Sullivan points to the following as the headline of the year:
Is this a lucrative field? Is this one of those green jobs we keep hearing so much about?
This sentence kills me: “The research could pave the way for advanced methods of enraging monkeys.” All I can think of is this:
Zandar
Do the monkeys kill people when they flip out with Real Ultimate Power?
fourlegsgood
I’m sorry, why would anyone want to enrage a monkey? that seems needlessly rude.
August J. Pollak
You need to find the “Monkey Torture” sketch from The State.
Tom65
Dammit, I knew I should switched from Poli Sci to Monkey Annoyance. Fucking thesis advisors…
EDIT: Now that i think about it, the two are rather closely related.
jibeaux
Well, as an amateur monkey-enrager, I don’t consider squirrels to be an “advanced” method at all. Really quite ordinary — who doesn’t hate squirrels? Now, my electronic MonkeyAnnoyer5000, on the other hand….
QuaintIrene
Reminds me of that NPR show ‘Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.” They’ll often have as part of their news quiz’s stories of bizarre research programs. There was finally one show where Paula Poundstone exploded with ‘who are these people? Why are they doing these loony things?’
Forget cats and dogs. Guess there’s been an age-old war between monkeys and flying squirrels.
Crusty Dem
As someone who works in a “monkey lab”, I can assure that there is not a shortage of ways to enrage a monkey. Looking them straight in the eye will generally do the trick…
tkogrumpy
the balloon juice blog is smokin’ today
licensed to kill time
Any random human at the zoo is already a monkey-antagonist expert. It’s a crowded field.
Cain
Speaking of great headlines, I was reading that Obama announced end of combat operations in Iraq set for August 31st. That’s great an all, but 50K of the 65K troops are going to stay till end of 2011 while 15K go home? Not much of a draw down if you ask me.
here is the link
cain
beltane
Does this new-found knowledge apply to humans? Maybe a few dozen flying squirrels let loose at the Republican Convention could provide some valuable information in this regard. Or would all the flying monkeys there cancel out the effects of the flying squirrels?
General Stuck
Monkey see, monkey blew.
JGabriel
John Cole:
Mock all you like with your silly jibes, this research is extremely important to Fox News programmers and GOP outreach efforts to the white conservative minority! Enraging the base is the best way to ensure voter turn-out and viewer tune-in.
.
Occasional Reader
I think with government backing we could make this very annoying for the monkeys.
Legalize
@fourlegsgood:
Sometimes the monkey has it coming. There is a Seinfeld episode that explains this in detail.
Morbo
You know how Civilization games have “Future Technology” available once you’ve completed your technology tree which serve no other purpose than adding +1 health and happiness to your population? This is definitely Future Technology I.
Bill Murray
If you can’t enrage monkey’s how will one ever foil Baron von Butcher’s evil plans with his group C.H.U.M.P.?
Bill E Pilgrim
I would say more like “Confuse a Cat” really, but we’re in the same ballpark.
Sue
I’ve often wondered why the original pilot for Rocky and Bullwinkle, “Rocky and Curious George” was pulled and destroyed.
jibeaux
But to answer John’s question about the green jobs, no, this isn’t a green job. The green job researchers are trying to figure out how to make monkeys into fuel. The more advanced ones are working on making monkey RAGE into fuel. It’s an applied monkey rage research, as opposed to the more theoretical monkey rage research we have here.
Violet
Aren’t the Monkey Annoyance Experts the same people who are on that “Jersey Shore” show?
Joshua Norton
Monty Python also had “Confuse A Cat“.
Try this one on Tunch. Let us know how it works out.
Triassic Sands
Jeez, if that’s all you want to do (enrage monkeys), all you have to do is tell Republicans you want to let tax cuts on the wealthy expire.
Origuy
Consider the headline writer at the Christian Science Monitor. He isn’t allowed to write a full article; he doesn’t get to change the reporter’s text; he doesn’t get a byline. He’s just an anonymous, frustrated would-be journalist who can only express himself in one short, stilted sentence. When given the liberty to expound in an entire paragraph of abstract, who can begrudge him a little poetic license?
aimai
This single blog post has made my day. MADE. MY. DAY.
But I think the Monty Python of most relevance is probably “I’m not here for an argument.”
aimai
wmd
did anyone else think of this monkey?
That’s the monkey I thought of immediately.
licensed to kill time
Also from The Christian Science Monitor is another head-scratcher of a headline:
Burma’s Moustache Brothers killing audiences, avoiding arrest.
Jager
@JGabriel:
Does this mean that enraged Tea Party members will begin throwing their shit?
Joel
@August J. Pollak: Agreed.
Somehow, I think this is an example of one of those “lost in translation” episodes that happen every so often with Japanese scientists.
Relevant link: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=4273246
Kiril
If you ever want to stop falling for Sully’s link bait, you could just check boingboing and videogum now and again. They’re where Sullivan gets his links from. Or maybe it’s just a coincidence that he regularly posts this kind of thing a day after they do.
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/08/01/millions-of-5-year-o.html#comments
brent
I don’t know much about the field but I am quite certain that I would be absolutely awesome at finding ways to enrage moneys but then monkeys don’t really strike me as an especially unflappable species.
licensed to kill time
@brent:
Enraging a clam, now that would be impressive. I hear they are generally pretty happy.
dj spellchecka
pre-python was the firesign theatre…”I was a cock teaser at Rooster-Rama. I used to enrage the Bantams before the big bouts. Not an easy thing to do….”
Indie Tarheel
This post is a perfect antidote to what has been a crappy day. Thanks!
Catsy
@Morbo:
This wins a copy of the intarnets.
Trevor B
After a quick Google scholar search, it looks like they just documented this behavior in the macaques. They actually just study macaque behavior in general, I couldn’t even find a paper that describes this occurring. I suspect funding for monkey enragement is low as the only department which gives grants for studies like these is the department of fucking with animals (DFWA).
chopper
that’s an ig nobel prize right there.
brent
@licensed to kill time:
Very nice.
On the other hand, one might have to work a bit harder to anger these particular monkeys. Not a mean drunk in the lot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSm7BcQHWXk
daryljfontaine
Now, to catch up on the world’s latest events that have happened that this paper has reported with the words that they wrote.
Obviously flying squirrels remind the monkeys of something, what with the flying and the high-pitched voices and all.
D
Mnemosyne
I miss being a copy editor sometimes. That was one of those headlines that you write knowing it’s going into your clips.
Gina
NCBI ROFL is the section of the Discover Blog where you find all kinds of interesting studies.
Badtux
Clearly they are investigating motivational strategies for the monkey army that the U.S. is raising to counter the Taliban’s monkey army.
Okay, so it turns out that the Taliban monkey army was a joke gone wild (like, duh?), rather than real. Still, has anybody told the Pentagon that yet? These researchers clearly could benefit from DARPA funding if the Pentagon hasn’t yet figured out that, well, the Taliban doesn’t have a monkey army :).
– Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Ash Can
When I saw the term “monkey-annoyance expert” up there I immediately thought of Nancy Pelosi.
kommrade reproductive vigor
And you can enrage an orangutang by calling him a monkey.
Henry
@August J. Pollak: this is definitely what you want.
SiubhanDuinne
@QuaintIrene #6:
Then the childhood poem would be “The Gingham Monkey and the Calico Flying Squirrel.” Bah, doesn’t even scan.
Henry
@Henry: (this) being The State’s “Monkey Torture” skit…
SFAW
What’s potentially unnerving is the researchers’ control group which investigated whether squirrels are annoyed by flying monkeys.
You’re thinking of flying monkeys. Ground-based monkeys don’t flap. (For that matter, neither do flying squirrels, after you clip their wings.)
Yes you are.
Boris Badenov, being a Method Actor, couldn’t really “get” the motivation to say “Is monkey and squirrel!”
Sheila
This certainly is a salubrious way of spending our science research dollars. I heard years ago that after much effort, scientists had finally managed to give AIDS to a chimpanzee, whereas before they had been immune. Now that’s change I can believe in, such a fine use of our stewardship.
jinxtigr
…the filthy swine! :D
russell
I think the folks at the CSM are fucking with our heads.
But god, finding ways to piss off monkeys must count as one of the greatest jobs anyone could ever have.
I mean, seriously. You could spend days just measuring how far they fling their poo.
“Flying squirrel, 12.78 meters. Annoying kid teasing with a banana, 11.92 meters. Lab tech with a SuperSoaker, 14.98 meters.”
I’d do it in a heartbeat.
I also have to say, speaking as a fellow primate, that this may go a long way to explaining my own personal behavior WRT my bird feeder.
Just saying.
Sad_Dem
We don’t need to piss off monkeys. What we need is to win the hearts and minds of monkeys.
Twisted_Colour
Call me old fashioned, but why do we need these new fangled “advanced” methods to enrage monkeys? Poking the buggers with a stick always worked for me.