Remember to Pack Ice Skates and Excreta Receptacles

More festive Christmas reading from the declassifieds (this one takes a few seconds to download but it's worth it):

We're still back in 1959 and this time the USA is looking to counter those pesky Soviet Sputniks by … er … bombing the Earth from the Moon.

Yup. You heard. Bombing the Earth from the Moon. Doctor Evil, eat your heart out. You've got nothing on the real US military morons.

I particularly love this phrase from the Introduction:
"The employment of Moon-based weapons systems against Earth … may prove to be feasible and desirable."
"DESIRABLE"?

As the document unfolds, sanity quietly sneaks out the back door and the logic of Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper and Colonel Bat Guano takes a firm grip as the finest minds in the US military attempt to justify claiming the Moon as their own by - among others - citing Amundsen planting a Norwegian flag at the South Pole, before simply stating: "The fact world (sic) of history knows only the success (their underlining) which turns the law of the stronger into the law of all."
Yeah, right … look where that's got you.

The sections on how to shit your pants if the Rooskies get there first are eye-watering. Now we know why Kennedy really made the "because it's hard" Moon landing speech.

The Project Horizon diagrams, however, are a hoot: ice skates and excreta receptacles ahoy! I would so love to have been one of the graphic artists on this project. The spacemen even have pointy antennæ!

Woot, woot, wibble and dribble. These guys still have nukes, people. Remember that and try getting to sleep tonight.

This has been a public service announcement from the giggling guy in the rubber room.

Funniest Read of the Week

Spy cats! Attack Sharks! Accidentally nuking Mexico! Here's the best of the FOIA trawl from 2015.

Enjoy.

Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of Thermonuclear Fire

This popped into my inbox this afternoon (clickety-click).

I've become addicted to the National Security Archive's FOIA pages and this one - freshly declassified only a few hours ago - is a doozy.

Hoorah for overkill! A whole bundle of H-bombs and up to 180 atomic bombs on one city alone. You gotta read it; it's funnier than Doctor Strangelove, especially when you think of a Palin or a Trump with their sweaty fingers poised over the insanity button.

And this was back in 1959; before things got REALLY crazy.

Yup; I still miss the ol' Cold War.

Noocular Apocalypse Fun

If any of you are - like me - thoroughly enjoying playing through the post-nuclear-apocalypse world of Fallout 4, here's some stuff to make the experience all the more real.

See also …

I'm off to watch Doctor Strangelove and The Bed-Sitting Room again. I kinda miss the ol' Cold War, with the going to bed every night not knowing if the world would still be there in the morning. It would be nice, therefore, if my bloody government would declassify this stuff so I can re-live the romance of those deliciously uncertain times.

But they won't … the gits.

Tis the Season

Sunset from my orifice window just now. It almost makes working for a living worthwhile.

Lashings of Ginger Beer

 It's lunchtime at the Goodwood Revival

 And that means sending Phil back to the car to fetch the picnic basket and a bottle of bubbly from the cool box.

 Ooooh … little bundles tied up with string!

 Bottoms up, chaps!

 The mound by Lavant corner is a prime picnic spot …

 … as this budding mechanic discovered.

Lashings of … er … un-ginger beer.

Cheers!

Doh! A Deer …

There's random and then there's just plain weird.

 Who should turn up in the Goodwood paddock but the … er …

von Trapp Family Singers?

 Deep breath … "Doh, a deer … etc."

 With dancing!

 And clothes made out of your granny's curtains.

 Actually, they were pretty good, but the question remains … "What the fuck?"

Anyhoo … Once they'd doh'd the deer dead, they wandered off with the rest of us to watch the start of the vintage motorcycle racing.

Funny old thing, life …

Keep off the Grass

Whoops!

Crunchy

This year's gravel trap mayhem courtesy of Phil and his sharp reflexes with a camera.

Party Like It's A Verb

Now that's my kind of picnic.