ZPi reader and bumpersticker consumer Karla directs our attention to an interesting find:

Please allow me to direct your attention to evidence of tree octopuses in New England. Of course, this is unverified, so it may just be a red herring. Or it may be the remains of a PNWTO brought back by one of those venturesome New England sea captains of old.

New England tree octopuses, such as the Sugar Octopus, are not unknown, but none achieve anywhere near the size shown in those pictures. While there have long been rumors of giant forest octopuses in Cascadia, these have never been verified by serious cephalopodologists and are generally agreed to be the product of the over-active imaginations of hungry Sasquatch out gathering normal-sized tree octopuses.

I'm afraid that that giant "tree octopus" (much like the Cardiff giant) is a fraud -- most likely created by cryptozoologists to lure gullible Sasquatch to New England -- and not an actual petrified terrestrial octopod.

Arthur Black's Jan. 22 editorial "Paranoid? Who's paranoid?" claims that the paranoid community hasn't responded to the MIT paper impugning the effectiveness of Deflector Beanie technology. This is false. The MIT paper was debunked last November, as can be read here on my website.

In short, the MIT experiment was unsuitable for the phenomenon in question and had procedural irregularities that would have disqualified it from a reputable peer-reviewed journal.

As the published author of one of the seminal works on personal mind-control protection using aluminum foil, I find it odd that I was not contacted by Mr. Black for a quote. Regardless, simple research on his part would have revealed the response to the MIT paper (it's the very first hit on Google for "'deflector beanie' MIT").

That Mr. Black either chose not to do any research or to ignore the existence of a response brings into question his competency as a journalist. I would expect such behavior from a writer for the Chilliwack Times, but I am disheartened to see it in someone from the Chilliwack Progress. I hope this is not indicative of a lowering of journalistic standards in our great Republic of Cascadia.

Regards,
Lyle Zapato

The Tamil Nadu Government is now claiming they went with a monorail because they feared a Chennai earthquake. Obviously, when the Big One hits, the best place to have multi-ton metal vehicles is balancing over the heads of pedestrians (not safely ensconced in pressurized, quake-resistant underground tubes).

Also, after a government assembly where critics were denied the ability to raise questions, PMK member G. K. Mani revealed that the monorail "bogies" the government plans to purchase are currently sitting abandoned in Malaysia. It's unknown at this time if they're in the same state of disrepair as the ones found in France, but considering how desperate Lava is to unload them, it would be wise to check the cars for vagrant orangutans before signing for them.

"planet036" from the UK writes:

YOU LOT ARE WEIRD

Ive got to say i think you lot are weird, i mean what are you goin to make next! wooden hats that send out lazers!!! nor glasses that taste like pie!!1

Wooden hats that send out lasers are just silly. Changes in humidity would cause the wood to expand and contract, making precise alignment of the lasers impossible, thereby negating any benefits from having them cranially mounted.

However, ZPi Labs Pasteo-Optometry Division has been researching glasses that taste like pie -- pieglasses -- for a number of years. Here is our current prototype:

While our marketing department is still trying to determine practical applications for our pieglass technology -- or at least a catchy jingle that would convince people that they want a pair -- we are certain that we will be able to successfully bring this product to market within 10 years.

DMK opposition party president M. Karunanidhi says the Tamil Nadu government, which recently threatened a new monorail project for the city of Chennai, has been involved in shady deals with monorailmongers Lava Consultants and Consortium Limited, a shadowy organization operating out of Malaysia, possibly from a secret layer hidden deep inside an active volcano, although this hasn't been confirmed.

According to Karunanidhi, the government had already completed talks with Lava prior to accepting bids for the project and there will be "kickbacks":

The project is estimated to cost around Rs 20,000 crore [200 billion rupees, or ~4.5 billion US$] of which Rs 1,000 crore will be given to a person in Tamil Nadu, and an individual living in Malaysia is holding talks with the government to finalise the project, as per information reaching us.

Will this turn out to be yet another monorail project mired in corruption and fiscal shenanigans that will ultimately leave citizens in transportation limbo? Undoubtedly yes. If only governments would consider wiser alternatives...

News from the East! Chennai will be the first city in India to be monorailized!

The Tamil Nadu Government today announced it will implement the Monorail Rapid Transport System to reduce traffic congestion in Chennai city, making it the first in the country to have such a system.

Congratulations, and welcome to the Future! The concept of the Monorail, still largely unfamiliar to most Indians, was explained to Chennaites by News Today:

Monorail, the single-track upraised train service, is popular in many advanced countries (Japan, Malaysia, Australia, USA, to name a few).

This charmingly naïve tautology -- for to be advanced necessarily means embracing the monorail -- shows that India is finally awakening herself to Monorail Consciousness. And sure enough that consciousness will spread as two billion eyes open to the possibilities of the monorail; ND also reports that West Bengal, Karnataka, and Punjab are expected to follow Chennai's bold lead.

What effect will this have on tensions between India and Pakistan, who are planning their own monorail in Lahore? Will a common monorailular cause -- tying together the subcontinent in a glorious ribbon of unity made, and made of, concrete -- bring these two bitter adversaries together? I am certain the monorail holds forth to mankind the prospect for global unification -- uniting the divergent rails of social discord into one common path of agreeance -- and this could be the beginning.

But what of us? What of Seattle and the rest of Cascadia? Are we to outsource the Monorail Revolution? Will we be left below, to fend for ourselves on the cold, unforgiving streets, molested by biker gangs unguided by the rails of law and surrounded by the accumulating detritus of our failed technologies as India and others pass over us in luxurious comfort into humanity's destiny? We must not let this be our fate! We must get back on track! A dream derailed is a dream denied!

With Seattle going on it's 25th consecutive day of rain, could this not be a sign that we have disembarked at the wrong station? Need I point out that monorails, held high aloft the lapping waves of the flooded streets, are not hampered by such deluges?

While my primary concern is with the Elevationment of Humanity, this setback has affected me personally. The closure of the Seattle Monorail following that suspicious accident -- I suspect there is more going on than just pilot error and that Mr. Zapato has information he is withholding -- has left me stranded in my apartment since November.

Unable to reach the West Lake Center food court, I am living off of canned goods and what meager scraps I can come by. I would order take-out, but the local delivery boys have black-listed me since I mocked their primitive automobiles and bicycles. My neighbors have suggested I use the busses, but that is not an option. Once one has been elevated on a concrete beam of hope high enough to touch the very robe-hems of the Gods, one cannot -- no, will not! -- go back to those debased forms of transportation which one had transcended.

I have faith that the monorail will one day run again, but the situation seems as if it will only get worse before it will get better. Please, send fresh supplies and monorail technicians!

Strange Magazine has an article titled "A Game With The Forteans" about the viral ad campaign for the videogame Shadow of the Colossus that I wrote about in October.

It notes that a press release sent to Strange after my post had the hidden TBWA\Chiat\Day reference replaced and wonders if the viral advertisers read my blog. They probably did, since there was a link to my site on the Giantology blog's sidebar under "Forteana" that disappeared shortly after I posted that entry.

I have since played Shadow of the Colossus. While it's a good game, it is not a realistic megacide simulator. I cannot recommend it for training Cascadians to battle the forces of Federalist Canada as it's unlikely that any of the McLuhanator series will have their damage-points highlighted by glowing mandalas for easy stabbing. For the time being, continue training on the rock walls at REI.

A paper to be published on red, cell-like particles that rained over India in 2001 has rekindled interest in panspermia -- the hypothesis that life on earth was seeded from space. The paper's researchers also wrote two unpublished papers on the subject in 2003 that made stronger panspermian claims (#1 & #2).

I'm repeating this story and links swiped from Slashdot only so I can add this quote from Lord Kelvin giving the reasoning behind the concept:

Every year thousands, probably millions, of fragments of solid matter fall upon the Earth—whence came these fragments? What is the previous history of any one of them? Was it created in the beginning of time an amorphous mass? This idea is so unacceptable that, tacitly or explicitly, all men reject it. It is often assumed that all, and it is certain that some, meteoric stones are fragments which had been broken off from greater masses and launched free into space. It is as sure that collisions must occur between great masses moving through space as it is that ships, steered without intelligence directed to prevent collision, could not cross and recross the Atlantic for thousands of years with immunity from collisions. When two great masses come into collision in space it is certain that a large part of each is melted; but it seems also quite certain that in many cases a large quantity of debris must be shot forth in all directions, much of which may have experienced no greater violence than individual pieces of rock experience in a land-slip or in blasting by gunpowder. Should the time when this earth comes into collision with another body, comparable in dimensions to itself, be when it is still clothed as at present with vegetation, many great and small fragments carrying seed and living plants and animals would undoubtedly be scattered through space. Hence and because we all confidently believe that there are at present, and have been from time immemorial, many worlds of life besides our own, we must regard it as probable in the highest degree that there are countless seed-bearing meteoric stones moving about through space. If at the present instant no life existed upon this earth, one such stone falling upon it might, by what we blindly call natural causes, lead to its becoming covered with vegetation. I am fully conscious of the many scientific objections which may be urged against this hypothesis; but I believe them to be all answerable. I have already taxed your patience too severely to allow me to think of discussing any of them on the present occasion. The hypothesis that life originated on this earth through moss-grown fragments from the ruins of another world may seem wild and visionary; all I maintain is that it is not unscientific.

—Lord Kelvin, August 1871.