News of the Day

Interesting crop of headlines on tomorrow's ferret litter tray liners. The Daily Star seems slightly surprised that some gypsies can sing and play musical instruments and that there's a possibility of a Britain's Got Talent-type programme starring travellers. Now, we understand that they probably don't play all that much jazz in the Star offices, but you'd have thought at least someone there would have heard of Django Reinhardt. Fair bit of jizz in there though, one might suspect, what with all those porno mags that owner Richard Desmond also owns.

Apparently, some gypsies are quite good musicians. Whodathunkit, eh?

Public Domain image from the William P. Gottlieb collection via Wikipedia

The Independent reveals a "highly classified" US plan to supply arms to the Libyan rebels, as they're "desperate to avoid US military involvement in Libya in the event of a prolonged struggle between the Gaddafi regime and its opponents." Mmmmm - and tooling up the enemy's enemies has always worked out so well for them in the past, hasn't it? One wonders also how a highly classified document made it into the clutches of a British paper, especially one with such a small circulation - and hence available funds for mole payments - as The Independent. Perhaps they're using the proceeds of the I, which is outselling its parent considerably (either because the Great British Public welcome a paper free of slebbage or because it's only 20p and thus cheaper than Asda Smart Price bog roll) - which is probably a good thing as ever since The Grauniad disappeared up its own smug, middle class arsehole and turned into a lifestyle magazine for rich bell ends The Independent has been far and away the best Britrag, despite - or perhaps as reflected by - it having the smallest circulation of any of the proper newspapers. If the I enables The Independent to keep going, even if at a loss, then all well and good.

The Guardian itself devoted the top of the front page to a section in the G2 in which fashion correspondent Hadley Freeman discusses whether or not it's still acceptable to wear Dior following John Galliano's embarrassing little antisemitic outburst last week. Good to see they're still covering the stories that matter to the poor and oppressed, who will no doubt be showing a bit of the old Cable Street solidarity and burning their Dior couture on the streets tonight in response.

The Daily Express - also owned by Richard "Asian Babes" Desmond, as it happens - predicts snow in the near future as it was a little bit cold last night. We didn't bother to read the story, preferring not even to prod with a stick anything quite so unpleasant as the Express in case its vile poison should travel like that of a cockatrice up the stick and into our mortal hearts, but have little doubt that the snow can be blamed on the EU in some contrived way. May Saint Diana have mercy upon us!

Bloody (alien) immigrants!

Since all the MPs are enjoying their annual three month holiday...sorry, we mean opportunity to work in their constituencies without worrying about Parliamentary debates at the moment, many of you will no doubt be scanning the day's news for anything worth reading during that boring seven hour period when you're supposed to be working. There's not much today, so thank the News Gods (by which we categorically do not mean Rupert Murdoch) that the Ministry of Defence has just seen fit to release details on a whole load of alleged UFO sightings.

One of the records concerns a UFO witnessed in full daylight in 1994. Hovering over a stage. At Glastonbury Festival.

Hmmm...


According to the BBC, Lord Hill-Norton wrote to Michael Heseltine about the so-called Rendlesham Incident, when several people at a Suffolk USAF base saw strange lights in nearby woodland; an event later covered and, it seems, embellished somewhat by various writers - including famous UFO researcher Jenny Randles - who before long had added enough gumpf to the story for it to become known as Britain's Roswell. In 2003, an ex-US Security policeman who had been employed at the base admitted that he and another man had faked the incident using torches and a loudspeaker - it is notable that all those (witnesses and writers) who claimed to have seen a craft of some description have been keeping unusually quiet on the subject ever since.

Lord Hill-Norton's letter states that the incident raises two concerns. The first was the possibility that an unknown aircraft entered British airspace with impunity. The second was the possibility that several US military staff from the base were capable of making what he called a "serious misperception."

We wonder how many employees of the USAF and other military branches voted for George W. Bush when he was competing for his second term in office? Because let's face it - if you can believe that was a wise thing to do despite the contrary evidence, you must be capable of some pretty massive misperceptions.

Amusing Headline of the Day

Haddock in court over 1997 murder

(real story here)

Exclusive: Mandelson has reconstructive surgery

The Archimandrite Mandelson, leader of the Starveling Cult and probable Most Evil Man in the Universe (Darth Vader lists him as a reference on his curriculum vitae and claims he was "the bestest teacher what I ever had" on Rate My Teachers.com), is already known for his chilling appearance and bloodthirsty ways. Some years ago he famously had his genetic code altered so that his eyes became a terrifying red colour; he has also had his skin lightened and is believed to have had a number of changes carried out to his genitals, allowing him to inject any combination of an assortment of different chemicals - including truth serum - into his partners.

As if all that isn't freaky enough, a recent photograph appears to show that the First Secretary of State - who is widely said to have been the architect of New Labour - has had further surgery in order to radically redesign his hands so that each finger is now tipped with a smaller, fully-functioning hand of its own. This leaves him with a total of 40 fingers and ten thumbs.

Don't worry - we're not going to make you look at a photo of his genitals.

News has come in today revealing that Lord Mandelson is a member of around 35 separate Cabinet committees that have been created in order to cover matters related to economic, domestic and foreign policies. There are 44 committees in total, of which Prime Minister Gordon Brown is a member of fewer than Mandelson, leading Conservative MPs to criticise what they term the unelected minister's "powerbase." "It is obvious that Peter Mandelson is the real unelected prime minister pulling the strings at No 10," says a Tory party spokesman.

Acid Rabbi nipped down to Westminster where he was lucky enough to bump into one of the Lord's many under-secretaries who, once we'd finished with the thumb-screws, was happy to act as an unofficial spokesman as long as we guaranteed anonymity since he was afraid his boss would punish him. "It's no secret now that Lord Peter sits on almost all Parliamentary committees," he told us. "He's involved in all sorts of things from those that discuss Africa to the Olympics to immigration. Basically, once he reached ten of them he found he was spreading himself a bit thinly, so he's had the reconstructive surgery on his hands so that he can keep a finger in 42 pies simultaneously."

Acid Rabbi - undoubtedly the finest investigative journalism on the Internet.
Yarmulkes off to Iain M. Banks, who we hope won't be offended at us nicking his ideas and adapting the cover of The Algebraist (having some idea of his politics, we suspect he won't).

Fun and games on a tropical island

Four-year-old Taiwanese boy Yeh Chien-Anda-Lou scooped an amazing prize in a lottery aimed at raising public spending during these difficult economic times earlier this year when he won exclusive rights to a tropical island in the Taiwan Straits, allowing him full dominion over the island until September. The tiny, previously uninhabited island boasts golden sandy beaches, lush rainforest and a number of crystal-clear streams along with beautiful waterfalls and is home to an impressive selection of flora and fauna including fruit, parrots, fish and wild pigs.

The lottery draw took place in late February, and Acid Rabbi obtained the boy's family's telephone number shortly afterwards at 8.30 Taiwanese time; but we were unable to speak to Yeh because, as his mum told us, "He's fast asleep, tucked up in bed - he has a spelling test tomorrow, so he needs a good night's rest," preventing us from bringing you the story as it happened.

Yeh-Chien Anda-Lou and friend Pih-Gee have been enjoying "fun and games" on the tropical island, despite early fears that the boys may be too young to take responsibility for themselves.

There were early concerns that such a young child was not yet mature enough to fully benefit from the prize and that he might not yet be mature enough to be left alone. However, he elected to take a group of friends with him, including some older boys, and it seems the gang has been enjoying all manner of fun and games.

We were able to contact the boy yesterday, who has now settled in at a specially-constructed hut on the island. "It's been so much fun," he said, "My best friend Pih-Gee and I found a pretty shell which we can use like a trumpet. It's very handy because with it we can call back my other friends from the forest when they've gone to pick fruit. We had a bit of an argument on the first afternoon, because my other friend - Yah Khmer-Idu - was getting a bit bossy because he's older than me, but we had a vote and everyone decided I should be the chief."

It has not been all plain-sailing for the boys though - some of them have been suffering from acute diarrhoea, possibly as a result of the vast amounts of fruit they have been consuming. Some of the younger boys have also been experiencing nightmares due to their childish belief that the island is inhabited by some sort of monster, a belief that was quickly dispelled when Yah Khmer-Idu and a few of the other older boys proved that what the younger lads had actually seen was one of the wild pigs.

"The island is absolutely safe," claimed a Taiwanese naturalist and government minister. "We've sent some of our people out there a few times in the past and they've all come back talking about the place like it's some sort of tropical Eden. None of them saw any poisonous snakes and the pigs seem docile. In fact, the only dark patch in the island's recent history was one soldier who parachuted in a few years back and was never heard from again - we believe he probably landed badly and was killed."

Yeh adds, "Yah Khmer-Idu and some of the bigger boys have formed a hunting party to try to catch one of the pigs, because we need to eat meat as well as fruit, or we'll keep on being ill. He says it'll be fun." The young lads will doubtless be further comforted once a pig is killed, displaying to them that it is merely a normal animal and not a monster.

News Headline Of The Day

Everyday, Acid Rabbi spends his waking hours sitting in a comfy chair with a laptop and a fridge full of beer, monitoring a vast number of news agencies and sources worldwide so that YOU don't have to and instead have time to go out to work and pay taxes.

Troops claim
'supernatural
powers' after
pygmy sodomy

from HeraldSun.com.au