Daily Archives: April 24, 2006

Linkie o’ the Day: Plucky!

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This is high on the possibly quite lengthy list of jobs you would not want to perform. Far above Denny's waitress, up in the realms of body bagger and teaser stallion, is the job of cat ball plucker.

It's truly astonishing what you can find just by clicking on a blog title with an old-fashioned word in it.

Such as:

How many of you can put on your resume that you were a cat-balls plucker? I can.

HappyCat! Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy! My Balls Are Smooth!

The interesting thing about the hair on a cat’s balls is that the hair comes out in nice clumps, like tiny toupees for wee gnomes. And there’s nothing quite as satisfying as seeing a cat’s freshly plucked sack. And I don’t mean that in a sick way, though I’m sure I just hit a chord with some of you fetishists. I mean it just looks, uh, fresh. It looks like a bald baby’s head emerging from the womb of a freakishly hirsute mother. Like a fleshy orb rising from a lake of fur. Like a bald nut sack on a cat.

Yeah, I'm glad he took the high road with that post. And aren't you glad I did:

No photoillustrations!

Stonefridge; Monument for the Ages

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From Sploid. You know it's a slow news day when you've checked Fark, Guido Fawkes, the Guardian, the Globe and Mail, the Province, BoingBoing, News of the Weird and the ever-reliable Weekly World News and you only find one story worth posting.

This is it.

STONEFRIDGE!

Most people who visit England's historic Stonehenge monument come away disappointed.

In photographs, the ancient whatever-it-is looks impressive with the sun shining through its stone gates and the majestic silence and all that.

But in reality, the sun never shines at all because that's how England is, and there's a huge freeway right next to the monument so all you hear is traffic, and the whole place is overrun with dirty hippies wearing hooded druid robes.

Luckily, there's a much better option.

This is recycling at its most creative. Truly, the artist should be very, very proud, if for no other reason than it keeps those loopy neo-Druids out of my way. Adam Horowitz is reported to be the artist. Hmmm, isn't he in Beastie Boys? O! How the mighty have fallen!

STONEFRIDGE! (detail)

Operation Global Media Domination: Politics Day

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TIAToday, as you may have noticed, was Politics Day at the ol' raincoaster blog. And, surprisingly, I find that the only thing which out-pulls sex and/or curling (curling porn was a top search, btw) is politics. Glad I found something that did. Getting a wee bit tired of the eedjuts coming to this blog via searches for "Mango Porn."

I am indeed a famewhore of the highest order (the lower orders have to sit on the unshaded side of the temple and stick to beige robes) but even I am not gonna be rooting for more dead Canadian soldiers or pissy, self-serving and moronic Tory policies from the remarkably lifelike Stephen Harper or the remarkably simian George W. Bush. Although I do admit a peculiar fondness for the video of that funny little Chaplin impersonator and that funny Turko-American writer fellow.

At last, a CIA program even *I* can support!

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Russia, from the CIA factbook

No, seriously. Thanks to my beloved paranoiacs at Cryptome I’ve found a CIA program I can actually support. Cheer. Rip off, even. And I encourage you and everyone you know to do the same.

George C. Minden, who for 37 years ran a secret American program that put 10 million Western books and magazines in the hands of intellectuals and professionals in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, died on April 9 at his home in Manhattan. He was 85.

Captain Freedom (who, by the way, was censored by Photobucket)Mr. Minden was president of the International Literary Center, an organization financed by the Central Intelligence Agency, which tried to win influential friends by giving them reading material unavailable in their own countries. The material ranged from dictionaries, medical texts and novels by Joyce and Nabokov to art museum catalogs and Parisian fashion magazines.

The people who received the reading matter were generally Communists or professionals and intellectuals working for Communist regimes. They thought the books were being donated by Western publishers and cultural organizations.

The C.I.A.’s purpose was to offer an alternative, culturally engaging reality that had the implicit effect of promoting Western culture. Mr. Minden did not see a need to bluntly refute Marxist dogma, on the theory that people could use common sense and their own observations to reject Communist arguments.

The project became something of a personalized book club; files were kept on recipients’ reading tastes, so as to better satisfy them in the future.

Hmmmm, I always wondered about the forehead from which Amazon sprang, fully-formed…now we know. 

Mr. Minden wrote in an internal memo that the West‘s main obstacle was “not Marxist obstacles, but a vacuum,” and that “what is needed is something against frustration and stultification, against a life full of omissions.”

Proselytizing for freedom of choice and independence of thought sounds like a pretty noble set of goals for the CIA, and they deserve a big hand for undertaking this project. Let’s keep the dream alive by doing this on our own, shall we? You know that’s what Minden would have wanted.

Suggested targets of this consciousness-raising guerrilla intelligence action include: Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Russia, China, Indonesia, the Sudan, Uganda, and the United States of America.

Hu and Bush, Heckler and Gitmo

Retired Military? Not so much

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Old Soldier, a Million Little MedalsNot so much "retired," that is. The US government has just reserved the right to call you back after retirement, indefinitely if it decides to. And by swearing up and down it won't cost much to do this, they were able to bypass the approval processes of something like eight different agencies which would normally be involved.

Take a gander at this, from Cryptome:

Management and Mobilization of Regular and Reserve Retired Military Members

AGENCY: [U.S.] Department of Defense.

ACTION: Interim final rule…
 

Sec.  64.4  Policy.

    (a) It is DoD policy that military retirees be Zombie Soldier frisbeeordered to active duty as needed to perform such duties as the Secretary concerned considers necessary in the interests of national defense as described in 10 U.S.C. 12301 and 688.
    (b) The DoD Components and the Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard shall plan to use as many retirees as necessary to meet national security needs.
    (c) The military retirees ordered to active duty may be used according to guidance prescribed by the Secretary concerned as follows:
    (1) To fill shortages or to augment deployed or deploying units and activities or units in the Continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii supporting deployed units.
    (2) To release other military members for deployment overseas.
    (3) Subject to the limitations of 10 U.S.C. 973, Federal civilian workforce shortages in the Department of Defense, the U.S. Coast Guard,
or other Government entities.
    (4) To meet national security needs in organizations outside the Department of Defense with Defense-related missions, if the detail
outside the Department of Defense is approved according to DoD Directive 1000.17.\2\
    (5) To perform other duties that the Secretary concerned considers necessary in the interests of national defense.
    (d) Military retirees shall be ordered to active duty with full pay and allowances. They may not be used to fill mobilization billets in a non-pay status.
    (e) Military retirees serving on active duty may be reassigned to meet the needs of the Military Service.

Old, Sad SoldierBut wait! There is, of course, a feedback process. There's no guarantee whatsoever that they will read, much less respond to your feedback, but you are cordially invited to tell them what you think of this policy of geriatric zombie soldier resurrection. At least they promise to pay the geezers, so although it is involuntary labour, it's not techically slavery. Until someone decides to bill them for room and board…wait for it:

DATES: This rule is effective April 18, 2006. Comments must be received
by June 19, 2006.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by docket number and/or
RIN number and title, by any of the following methods:
    Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov.

Follow the instructions for submitting comments.
    Mail: Federal Docket Management System Office, 1160
Defense Pentagon, Washington, DC 20301-1160.
    Instructions: All submissions received must include the agency name
and docket number or Regulatory Information Number (RIN) for this
Federal Register document. The general policy for comments and other
submissions from members of the public is to make these submissions
available for public viewing on the Internet at http://regulations.gov

as they are received without change, including any personal identifiers
or contact information.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Daniel Kohner, 703-693-7479,
Dan.Kohner@osd.mil.

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