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Lyle Zapato

GPM #22: Yucca Mountain Johnny

Lyle Zapato | 2007-06-26.0940 LMT | Politics
Yucca Mountain Johnny

Yucca Mountain Johnny is a blue-collar worker at the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository project in Nevada. At his "Yucca Mountain Youth Zone", Johnny just wants to teach the youths about nuclear physics, hydrology, and engineering, while dispelling myths about the repository (such as the nuclear waste could explode or that the facility is really a military base for the NWO's fungoid allies).

But now the mean, ol' Congress wants to silence Yucca Mountain Johnny:

A measure by Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., to cut off funding for the Energy Department's Yucca Mountain Youth Zone Web site that's home to the smiling, hard-hatted cartoon character was approved by lawmakers by a voice vote and without debate.

...

"Regardless of how you feel about Yucca Mountain, we should all agree that the Department of Energy's use of a Joe Camel look-alike to influence children is an inappropriate use of taxpayer money," [Berkley] wrote [in a letter to colleagues].

Could this move portend trouble for the hundreds of other Propaganda Mascots serving the US Government? Thanks to a 1997 mandate by President Clinton, nearly every US government agency's website has a kids' section, many with "Joe Camel look-alikes" influencing children in various ways. Are they all in jeopardy of becoming pawns in political fights?

Will Congress investigate the Crypto Kids for their role in domestic spying? Will hip-hopping health-advocate Power Panther be forced to resign when it's revealed he took part in illegal covert counterintelligence programs aimed at black nationalists during the '70s? Will secretive monkey energy scientist Dr. E be subpoenaed before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and forced to explain exactly what he is doing with taxpayer money on his mysterious island? And just how will parents explain to their little children why Pat, their passport pal, can no longer be their pal since he's serving thirty months in a federal prison for leaking state secrets? Is this the beginning of the end of innocence for government propaganda aimed at children?

There's still hope for Yucca Mountain Johnny. Berkley's amendment has to make it past the Senate and President Bush, who, as a big Bob the Builder fan, is expected to veto. But if the veto is overridden and Yucca Mountain Johnny looses his cushy government job, he -- and other future ousted GPMs -- will be forced to find propaganda work in the private sector. Perhaps there's a car loan company in the market for a construction worker mascot who knows a lot about long-term thermal-hydrological-mechanical transport of radionuclides in fractured volcanic tuffs with varying degrees of welding.

(Via Bulldada Newsblog.)

UPDATE 2015-01-03: Cracked recently linked here from a listicle about disturbing mascots. Since I originally posted this, Yucca Mountain Johnny's enemies were successful and his Youth Zone -- along with the entire Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management subsection on the DOE.gov site -- was taken down. I've replaced the link to the Zone above with a mirror on archive.com. Also, the Bulldada Newsblog is now bulldada-free and all about cast iron cooking.

For those disturbed by the mercurial nature of the Internet, rest assured that ZPi will never change. It will always be the late '90s here. Trust no one and keep mmmbopping.

Lyle Zapato

GPM #21: ISA Space Kids

Lyle Zapato | 2007-01-24.3160 LMT | Technology | Politics

You may not be familiar with the Iranian Space Agency (ISA). They haven't yet launched anything into space themselves (perhaps because the President of Iran is more interested in wasting resources on dangerous transportation boondoggles). However, they do have one reconnaissance satellite, the Sinah-1, launched in 2005 by the Russians and capable of imaging the Middle East at 3-meter resolution (sample images can be seen on their site). They have plans for two more satellites and hope to one day launch satellites themselves using their Shahab family of vehicles (more, more, and more). (They also have a space tourist, but not everyone in the government is happy about that.)

In the mean time, not to be outdone by their American counterparts at the NRO and the NGA, the ISA has their own* kids' propaganda site called Space Kids (or rather, the URL is called that; the actual title is in Persian, as is everything else inside):

Space Kids

The presumably titular Space Kids appear in a series of excessively large Flash cartoons that tell the story of two little Teletubbyesque paraterrestrials who visit two Iranian children -- apparently drawn by Margaret Keane during her monobrows-and-arthropodic-hairstyle phase -- and take them on a flying saucer trip to tour the Solar System and learn fun facts about the planets. (Note: Persian is read right-to-left, so the icon on the top right is the first episode.)

There's lots of talking in these 'toons -- seriously, they spend over two millidays on the roof of the human kids' house wistfully discussing the stars and looking at the paraterrestrials psychically project images of telescopes and Space Shuttles before they ever get off the planet -- and since it's all in Persian, I don't know if any of it is interesting.

While the first episode is on Earth, the second takes place on the Moon, where they levitate amidst wafting Moon Smog as they talk talk talk talk. Then an alarm goes off, they evaporate, reappear in the flying saucer, and begin their loquacious interplanetary tour.

Episode 12

I didn't watch the following episodes since they're so large and apparently each one just gives facts about each planet in turn (in Persian). I did watch the last (twelfth) episode though, which starts with something about satellites and space stations around Earth then has some trippy images of what first seems to be a nuclear explosion that scares one of the kids, but turns out to be just a volcano (I believe this is a bit of propaganda to emphasize the Iranian government's stated position that their satellite program is purely for the peaceful monitoring of natural disasters; but then again, it's all in Persian, so for all I know they could be threatening to unleash volcanoes on their enemies via satellite nukes).

At the very end, in a pointless twist that would make Jennifer Lynch proud, we learn it was all a dream. Great! But then the beginning makes no sense.

As is obvious to anyone paranoid enough to know what's going on, this lengthy propaganda of Iranian-paraterrestrial friendship is really meant to curry favor with paraterrestrial forces observing our planet and her Internetting. Perhaps Ahmadinejad hopes this treacly display of Iranian innocence will encourage some overly sentimental faction of the paraterrestrials to foolishly give Iran advanced monorail technology with which to threaten the world.

*(I'm not actually sure if Space Kids is directly produced by the Iranian government or by some private organization -- there's another section on the Space Kids site with ungovernmental-looking stuff like a message board, foreign news articles, and an additional propaganda mascot with an unwholesome attraction to the Moon -- but considering that it's prominently linked to at the top of the ISA site and has more substantive content than anything else there, at the very least there's a conspiracy between them.)

UPDATE (2007-04-18): I've been contacted by someone associated with the Space Kids site with some clarifying details: The site was designed, with ISA sponsorship, by a private organization called the Farda Institute, which works on public understanding of science and technology. They also have another kids' site (in Persian) called (in English) Nano Club, which teaches kids about nanotechnology and includes a series of comics about a character who buys an indestructible Bucky tube and later gets shrunken down and rides a red blood cell like a raft after visiting the Nano Club site (so take care when clicking that link). Since the site's in Persian, I have no idea what their stance is on the nanobiotechnological menace of Black Helicopters.

Lyle Zapato

GPM #20: Woodsy Owl

Lyle Zapato | 2007-01-16.9690 LMT | Bohemian Grove Cabal

One of my lesser nemesises, hipster enclave Boing Boing, has uncovered some extremely disturbing information about USDA Forest Service's long-time propaganda mascot, Woodsy Owl. Boing Boingers can only flail incomprehensibly at the significance of their discovery, so allow me to explain...

The Forest Service recently (more or less) decided to change Woodsy's appearance (no, no gender bending this time). The classic Woodsy, first introduced in 1970 and seen here in costume form:

Classic Woodsy Owl

is now fitter and has been given shoes, a shirt, and a new slogan ("lend a hand; care for the land!" replacing the classic "give a hoot; don't pollute!" -- pollution now apparently deemed acceptable):

New Woodsy Owl

Ostensibly this change was to promote healthier lifestyles by encouraging kids to shed those extra, face-puckering pounds and avoid the dangers of deer ticks and foot fungus when traipsing through the woods.

Be that as it may, the shocking part comes on the US Government's Symbols.gov website (sorry symbologists, no revelations about the Pyramid Eye here, mostly just licensing information): According to a page containing directives on "Destroying Old Woodsy Owl Costumes", those in possession of these costumes are ordered to burn them "beyond recognition" under the watchful eye of a Forest Service law enforcement officer!

Why would the Forest Service call for such a drastic way of disposing of these costumes? To understand what's really going on here, one must be familiar with the symbology and rituals of the Bohemian Grove Cabal -- a sinister sylvan symposium of the New World's elite and powerful, who plot in secret to control government, industry, and society from a 2700-acre "campground" hidden in the redwood forests 70 miles from San Francisco in occupied Southern Cascadia. (For more on the Cabal's past activities, see the Bohemian Grove Action Network.)

The Cabalists' logo is an owl:

Bohemian Grove Cabal logo

This owl motif plays a part in one of the Cabal's most important rituals: the "Cremation of Care" -- which is the symbolic destruction of "Dull Care", or the worldly concerns that the powerful Cabalists feel burdened by. In this ritual, a mock (or so they claim) human sacrifice is burned under the watchful eyes of a giant concrete owl effigy/idol -- whose booming voice is provided by none other than Walter Cronkite -- while cloaked participants, including such notables as Henry Kissinger, the Bushes, Alan Greenspan, and compliant Simulacrum Arnold Schwarzenegger, gather around chanting:

Cremation of Care (Source Sonoma County Free Press)

The USDA Forest Service is, of course, an arm of the Cabal-riddled US Government, and many if not most Forest Service agents themselves have Bohemian connections -- there being a natural affinity between a forest-based paramilitary organization and a forest-based shadow government. Besides overseeing the forests around the Grove, their agents have been known to openly act on the Cabal's behest to repel interlopers. Therefore, it is obvious that the choice in 1970 of an owl as the Service's official propaganda mascot was an homage to their benefactors and that the "Cremation of Woodsy" ritual described on Symbols.gov is part of an initiation rite for junior Cabalists.

LAST MILLIDAY UPDATE: I should probably have noted that it's no coincidence that the abbreviation for "new Woodsy Owl" just so happens to be "NWO", thus explaining the symbology of burning the old Woodsy Owl: destroying the "dull cares" of the old World Order so they may be replaced by the New World Order.

Lyle Zapato

Pyramid Tea & GPM #19: Power Panther

Lyle Zapato | 2006-09-09.7550 LMT | Food | NWO

Greg in the guestbook was shocked and appalled to see a TV ad for Lipton Premium Pyramid Tea Bags, which Lipton claims are "delicately packaged in unique pyramid-shaped bags that allow the tea room to flow freely". Is this an innocent tea-steeping innovation or a blatant attempt at subliminal New World Order imagery?

Bavarian Tea 'Pyramid'

First of all, these bags are not true pyramids; they are tetrahedra. Presumably true pyramidal tea bags with square bottoms are impractical to manufacture or package, or are in some other way undesirable. Why then do they insist on calling them "Pyramid Tea Bags" -- which they clearly are not -- instead of the more accurate and euphonious "Tetrateadra Bags"? Could truly authentic tea infusion be a secondary concern to Lipton behind promoting a food/pyramid memetic entanglement?

Secondly, note that one of their flavors -- the one they feature prominently in the masthead -- is "Bavarian Wild Berry". Need I also mention that Sir Thomas Lipton, founder of Lipton Tea, was a Freemason? Or that Freemasons were responsible for the Boston Tea Party? I think these facts speak for themselves.

So why promote NWO pyramid imagery via tea? As most of you are aware, the NWO, working through the US Department of Agriculture, has long promoted the concept of the Food Pyramid, wherein people are trained to accept dietary advice from a pyramid. Not too long ago, they escalated the campaign with their My Pyramid propaganda materials, which now encourage people to view pyramids as their friends and inculcate in them a desire to scale a pyramid towards a cone of rainbow light:

Your Pyramid?

What better way to further the Food Pyramid Agenda than to start having food itself be pyramid shaped (more or less). It's safe to assume that Lipton's Pyramid Tea Bags are just the first in a coming wave of pyramid promoting propaganda products.

...And speaking of p alliterations, while on the "My Pyramid" site I discovered a new(ish) Government Propaganda Mascot for the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service: Power Panther. This healthy-eating, physically-active cat's motto is "EAT SMART, PLAY HARD". Power Panther is also an ardent follower of the Food Guide Pyramid:

Power Panther & Pyramid Pal
I play hard everyday! Because I'm so active, I need to keep my energy level up. So I eat smart and use the Food Guide Pyramid as a guide.

To get kids to also follow pyramid guidance, the site offers Power Panther hip-hop songs which you can download, including "Power Panther is Here" and "If You Wanna Be Like the Power Panther".

Innocent sing-a-long fun or something more insidious? An undercover videographer was able to capture this secret Power Panther meeting held in a nondescript room somewhere in Milwaukee. The meeting was attended by various unidentifiable people in civilian clothes who stood, swayed, and gesticulated along with the hypnotic motions of a person in a Power Panther costume dancing to psychosonic beats. Of particular interest, note the female USAF officer setting up a camera in the aisle -- conclusive evidence of the Military's connection to the Food Pyramid Agenda!

Lyle Zapato

Y.R. Tap Comic #6

Lyle Zapato | 2006-05-24.4640 LMT | Art | Politics
Lyle Zapato

Y.R. Tap Comic #5

Lyle Zapato | 2006-05-23.4900 LMT | Art | Politics
Lyle Zapato

Y.R. Tap Comic #4

Lyle Zapato | 2006-05-22.5350 LMT | Art | Politics
Lyle Zapato

Y.R. Tap Comic #3

Lyle Zapato | 2006-05-15.2907 LMT | Art | Politics
Lyle Zapato

Y.R. Tap Comic #2

Lyle Zapato | 2006-05-14.6740 LMT | Art | Politics
Lyle Zapato

Y.R. Tap Comic

Lyle Zapato | 2006-05-12.3640 LMT | Art | Politics