Thank you, Mr. Cicada. For your valiant, if ultimately useless, efforts to help Cascadia, I offer a selection of three cicada Zapaticon shirts for sale at Cafepress, including the following:

...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
[ZPi Arthropod Auto Translation Begins:]

Primates of Cascadia: I have traveled billions of tarsi to bring good tidings. I and my cicadan compatriots of Brood X have arisen after period of 17 cycles to help your nation in its struggle. We have surrounded human colony designated "Washington, District: Columbia" in your annoying speech. We are engaged in cerebrosonic actions against your enemies in said colony. Our ancient erotic songs will reprogram the grotesquely engorged ganglions of said enemies. Said enemies will become dazed and unable to continue subjugation of Cascadia effectively. We will provide said protection for period of 1 superterranean generation. Said time more than sufficient for primate peace accord.

[ZPi Arthropod Auto Translation Ends.]
...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Chirp

In The Two Towers, Treebeard the talking, walking tree muses that he always likes going south because it somehow feels like going downhill. While meant as folksy humor, this actually isn't far from the truth (at least in the northern hemisphere, where presumably all the talking, walking trees live).

As one walks across the surface of a spinning planet toward its equator, one is moving farther away from the planet's axis of rotation, meaning one is traveling at a greater speed around it and is thus experiencing stronger centrifugal force -- the pseudoforce pushing objects away from the center of rotation that is really the consequence of the conservation of momentum. As the centrifugal force increases, the centripetal force of gravity remains relatively constant (in reality, planets bulge at the equator, so gravity is slightly greater,) resulting in a decrease in gravity's subjective effect. Therefore, walking south while in the northern hemisphere becomes progressively easier since one weighs less with each step (that is until one hits the equator, then it gets progressively harder until one hits the south pole and it becomes impossible). The difference in effort is, of course, not consciously perceptible to us, although it may be to massive, tree-sized creatures. So Treebeard might really have felt like he was going downhill afterall.

In M. C. Escher's famous illustration "Ascending and Descending," hooded figures perpetually ascend or descend a staircase that loops continuously on itself. This seemingly impossible situation was illustrated by Escher using geometric slight of hand, but could it not be possible in reality? In fact, it could, and Treebeard was 90° from the secret of Escherian perpetual downhilledness: he should have gone east!

When walking eastward on Earth, you are walking with the rotation of the planet (your planet may vary). Since your momentum would send you at a tangent to the surface if not for Earth's gravity, you are falling somewhat with every step east -- in other words, you are going downhill. Contrariwise, when going west you are stepping into the Earth as it rotates at you, requiring extra effort to lift yourself on top of it -- exactly like going uphill.

To realize Escher's impossible staircase, we would need only to build stairs circling the globe along a line of latitude. The stairs would need to have a very low rise to run ratio, and be slightly curved toward the Earth at a radius to balance gravity and linear momentum when traversing them. The effect would be most pronounced at the equator; however, budget concerns may force the stairs to be built farther north or south, with grippy soled shoes used to compensate for the necessarily angled runners. Much like the planned space elevator, this project would be one of both international cooperation and global economic benefit from energy savings -- imagine armies of moving men and stevedores from all the nations of the world harmoniously carrying crates down the stairs ever eastward, satisfied in the knowledge that they are doing less work than if they were going the other direction.

Can humanity even afford not to build the stairs? I think not.

Here's something from the Vaults of Unfinished Projects... a crude rendering -- created by ZPi Imaging Laboratories from partial blueprints smuggled out of Ottawa by Windingo agents sympathetic to Cascadian independence -- of a Canadian tool of destruction known as the McLuhanator Mark XI:

This dastardly device -- which is being secretly built in a facility somewhere in the Northwest Territories -- is the end result of decades of Canadian giant-robotic-arm research, and was designed for the sole purpose of keeping British Columbia under Federalist subjugation. It's estimated to stand at over 100 feet tall and have the stomping power of over 70 enraged elephants, making an army of these megabotic weapons more than a match for the Sasquatch Militia. (In light of this development, Sasquatch Command has initated a plan to repel the megabots using an ingenious array of forest traps involving swinging logs and tripwires.)

What other horrors does the vast tundra of Canada hide? Probably nothing else, but this is horrific enough.

The index page was getting musty, so I redid it. As you've no doubt noticed, since you are reading it right now, I have added a mini-blog. And next week I'll start a grunge band and enter a roller-disco competition. Anyway, this isn't really a real blog (it's just some static text with no back end yet,) but I thought I should have a place on the site for general anouncements and musings, should I have any, and the blog Bauplän is the path of least resistence. Plus, I needed something to help balance out the sidebar which is now taller than it was before.