORM get props because they were a pair; once you had Desert Shield, you had to follow through with Desert Storm. 1998's Operation DESERT FOX, a cruise missle campaign against Hussein, worked because it continued the theme.

Now, a good name, unfortunately, does not guarantee success. President Johnson's insane bombing campaign that forbade overflights of North Vietnam was colled Operation ROLLING THUNDER; great name for a bombing campaign, bad idea for a bombing campaign. President Nixon brought the North Vietnamese to the peace table and got us out of Vietname, though the November Victors later broke the terms of the treaty, with Operation LINEBACKER and Operation LINEBACKER II; everybody loves a sequel. As far as I am aware, for American forces the current manner of operational naming goes back to the Second World War:

Operation TORCH - invasion of North Africa
Operation HUSKY - invasion of Sicily
Operation WATCHTOWER - invasion of Guadalcanal
Operation DRAGOON - invasion of sourthern France
Operation FORAGER - invasion of the Marianas
Operation MARKET GARDEN - attempt to cross the Rhine
Operation DETACHMENT - invasion of Iwo Jima
Operation DOWNFALL - invasion of Okinawa
Operation CORONET - planned invasion of Japan

And of course, the best name for any operation anywhere anytime, was for the D-Day landings in Normandy. The name for every phase, the landings on Omaha Beach, Utah Beach, Gold Beach, Sword Beach, Juno Beach, the shore bombardment, and the paratrooper drops, was:

Operation OVERLORD

There are few things I can imagine that are worse ideas than jumping out of a landing craft into waist-high water and running up a beach toward a hardened pillbox, but at the same time I can't think of a better way to breach "Fortress Europe" and begin the process of defeating the Nazis. My thanks to those young men who charged up the beach on June 6, 1944, to those young men who followed them to the hedgerows, to the Hurtgen Forest, to Bastonne, and finally to Berlin. My thanks to the young men who died in the godforsaken swamps of Guadalcanal, the ash beaches of Iwo Jima, and the endless war on Luzon. On this day especially, we remember with thanks those who fought in General Eisenhower's great crusade: OVERLORD.

Be a Mindless Conformist!
It is a curious phenomenon that today's punk music is all about, well, conformity. The punk philosphy - not to imply that there is a coherent set of beliefs - was founded on bucking tradition and convention. Nowadays, you are only allowed to buck those tradtions and conventions the majority sez you can buck. The rebels have become the Man. I say this because I am a Republican; in very broad terms, I believe in a smaller domestic government and an interventionalist foreign policy. In my order from Asian Man Records, I received several stickers for an upcoming album titled Rock Against Bush Vol. 1. You see, when I voice by grudging support for President Bush, I am not congratulated for not doing what other people tell me to do, I am chastised and denounced. As the best punk I have ever known, the Plate, has asked many times, "When did punk become about doing what everyone else tells you to do?" If you think about it, in a world were I am told that I have to oppose Bush, the punk thing to do is to support him.

Hmmm, since almost all of my friends, the "cool" people, hate Avril Lavigne, I suppose the punk thing to do would be to buy her albums.

Crap
Eve 6

H-A-D
Have a pioneering day.