Monorail apologists are claiming that the accident was the fault of pilot error resulting from a 1988 track redesign intended to allow the monorail to dock at the then-new Westlake Center mall, and not caused by design flaws inherent in monorailular transportation.

But I disagree. Having a vehicle straddling a thin track (as opposed to, say, traveling safely inside a tube) increases the possibility for miscalculations in the inter-track distance necessary for bi-directional train clearance. It also invites planners into thinking they can get away with tracks too close together if they just institute passing protocols -- protocols which will eventually fail, as appears to be the current case. Clearly, monorails lead to sloppy engineering, which will lead to mass slaughter.

Meanwhile, the Seattle P.I. has quotes from pedestrians gawking at the stuck Monorail trains, which include this suspicious individual:

"It's an accident waiting to happen. Those tracks are too close together," said a man carrying a pet ferret.

Innocent, if overly obvious, observation from a man out walking his weasel or something more sinister? I reported previously on the Monorail-Paraterrestrial connection in Las Vegas. Now it seems that the Seattle Monorail collision has attracted even less savory paraterrestrial attention. It's highly likely that the above ferret owner is actually under the control of Ferretoids.

The Ferretoids -- pseudomammalian paraterrestrials from chilly Planet X somewhere in the Oort Cloud who operate on Earth from underground bases in Antarctica -- have been remotely infiltrating Seattle for over a decade via Starbucks franchises, which they use as fronts to infect would-be sycophants with mind-controlling brainworms that feed off of alkaloids found in coffee, particularly caffeine, to nurish their biopsychotronic organs. It is through these psychosycophants that the Ferretoids try to influence Earth affairs, since the planet is much too warm for them to venture out on their own.

The Ferretoids have long been trying to sabotage the activities of other paraterrestrials on Earth, not necessarily with any goal in mind, but just because they're a bunch of obnoxious jerks. If they learned that other paraterrestrials were involved in the spread of monorails, it would be entirely in character for them to send a lackey to the crash scene to bad-mouth monorails to the press.

While I agree with the statement about monorails being an accident waiting to happen, I must emphasize that I and Zapato Productions intradimensional are in no way supportive of Ferretoids or their agenda, whatever it may be. The Ferretoids are merely belligerent opportunists and would support monorails if they thought it would be annoying to other paraterrestrials.

(Fire added by ZPi to dramatize possible spontaneous combustion.)

Seattleites are again reminded why they voted "No" on dangerous monorails as tonight yet another accident occurred.

This time the Red and Blue monorail trains collided on a turn near Westlake, sending sparks flying and raining down shards of monorail glass on the streets below the track, narrowly missing slicing up innocent holiday shoppers who just want to live their lives in peace, unmolested by monorails. By sheer luck, only two of the 84 passengers sustained physical injuries requiring a trip to the hospital, although emotional scars will no doubt haunt them all for the rest of their lives -- as is the case with most monorail victims.

Passengers reported a loud, metal-on-metal screeching sound and people sliding out of their seats when the trains struck. In a notoriously unwise design decision, monorail trains -- although high-speed and elevated tens of feet off the ground -- are not equipped with seatbelts*. It was fortunate that no passengers flew out of their seats and through the ripped-off sliding door to their deaths on the sidewalk below.

Since the trains are elevated, evacuating all the passengers took over an hour and required fire ladders. If during that time the trains spontaneously combusted like one did last year, who knows how many passengers would have been cinderized in the blaze.

This is just the latest in a slew of recent accidents involving monorails around the world, including ones in Malaysia, California, and Las Vegas. So far no one has been killed, but it is just a matter of time.

* In contrast, ZPi Inteli-Tube pods are fully equipped with seatbelts and airbags. Plus, side collisions are not an issue since pods travel in enclosed tubes, with buffers of compressed air separating the pods before and after.

Land! Land is what we need!

And land we shall finally have. The courts have recognized the rightful authority of the Seattle Monorail Project, saying that it may use eminent domain to condemn the "Sinking Ship" parking garage in Pioneer Square to make way for a much needed monorail station.

The Domain of the Monorail is most eminent indeed. Preeminent, in fact! If our monorailular destiny is to be made manifest -- as it must if there is to be any hope for the Elevationment of Humanity -- then the impediments of the past ought justly be stricken down so that the concrete tendrils of Lady Monorail may spread to all lands and take root in every neighborhood. I say: Let there be a pullulation of monorail stations! Parking garages be condemned!

Fear not, gentle Luddite motorists; the final plunge of the Sinking Ship will be no true loss. Parking shall be pointless in our monorailed future, as cars will have gone the way of the horse and buggy, and meter maids shall go begging on street corners for their precious coins. Take heart, for every end is a new beginning. The ghosts of the Seattle Hotel, long tormented by the noxious Cult of the Automobile, shall finally be put to rest in the luxurious temple of Righteous Monorailism, where in their peaceful slumber they will watch Humanity finally soar free twenty feet above the Earth.

I must admit disappointment at the leadership of the SMP for not being bold enough to exercise Section 8 and liberate Seattle, nevertheless the current problems are a momentary setback. The Monorail Project will push onward! While the new proposed line is shorter than previously planned, it will still let my fellow monorailists travel farther than ever before. And once the Self-Evident Truth of the Monorail is before the public, with the anti-monorail forces unable to deny it, the line will only grow.

Ever since my decision as a young boy to never travel by any nonmonorailular means, I have been somewhat limited in where I could go, a sacrifice I have gladly made for this most noble of causes. Yes, the Pacific Science Center and Westlake Center have served me well -- with their abundant shopping, dining, and science educational options -- but progress beckons. Oh, what brave new world lies beyond Westlake and the Space Needle? What strange people exist in those far-off lands? In due time, we shall find out, and we shall bring with us the gift of the Monorail.

Thanks to the last minute pressure from Seattle Mayor and pneumatic-tube-supporter Greg Nickels, Cascadia is safe from NWO monorail incursions for the time being.

Meanwhile, the citizens of Las Vegas are just now starting to understand the true Monorailist agenda:

Sept. 22, 2005 -- Twelve aliens suddenly materialized from a wall of space fog as they invaded the Las Vegas Monorail today. Klingon Lieutenant Commander Voq'ha announced that the delegation of Klingons, Vulcans, Borgs, Romulans, Ferengi, and Andorians would ride the Las Vegas Monorail each day until the end of the year. As they visit Earth, on an intergalactic reconnaissance mission, they will interact with the tens of thousands of Las Vegas visitors who ride the monorail every day.

...

"From the farthest reaches of the universe we have watched the Las Vegas Monorail operate flawlessly since the Earth month of January,"* proclaimed Lieutenant Commander Voq'ha ... "We consider this invasion a peaceful reconnaissance mission and plan to learn more about the monorail which we have identified as the most technologically advanced public-transit system in the Milky Way galaxy."

(* Note how this conveniently overlooks the less-than-flawless operations prior to January.)

While the paraterrestrials were fake (as far as we know), this stunt clearly shows that Monorailists are conspiring with real paraterrestrial forces to inculcate acceptance of paraterrestrial activities on Earth's public transportation systems. Furthermore, Monorailists want to share our secrets with them:

"It is an unprecedented honor to welcome this prestigious delegation to Earth," said Curtis Myles, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Monorail Co. "We intend to openly share our public-transit technologies with Lieutenant Commander Voq'ha and the other delegates, and we will communicate them as necessary during their three-month mission."

Lest you think such Monorailist-Paraterrestrial conspiring could never happen in Cascadia, consider this: Is it just a coincidence that the current Seattle Monorail was built in proximity to the Space Needle or that it runs through the Science Fiction Museum via a hole next to a large, clawed flying-croissant (near where it burst into flames a year ago)?

What really happens to monorail riders as they pass through there?
Do any of them experience "missing time"?

Seattlites: remember to vote NO in November for the new monorail ballot proposal -- that is, unless you want to be assimilated.

The Seattle Monorail Project (SMP) is an Independent Transportation Authority established by the Will of the People with a mandate to build, own, operate, and maintain a city-wide monorail system. It is not subject to the authority of City Government -- which is why Mayor Nickels has taken the unprecedented and underhanded tactic of blackmailing the Project with the threat of construction permit rejection.

Pursuant to RCW 35.95A.050 §8, the SMP has the authority to "exercise all other powers necessary and appropriate to carry out its responsibilities." Section 8 must now be exercised.

The time for patient negotiation has ended and calmer heads must step aside for those with the courage and vision to reify our collective dreams with all due alacrity. Therefore, I call upon the SMP Board and its new interim executive director John Haley Jr. to seize the office of the Mayor and assume control of the city of Seattle.

I do not issue this call lightly; this is a necessary and appropriate step for the SMP to carry out the mandate given to it by the People. We cannot -- must not -- allow anything to stand in the way of Monorailular Progress.

This is only the first step on our path to the Future. Everywhere there are monorails, we must assume our rightful control lest those small-minded Luddites who seek to keep Mankind shackled to our surface-traveling past abuse their positions of power in vain attempts to destroy our species' only hope to reach Elevationment.

But we must not stop at Seattle, or Las Vegas, or Jakarta. No, we must press onward, ever onward, and extend the lines into lands as yet untouched by the concrete embrace of the monorail. We must bring the Freemasonry of Efficient Transportation -- the Brotherhood of the Monorail -- to those living in ignorance and fear.

And when they ask Where do you come from? What are you? we will answer thusly: "Pax Mundi. Monorails over the World." Call us Monorailmen if you like. For we are the natural trustees of Civilization when everything else has failed.

This is how I conceive our plan of operations: Settle, organize, advance. This zone, then that. At last monorails over the whole world and the New World begins -- the World of the Monorailmen and a new start for Mankind.

Batman Begins isn't so much a Hollywood summer blockbuster as a Hate Crime against the Future.

[SPOILERS]

The first act seemed innocent enough. We are thrust into the story of Bruce Wayne's tumble into the dark cave of fear and hate -- precipitated respectively by a traumatic childhood bat-attack and his guilt over his parents' murder by a mugger that resulted from his chiropteran fears. It begins, without so much as opening credits, in the midst of his Dantean trip into the underworld of crime, searching for the Ways of Wrongdoers and the means to stop them, and leads to his fiery rebirth from the Himalayan hideout of the League of Shadows as a Dark Avenger against Crime.

Batman costume ironically on display in the Sky Church in the EMP, through which the Monorail traverses.

But all this Sturm und Drang is just a façade, cobbled together from well-tread comicbook plots and backstory outlines, for director Christopher Nolan's real agenda: anti-monorail agitprop.

The gleaming monorail system that runs through Gotham in Bruce Wayne's childhood flashbacks -- made stereotypically retro in design by the art director to suggest it belongs to a future passed -- is at the center of both the city -- its rails spoke out from the hub of Wayne Tower -- and the film. It is showcased during a pivotal scene in which Bruce's father explains to him the troubles of Gotham. We learn that the monorail was built by him as a symbol of Hope and Unity for a city faltering on the verge of Poverty and Despair. This portentous scene takes place during a Wayne family trip to the opera that will result in the parental deaths at the heart of the Batman mythos. Here we see the monorail as grim Charon, ferrying the Waynes to their doom.

Years later, after Bruce Wayne's return to Gotham as the Batman, the monorail has become a symbol of degradation, covered in graffiti and sparsely occupied by muggers and Mafia hitmen. The propaganda message here is clear: Monorails are a False Hope and city planners would do well to reject them as a means to Urban Renewal.

But this isn't the final depth to which Nolan's propaganda will sink.

We eventually learn that the monorail is to become a tool of the League of Shadows, lead by immortal archvillain Ra's Al Ghul, to destroy Gotham by using it as a transport for a microwave weapon that will vaporize the water in the pipes that run beneath the monorail line, unleashing the fear-inducing psychotropic drug that the League has surreptitiously poisoned Gotham's water supply with, thereby hurling the city into chaos. So in the end, the plot is this: Only by destroying the monorail can Gotham be saved. If we were to believe the filmmakers, monorails attract terrorists and ninjas, lead to Madness, and need to be demolished for any hope of Salvation.

(I think it's fair to say that the anti-monorail motives of the filmmakers were shaped by their love of SUVs, as evidenced by the worshipful portrayal of the tank-like Batmobile. Upon seeing the Batmobile, Police Sergeant Gordon enthuses: "I got to get me one of these!" He later goes on to use the Batmobile to blow up the monorail. Not exactly subtle.)

As further evidence that the whole film was thrown together for the sole purpose of attacking monorails, consider the poorly thought-out doomsday scheme of the League of Shadows. If the microwave weapon were capable of vaporizing the Gotham City water supply, why did it not also vaporize the aqueous portions of the Gothamites? Why did the eyeballs of those in the Narrows not explode when their vitreous liquid was made gaseous by the microwaves? The only possibly explanation -- apart from an abject lack of understanding of Science on the part of the writers well beyond the norm for even the most curmudgeonly Ludditic anti-monorailist -- is that the filmmakers started with the idea that the monorail was to be destroyed and only later came up with a slapdash reason why. Their limited imaginations, typical of those who dismiss monorails, were simply not up to the task.

As I left the IMAX theater at the Pacific Science Center and took the Seattle Monorail back to my apartment, I was left shaking my head in befuddlement as to why a prestigious Center of Science would agree to show such an unscientific, hateful film so out of touch with the self-evident wonders of the Monorail so near to them. Is not the goal of Science a truer understanding of our World for the Embetterment of Mankind? How is that goal served by attacking what is not only the most significant discovery of Modern Science -- the Principle of Monorailular Transit -- but also the only means of lifting Humanity up out of its congestion, both traffic and moral, and into the sky so that we may ride swiftly and confidently into our Destined Future? It is not served at all by that, I say! Rest assured that I will be writing a strongly worded letter of complaint to the Science Center's Ombudsman.

As for Batman Begins, on a railular scale from one to five (one being a Supreme Achievement of the Human Soul and a Shining Beacon of Hope for our Children, five being Ignominious Refuse for the Junkpile of History), I give it four rails.

Our feature for this edition of Stamp Nook is a U.S. commemorative issue (Scott #1196) for the Seattle World's Fair of 1962, also known as the Century 21 Exposition. As you can see, the design is dominated by the Fair's symbol, the lofty Space Needle, but it also rather conspicuously showcases the then-new Alweg Monorail, whooshing forward into the bleed. A sanguine tableau of the 21st Century indeed!

This stamp was suggested to me by Mike and/or Paula (he/she/they didn't indicate who exactly was sending the letter from their address -- such is the shocking informality of electronic mail!), who included the following theory that I am sure Lyle will be quite keen on:

It can't be an accident that No. 1196 comes out and then magically 43 years later we have an imminent monorailular threat. I suggest that the gum was treated with an NWO standard-issue cross-generational mind control genetic modification agent. Civic-minded expectant mothers in the early sixties bought the stamps, licked the gum preparatory to affixation on an envelope, thereby causing a mutation of the retrotransportation genes of their in utero children. When these children grew up, they were tragically unable to resist the siren call of absolute dangerous and expensive transportation modalities. Check it out--I'm sure there are many people in their early forties that either voted for this boondoggle or are actually designing it. Coincidence? I think not!

Fortunately, I happened to have this stamp in my personal collection so I was able to examine it first hand. The gum looked as one would expect for adhesives of that era -- thickish with some slight oxidation. Olfactory inspection of the gum did not reveal any monorail-evoking fumes, however it is reasonable to hypothesize that the agent would have completely outgassed in the time since the stamp's gumming. I was not about to lick the stamp -- not only because, if the above theory were true, I might have come under the sway of the Monorail, but also because I find the practice to be quite barbaric. In fact, I have never licked a stamp. Stamps are to be saved, not slobbered on. I briefly considered seeing if transdermal absorption might have an effect (normally I always take great care to only handle stamps with philatelic tongs and, if I must touch them, acid-free philatelic gloves,) but I thought better of it, fearing both my potential monorailization and the certain biofilm contamination of the stamp.

In the end, my inspection proved inconclusive. I would forward the stamp to ZPi Labs for further analysis, but knowing them they would destroy it in the process, or at the very least get Sasquatch fur in the gum. I am not prepared to make that sacrifice.

Until next time, happy philateling!

For too long Society has been denied its Natural Transcendency by Luddites clinging to outmoded technologies and ways of living. Enough! I must call upon the Fishing Vessel Owners to put aside their fear of change and let the Green Line Monorail be built.

The Fishing Vessel Owners Marine Ways, a Ballard shipyard built in 1919 that still relies on archaic duorail technology, must make way so that our collective destiny can be achieved. While the passing of such a storied industrial site is unfortunate -- as it has served as an important reminder of how far and how fast Humanity has traveled from primordial experiments with transportation beholden to the whims of Nature to the present awakening of the New Age of the Monorail and all the psychohistorical maturity that such a transition implies -- it nonetheless remains necessary. How else to support the monorail span over the Lake Washington Ship Canal than by razing the FVO dry-docks and erecting a pillar in their place? If whole councils of monorail engineers cannot find a solution to this puzzle, can we expect mere ship repairmen to?

The concerns of the FVO, while understandable coming from those still living as if it were the 1910s, are trivial and easily assuaged. Jobs lost can easily be regained in the monorail maintenance and hospitality industries. Even primitive, pre-monorail peoples such as wood-caulkers and keelwrights can by uplifted though an intense program of monorailization and neurolinguistic programming. I've seen it happen before in Malaysia, and I have every confidence that these results can be replicated in Cascadia.

Members of the FVO also allude that the fishing industry will be hurt by the loss of shipyards, but this is short-sighted. Monorail lines will eventually be built over the vast seas, allowing the rich bounties of the deep to be harvested by fleets of fishing monorails. These monomariners will be unaffected by such dated concerns as sea-sickness, capsization, or catastrophic oakum failure and will be free to ply their trade in all the luxurious comforts afforded by modern monorail design. There is simply no need to fear that the flow of fresh halibut will be abated.

In closing, I again call upon FVO President Don Lindblad to cease his attempts to fight the Future -- to put away childish things and embrace our species' evolutionary growth as a monorailfaring people. Take comfort that the fully monorailized World of Tomorrow will have a place for you and your kind; you only need to board the monorail and let it carry you there.

On Friday an explosion rocked the KL Monorail in Malaysia. Today it was determined to have been caused by a burst monorail tire. (Note how the monorailular-media spins this incident by emphasizing that the monorail tire was "pneumatic". It's just lucky the tire wasn't solid, otherwise the shrapnel would surely have killed all thirty passengers.) Two people were injured, one with minor wounds and the other requiring ankle surgery.

This follows an incident last September when a tire flew off the monorail in Las Vegas, nearly killing untold numbers of Elvis impersonators.

The inherent explosive and/or projectile danger of monorail tires is becoming clearer every day, and yet dangerous plans to monorailize Cascadia are still being pushed forward by industry groups such as Team Monorail, who are representing a monorail manufacturer prophetically named "Bombardier", and Cascadia Monorail Company, which is trying to capitalize on our great nation's name in order to kill us all.

(Thanks to Hans Delbruck for the links in the guestbook.)

...This time at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, where the monorail broke down, trapping 400 riders in the bitter cold for up to four hours. According to one unfortunate rider: "I got hypothermia and my kids have bronchitis." She should count herself and her kids lucky that the monorail didn't derail and fall into the Lion Camp. There are no windows on that thing to keep the carnivores out, you know.

Reportedly zoo officials have wised up and decided that the monorail, which was sold to them by some fly-by-night monorail hucksters who aren't around anymore to supply replacement parts, is a relic. It will be replaced in total with more conventionally wheeled drive-by-wire vehicles.

(This would never happen in an enclosed, air-conditioned, and entirely lion-proof pneumatic tube pod. Granted it would be more difficult to see the frolicking antelopes and zebras in there, but what price public safety?)