A typical day in 'Belgium'.

Three people trapped in the Belgium Simulation have managed to create a documentary on the plight of so-called "Belgian Citizens" as seen from inside the simulation. While it is likely that they are not fully aware of the truth of their film due to the intense Belgian programming they are receiving from their captors, it nonetheless lets the outside world see just what is really going on in the heads of those who are forced to believe they are in Belgium. Download it quick before the Brussels Beast reconfigures itself.

This edition of Stamp Nook takes us to the tropical Gilbert Islands of Micronesia, now known as Kiribati, where we encounter a curious artefact. Issued on December 6, 1976, the stamp (Scott #289) depicts a porcupine fish helmet (or te barantauti), a traditional Kiribati warrior's helmet made out of the inflated, dried carcase of a porcupinefish, a close relative of the pufferfish.

(I should also point out that Mr Zapato has an icon of the porcupine fish helmet available in his Archæologicons set. Very useful for differentiating your want-list of Oceania topicals.)

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Most GPMs are, well, rather lame and obvious (yeah, I'm talking about you, Billabill). But then there's Dr. E.

Dr. E, notorious G.P.M. for the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy division (did I mention they're involved with energy?), is one enigmatically cool simian scientist. Whether typing on his solar computer; pondering the controls on the geothermal boiler; attacking an engine with a stalk of corn; or making sweet, sweet love to a turbine prop, Dr. E exudes a style that none of his peers can match. And yet, instead of being the engaging character he should be, there's an odd detachment to him.

Very little information is given about Dr. E. We gather that his outdoor "Energy Lab" is hidden on some tropical island where he works alone on his many energy projects, trying to generate power from what natural resources he can come by. Does he work for the D.o.E.? Is he held captive by them? Are they forcing him to develop energy technologies so radically alternative that only a monkey brain can control them? We don't know since Dr. E doesn't have much to say for himself, apart from entreating us to help him "protect the earth" -- from whom or what we are never precisely told.

After inviting us to look around his lab and giving short, perfunctory overviews of various alternative energy sources, he's quick to usher us off to someone else's site. "These sites will tell you more," he snaps, before going back into the jungle to watch the giant monitor array, leaving us to wonder why we were ever invited to his Energy Lab and just what he is hiding.

The Belgian Conspiracy has gotten to Darby Conley. How long until Garfield gives up lasagna for waffles?

Looking for some content for your iPod-Stereoscope? Here's an illustration from Lord Kelvin's 1894 paper "On Homogeneous Division of Space":

Stereoscopic photo of an orthic tetrakaidecahedron, constructed out of soldered wire.

Cross your eyes to see cutting-edge 19th century scientific imaging technology! I have exchanged the images left for right from the original since I find crossing my eyes easier than forcing them apart. The original presumably would have been viewed using a stereoscope, a common gizmo for the Victorian-era techno-hipster...

Since it took an inordinate amount of time to make the above image, I'll have to put off retyping Kelvin's paper till later. It's an interesting one, with some nice illustrations of tessellations. Until then, busy yourself with making your own tetrakaidecahedra. See how many rooms of your house you can fill!

UPDATE: "On Homogeneous Division of Space" is online.

An interesting letter from Lord Kelvin to John Clarke. In 1860, Kelvin proposed that an increase in CO2 emissions from coal-burning would raise global temperatures much like how a greenhouse works. What's even more interesting is that he considered doing this intentionally to "provide a very comfortable living environment" for the people of Glasgow.

In the end he decided better of it, considering both the havoc it would cause for non-Glaswegians and, more importantly, the potential danger of introducing malaria to a more tropical Glasgow. "We have quite enough pestilence here, I contend, without inviting another!"

UPDATE: The above letter is fiction. Disregard.

Also, while making the Lord Kelvin library a little more respectable looking (still a work in progress), I found this:

La Bibliothèque nationale de France (that's French for "the French National Bookatorium") has a large collection of scanned books, etc. in PDF format (available one excruciating page at a time). The collection is searchable ("search" in French is "recherche,") by author, title, subject, and full text contents. You'll probably find something to interest you there. There's certainly lots of Kelvin stuff, from a seemingly complete collection of "Proceedings of the Royal Society of London" to his various reprint volumes. There's no way I'm going to retype all that (although I did manage to partially patch up one of the incomplete papers I had), so just go there and look for yourself.

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!

Washington D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams and his friends, anti-segregationist Mary Church Terrell and 1920's baseball pitcher Walter "Big Train" Johnson, welcome you to Kids' Capital! Kids, be sure to click the shield on the top of the screen to learn the terrible secret of what lurks beneath the U.S. Capitol Building. Perhaps it is waiting FOR YOU!

BONUS GPM #11.5: POMBO FOR KIDS

This doesn't really fit with the normal GPM thesis, as it doesn't involve a unique mascot pushing a discernable agenda, but U.S. Congressman Richard Pombo (daguerreotype to the right) of the 11th Congressional District of California has created a kids page on his Government-allotted website so godawful that it deserves attention.

The actual content of the page isn't noteworthy or unusual -- mostly some "fun" "facts" about Congress, a few simple games, and links to other Government kids sites. However, this banality is turned into a sublime crime against all that is decent by the gratuitous use of stolen animated GIFs (including a dancing hillbilly critter band), embedded WAVs ripped from the Hampster Dance page and the incidental music from The Brady Bunch, and other examples of blatant copyright infringement and/or bad taste. To top it off, he includes one of those Javascript elastic mouse-trail things that are popular on GPM sites, only his seems specially engineered to trigger seizures. The only thing the site's missing is a voice in the background continuously saying "Welcome to POMBO!!!"

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.

Person undergoing eID Belgification process.

The Belgian Conspiracy has a new scheme to further their agenda of Global Dominion through the Belgification of humanity. Since April of 2003, their "citizens" have been programmed to believe that they are carrying electronic identification (eID) cards that contain data on a person's identity stored in an onboard chip and digitally signed by the Belgian government for use in both physical and online transactions.

It's now being reported that noted Cascadian businessman Bill Gates has "traveled to Belgium" and consequently has stated that he will be integrating the Belgian eID card with his Cascadian systems. As many of you already know, people "traveling to Belgium" are actually exposed to knock-out gas on the plane and flown to a secret hanger under Eurodisneyland where their memories are rewritten to suit the Belgian agenda. Mr. Gates has clearly had this procedure done to him and his new found approval of the Belgian eID card scheme is an opinion implanted by the Conspiracy.

But why are they doing this? The Conspiracy's goal is to get their eID technology used by all people in all nations and having Microsoft under their control will help them achieve this. Once your identity is transferred into their cards, it will be verifiable only by the Belgian Conspiracy, giving them final veto over who you are. They can then begin converting people into Belgians by simply changing the nationality field of their databases and issuing new cards (the cards will be valid for only a 5-year period). You will have no choice but to accept your new Belgianity since all transactions and interactions must be approved through their system and your old non-Belgian card won't be verified anymore. If they say you are Belgian, you officially are and no one will have any means to contradict them.

ZPi is taking steps to thwart this scheme. We have contacted Sasquatch Militia who have dispatched a Special Forces unit to Medina to kidnap Mr. Gates upon his return to his home. He will be taken to ZPi HQ for deprogramming and to learn the TRUTH about Belgium. Hopefully we can protect Cascadia -- and the world -- from Belgian identity theft.