Bring It On

Yay for XKCD!

By the way, Randall's new book "Thing Explainer" is in the shops and is rather splendid. Santa gave me a copy.

I Feel Safer Already

 So anyhoo: getting back to our subject of a couple of posties ago, Santa brought me a lovely little first edition 1950 US Government handbook that could have come straight from the Fallout 4 game on my PS4. Gotta love the embossed mushroom cloud on the cover.

 "Oooh, looky!" Hey, folks, why don't we stand here and stare at the nuclear apocalypse for a while?

 "The sleep of reason breeds monsters" as they say. But if you survive the bomb you can breed some yourself. Just don't get jiggy for a couple of months after the radiation hits.
Don't worry … the highlighter is in Photoshop, NOT on the book! Yikes.

 "Hot damn! Nearly blew my hat off! Better dust myself off and walk away."

 Grease up your hair, guys, and get round that drawing board and design us an ingenious instrument. The text goes on to reveal that these ingenious instruments are not yet developed although military scientists - doubtless in short sleeves and slicked-back hair - are working hard to invent them. Reassuring …

 Whooee! Cheesecake! If those folk in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had only known … Get nekkid and bury your clothes. Actually, why not do it BEFORE a nuclear war? And ladies: remember to adopt the coy pose shown in the illustration and wear your best satin undies at all times.

Best of all, as water supplies are endless and will not be disrupted or contaminated by all-out nuclear devastation, get your nekkid selves in the bathroom and scrub-a-dub dub. Your house, of course, will still be in perfect working order, just like those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

So to recap: let's get nekkid as the bombs go off around us is about the best advice the US Government had to give in 1950.
I cannot fault that advice and intend to follow it in the next Cold War (coming soon to a planet near you).

The Second Coming … Er …

 And lo, it came to pass, that no sooner had Dawn left the room than Phil, Tom and Pete added some Force to her Nativity scene.

I rather like the expression on the cow's face.

Anyhoo … It's 2016; we've got a new year to play with so let's resolve to fuck it up spectacularly (a resolution that governments and religions will have no trouble keeping).

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 …