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Lyle Zapato

Edison & Kelvin: A Contrast In Cruelty

Lyle Zapato | 2008-01-04.3520 LMT | Technology | Kelviniana | Elephants

Wired notes that on this day in 1903 Thomas Edison electrocuted an elephant to death as part of his smear campaign against alternating current, a system in competition with his patented direct current system. As the War of Currents raged, Edison grew increasingly alarmed at the acceptance of AC as the electrical distribution standard, and so set out to scare the public into believing it was too dangerous through a series of publicized animal executions using AC. Topsy the elephant was merely a notable exception in a long string of fried dogs and cats. (Edison also promoted the use of an AC electric chair for human executions, even though he was opposed to capital punishment; such was his desire to tarnish the image of a competitor at any cost.)

It should not surprise readers of this site that the decision that led to AC beating out DC came from none other than the Lord Kelvin.

1895 International
Niagara Falls Commission
The International Niagara Falls Commission, headed by Lord Kelvin (center).

It was Lord Kelvin who headed the 1895 International Niagara Falls Commission that chose Nikola Tesla's alternating current system over other proposals, including the Edison-backed DC system from General Electric, and awarded Westinghouse the contract to construct the hydroelectric generators at Niagara Falls. This highly-visible project showed the practicality of the system and turned the tide in favor of AC.

Kelvin had originally been opposed to alternating current before being swayed at the 1893 Chicago Exposition. His acceptance of Tesla's system actually completed a circuit, since an inspiration for much of Tesla's research was Kelvin's 1853 paper "On Transient Electric Currents". Kelvin, who had long been a promoter of electric lighting -- his house in Glasgow was the first in the world to by fully lit by electricity -- saw in AC the potential to bring about a dream of his, that he reiterated on a visit in 1902 (quoted in The Post-Standard, April 22, 1902, p. 1):

It has been so great, so marvelous, that I hope to live to see the day when a dream I have had may come true. I fervently hope to see the day when we shall have the transmission of electric power over 300 miles with a voltage of 40,000. When I first talked of that fifteen years ago I was laughed at. But with the wonderful transmission of power at Niagara Falls, my dream looks to be near fulfillment in the close future.

And let me tell you American people, there may be a time when the waters will flow no more over that great horseshoe, but instead there will be a beautiful growth of vegetation far more superb than any water flowing in torrents over the precipice, water that will find its way down countless turbines spreading light and power for hundreds of miles in all directions.

Edison's use of violence against animals to undermine Lord Kelvin's choice of AC was viciously ironic given Kelvin's concern for animal welfare. Kelvin, who was a vice-president of the Society for the Protection of Animals Liable to Vivisection, publicly spoke out against animal cruelty. While he did allow that some vivisections might be necessary for the advancement of science in cases where new knowledge might be gained (he later resigned as SPALV vice-president when the Society united with the more hard-line International Association for the Total Suppression of Vivisection,) he firmly held that repeated vivisections merely for the edification of students was "altogether unnecessary" (source).

In a letter to the Scotsman on March 6, 1877 (quoted in S.P. Thompson's The Life of Lord Kelvin), he wrote:

SIR—In your print of this morning I see a report of Professor Rutherford's paper on "The Secretion of Bile," read at the meeting of the Royal Society yesterday evening, when, as president, I was in the chair. As chairman I did not feel that I had the right to express my opinion that experiments involving such torture to so large a number of sentient and intelligent animals are not justifiable by either the object proposed, or the results obtained, or obtainable, by such an investigation as that described by Professor Rutherford. I feel this opinion very strongly, after many years serious consideration of the general question of the advisableness or justifiableness of experiments involving cruel treatment of the lower animals. I trust you will kindly give me this opportunity of expressing it, as my presence without protest yesterday evening might seem to imply that I approved of the experiments which were described.

As to electrocuting animals, this anecdote (recounted in The Elyria Chronicle, Aug. 1, 1906, p. 4) clearly shows that he was against it:

Lord Kelvin once performed a daring experiment before a class of students. In the course of his lecture he said that while a voltage of 3,000 or so would be fatal to a man a voltage of some 300,000 would be harmless. He was going to give a practical illustration on himself, but the students cried out, "Try it on a dog!" Lord Kelvin cast a look of reproach at his class. "Didn't I figure it out myself?" he said quietly, as he walked to the apparatus and safely turned the tremendous voltage into himself.

Kelvin's fondness for his pet parrots, Doctor Redtail and Professor Papagaio, was typical of his concern for animals. S.P. Thompson notes:

Lord Kelvin was very fond of animal pets. His parrots have several times been mentioned. He had a horror of unnecessary slaughter of creatures, particularly of birds. He once seized the arm of a man who, while on board his yacht, was shooting a sea-gull, and he protested indignantly against such wanton cruelty.

In contrast, Edison's proclivity for animal abuse extends even to his arrogant self-promotions, as can be seen in Garrett P. Serviss's Edison's Conquest of Mars, an 1898 sci-fi newspaper serial that was officially authorized by Edison's PR machine. The story, which coincidently casts Lord Kelvin as a supporting player, contains the following scene that would have disturbed Kelvin:

TESTING THE "DISINTEGRATOR"

I had the good fortune to be present when this powerful engine of destruction was submitted to its first test. We had gone upon the roof of Mr. Edison's laboratory and the inventor held the little instrument, with its attached mirror, in his hand. We looked about for some object on which to try its powers. On a bare limb of a tree not far away, for it was late fall, sat a disconsolate crow.

"Good," said Mr. Edison, "that will do." He touched a button at the side of the instrument and a soft, whirring noise was heard. "Feathers," said Mr. Edison, "have a vibration period of three hundred and eighty-six million per second."

He adjusted the index as he spoke. Then, through a sighting tube, he aimed at the bird.

"Now watch," he said.

THE CROW'S FATE

Another soft whirr in the instrument, a momentary flash of light close around it, and, behold, the crow had turned from black to white!

"Its feathers are gone," said the inventor; "they have been dissipated into their constituent atoms. Now, we will finish the crow."

Instantly there was another adjustment of the index, another outshooting of vibratory force, a rapid up and down motion of the index to include a certain range of vibrations, and the crow itself was gone—vanished in empty space! There was the bare twig on which a moment before it had stood. Behind, in the sky, was the white cloud against which its black form had been sharply outlined, but there was no more crow.

Furthermore, The Edison Papers' chronology page has this bizarre entry for April 6, 1877, suggesting the kind of violent work environment Edison fostered: "Laboratory staff's 'pet' bear gets loose and they kill it."

While I can find no record of Lord Kelvin commenting on Edison's public animal executions -- perhaps because Kelvin did not wish to appear biased, as with the incident in the Scotsman letter -- I find it hard to believe that he would have viewed Edison's elephanticidal barbarity, which contributed nothing to the advancement of knowledge, with anything less than abhorrence.

In the end, Edison's scare tactics didn't work; AC won out and elephants now know they have more to fear from monorails than from alternating current.

Lyle Zapato

St. Clair Chi Energy Amplifier

Lyle Zapato | 2007-12-27.2720 LMT | Technology

After a prolonged hiatus from hyperinventing, John Quincy St. Clair is back with what might be his most commercially viable hyperinvention yet -- the St. Clair personal Chi Energy Amplifier:

Chi Energy Amplifier, Fig. 7

This invention is an energy amplifier that controls the direction of the second co-gravitational K field by means of a slot antenna located in a resonating sphere. The hyperspace mass flow rate entering into this dimension is determined by the frequency of the antenna. This energy flow is used to increase the energy of the human energy field known as Chi.

Chi energy, St. Clair explains, can be shown to emanate from humans using a simple experiment: swinging a pendulum with the right hand over the upturned palm of the left will result in a clockwise circular motion of the pendulum with a frequency of 1-2 Hz. Doing the same over the right palm will result in a counter-clockwise rotation. This indicates that there is energy -- Chi energy, to be precise -- flowing from one hand to the other, creating a second gravitational K field that can cause a mass to rotate in circles.

The St. Clair Chi Energy Amplifier will, as the name implies, amplify this energy flow from one hand to the other. Its design is deceptively simple:

Referring to FIG. 7, the Chi energy amplifier consists of two ceramic domes (40, 41) resting one on the other such as to form a hollow internal clam-like structure. The domes are mounted on a cylindrical ceramic base (42) containing a reinforced passageway for the coaxial cable and BNC connector (43). The BNC connector plugs into the frequency generator (not shown) which has a frequency range of 0.4 Hz to 5 MHz.

Chi Energy Amplifier, Fig. 8

Referring to FIG. 8 with the upper dome removed, the coaxial cable (44) extends vertically through the base into the lower dome. The cable is soldered to a slot antenna (45). The center conductor of the cable is soldered to the left side of the slot and the ground shielding is soldered to the right side of the slot. Thus there is a voltage difference on the two sides which produces an oscillating electric field across the slot which radiates electromagnetic energy into the hollow dome.

While simple in overall design, there are numerous specific details included that, though they obviously serve some vital purpose, St. Clair shrewdly neglects to explain. For instance, he specifies that the psychoceramic elements be made of red earthenware clay from Minnesota. Why Minnesota? It might have something to do with the tetrahedron-based geometrical sub-manifold upon which all the physical constants of the universe are determined. We've already learned in St. Clair's Magnetic Monopole Spacecraft patent application that this tetrahedral geometry has remarkable influence on certain locations on a planet, such as Jupiter's Giant Red Spot or Puerto Rico, so it's possible that the clays of Minnesota have somehow been enhanced by their geometrical relation to the vertices of the earth's hyperspatial tetrahedron.

Anyway, none of these technical details are of any concern for future buyers of the St. Clair Chi Energy Amplifier; once plugged via the coaxial cable into a frequency generator (perhaps an old VCR?), the operation of the device couldn't be more simple -- just place your hands on either side of it and experience the amplified Chi flow:

Chi Energy Amplifier, Fig. 12

Referring to FIG. 12, the Chi energy flowing between the hands, shown by the arrows, is amplified by placing the hands across the dome. This energy from the right hand mixes with the hyperspace energy entering the dome from hyperspace. The combined energy is then absorbed in the left hand vortex. The effects of this amplified energy are simply amazing and have to be experienced to appreciate what it means.

To learn what the amazing effects are, or mean, we'll just have to wait until the Chi Energy Amplifier is finally available in stores, since St. Clair pointedly doesn't elaborate on the purpose of manual Chi amplification beyond the final sentence above. I also suspect that the revelations that will surely unfold once we all experience the device will finally allow us to understand how, and why, Chia Pets work.

Lyle Zapato

Saipan Octopus Tree

Lyle Zapato | 2007-12-11.3080 LMT | Cephalopods | Crafts
SAES' octopus tree

On the heels of Lenore's creation comes another tree octopus tree...

For the Paseo de Marianas Christmas tree decorating contest, San Antonio Elementary School (of Saipan, not Texas) created an octopus topped tree:

A handmade octopus head atop the tree is made of paper and stuffing. The octopus head is intended to symbolize the school's mascot and the garland made of plastic was made to look like octopus tentacles.

Like all the trees in the "Green Christmas" contest, which promotes keeping the island clean and beautiful, they used only recycled materials (and some paint and glitter).

Well that settles it; two independent incidents constitute a Zeitgeist. Now that you're all rushing off to craft octopus ornaments, might I suggest hanging them on an aluminum tree (just beware of subterfuge).

Lyle Zapato

Tree Octopus Tree

Lyle Zapato | 2007-12-06.3640 LMT | Cephalopods | Crafts

A grandmother named Lenore decorated her tree with 99 octopuses, one for each of her grandchildren.

99 octopuses in a tree
This is what Sasquatch dream of instead of sugar plums.

She made each of them herself from a pattern called Octophrost, Santa of the Sea, available for purchase from Futuregirl. (Tree Octopus ornaments! Why didn't I think of that?)

Besides being festive, it's educational for the kids, allowing them to see the population density of Pacific Northwest Tree Octopuses prior to their becoming endangered. Someday all trees in Cascadia will look like this again.

Lyle Zapato

We Will All Be Blattocrats

Lyle Zapato | 2007-11-18.5555 LMT | Belgian Conspiracy | Mind Control | Simulacra | NWO | Nature | Technology

The Belgian Conspiracy -- which operates "Belgium" from under Euro Disneyland in France -- has teamed up with the Imagineer Corps -- which designs and builds the Simulacra androids that the NWO uses to replace trouble makers and control the media -- to influence cockroach society using robots:

Researchers using robotic roaches were able to persuade real cockroaches to do things that their instincts told them were not the best idea.

This experiment in bug peer pressure combined entomology, robotics and the study of ways that complex and even intelligent patterns can arise from simple behavior. Animal behavior research shows that swarms working together can prosper where individuals might fail, and robotics researchers have been experimenting with simple robots that, together, act a little like a swarm.

"We decided to join the two approaches," said José Halloy, a biology researcher at the Free University of Brussels and lead author of a paper describing the research in today's issue of the journal Science.

In their experiment, four small robots doused in roach sex pheromones exerted peer pressure on a group of twelve roaches, causing them to congregate in the less dark of two shelters 60% of the time. While a modest sounding result, one must remember that this is only what they are willing to reveal to the general public; the actual state-of-the-art in peer-pressure-based blattonoiac control can only be shockingly more advanced.

The lead researcher, Halloy, previously co-authored research showing cockroaches have a democratic society. At the time I wrote: "Note though that the study was conducted by 'Belgians', so assume some devious angle is involved." Well, the other shoe has fallen and we now learn the Belgians' true motive: to find an animal model of democratic society for use in experiments to subvert human democracy via Simulacra influence.

Undoubtedly, some form of this "peer pressure" mind control technique was already being practiced inside the Belgian Construct, with software agents programmed to influence the kidnapped "Belgians" into the desired "Belgian" behavioral patterns. Likewise, Simulacra are used as actors and other media personalities largely to shape public opinions and viewpoints so as to influence society. However, the work of Halloy et al. goes beyond this and suggests a post-psychotronic world where a quarter of the human population is replaced with Simulacra (or potentially Black Helicopter MOBs) for complete influence over all our day-to-day activities.

The Times article ends on this disturbingly foreshadowing note:

The current research did not test whether the robots could lead the cockroaches to something they really disliked, like broad daylight or insecticide. The results also apply only to cockroaches, Dr. Halloy said. "We are not interested in people," he said.

Yet.

Lyle Zapato

Reply From March for America! Washington

Lyle Zapato | 2007-11-14.4080 LMT | Cascadia | Sasquatch Issues | NWO | Anarchy | Belgian Conspiracy | Letters

[REDACTION 2016-10-07: I have removed the original email at the request of the writer as it no longer reflects their personal political or world view. I'm leaving my comments since they stand on their own without the original context.]

The Brussels Journal is a cointel front for the Belgian Conspiracy designed to lure anti-NWO activists into visiting "Flanders" only to be kidnapped and plugged into the Brussels Beast.

Anyway, I think I speak for most Cascadians in saying that we do not support replacing Cascadian currency and the Sasquatch twig-pegged barter system with the SPP's Amero, which will undoubtedly be even more psychotronically laced than US and EU coinage.

As to immigration, Cascadia has been enriched by people of many different cultures who have contributed to Cascadian society. Whether software engineers from around the world coming to work at Microsoft or Yeti arriving on Cascadian shores hidden in cargo containers, they all dream of the prosperity and freedom that we Cascadians enjoy.

However, I think you will be glad to hear that the Sasquatch Militia has a plan to build a ten-meter-high log wall around the Cascadian border to keep illegal Americans, Canadians, cryptozoologists, and other assorted trouble makers out. At about 300,000 twigs per log, it may take a while for them to find the necessary funding in their budget, although a proposed tax on psychoactive lichens should make a large dent.

Lyle Zapato

Anarchists March On Tacoma!

Lyle Zapato | 2007-11-11.3940 LMT | Anarchy | Cascadia | General Paranoia

The streets of Tacoma erupted in anarchy Friday as 50 masked anarchists meandered around downtown in a leaderless mass with puppets and drums to protest a privately run "concentration camp" on the Tacoma Tideflats. Not that anyone was leading them to protest that, mind you -- they're anarchists:

[T]he group reached Wells Fargo Plaza at 1201 Pacific Ave. during the first march through downtown. The protesters chanted outside the bank's offices before police, who said they were enforcing a request from the business, asked them to leave. An officer talked to [Tom] McCarthy about moving the march on.

A protester wearing a black mask ran up to the two and screamed, "Whatever he tells you, he doesn't stand for us. We're anarchists -- we have no leader!"

"I didn't say you had a leader, man," McCarthy replied.

"Good!" the protester shouted before walking away.

Fortunately for the innocent Tacomans, the rabble of anarchists were held at bay by an impenetrable wall of police bicycle tires. (More Tacoma anarchy photos here.)

Archist rivals from the Anti-Cascadian organization March for America! Washington fielded their own conterprotest composed solely of March for America! Washington founder yelling at people with a bullhorn while waving an American flag. They had sent out a mass email issuing a "call to all American patriots who are able, to stand in solidarity against the communist/socialist/anarchist pawns who call for an end to the nation state, who call for an end to America," but everyone else was busy supporting the nation state elsewhere.

No Starbucks were harmed during the protests.

[REDACTION 2016-10-07: I have removed the name of the March for America! Washington founder as they have apparently changed their beliefs.]

Lyle Zapato

Stopping Abductions With The Thought Screen Helmet

Lyle Zapato | 2007-10-30.9010 LMT | Paraterrestrials | Mind Control | Technology

Fellow anti-mind-control protective-head-gear researcher Michael Menkin and his Thought Screen Helmet were featured on local Seattle TV show Evening Magazine tonight (well, actually it was a repeat from March, but I somehow missed it then.) It's good to see Cascadian media reporting on subjects the NWO would rather you didn't know about.

As many of you are probably aware, Menkin's Velostat-based technology was specially developed to block the telepathic mind-control used by the Reticulans (or "gray aliens", as they are known). Menkin is on a personal crusade to keep the Reticulans from abducting humans, especially children. His website, AliensAndChildren.org, documents through children's drawings the child-snatching activities of the Reticulans. His research on these drawings has convinced him that the particular Grays doing these abductions are involved in a long-term plot to colonize Earth -- first by breeding Reticulan/Human hybrids, then training the hybrids to infiltrate human society though socializing with abducted human children, and eventually reticuliforming Earth to suit their colonial needs.

Menkin's Thought Screen Helmet stops these abductions -- and by extension, the total eradication of mankind -- by disrupting the immobilizing mind-control which the Grays use to keep their abductees utterly motionless during transportation to their saucers, allowing the wearer to grab his bed to keep from being levi-beamed through the window. The smallest amount of resistance by the targeted human is usually more than enough to dissuade the scrawny and impatient Reticulans to give up and move onto someone else.

Reticulan abduction, from my AFDB book.
Reticulan abduction stopped using anti-mind-control head-gear.

As I mentioned in my book, the Reticulans have developed an advanced bioaugmentation technology that uses a subcutaneous aluminum matrix to give them control over local psychotronic fields. This is the source of both their telepathy and gray hue. Of course, AFDBs will also work to stop abduction-associated psychotronic mind-control; however, Velostat-based technologies such as Menkin's offer the benefit of being psychotronically permeable enough to still allow you to telepathically hurl profanity-laced insults at your would-be abductors without fear of being cited for disorderly conduct by your nosy cop neighbors. Take that, you BASTARDS!

Lyle Zapato

Tree Octopus Comic

Lyle Zapato | 2007-10-22.6050 LMT | Cephalopods | Art | Random Found Thing
Tree octopus comic, first panel

Above is the first panel of a one-page comic titled "Strange Tales of the Pacific Northwest. Episode 34: 20,000 Legs Under the Trees", drawn by Lukas Ketner and written by Ryan Brown. The rest of the comic is an exciting, action-packed tale of peaceful tree octopuses forced to roll up their tentacles to defend themselves from a hungry cougar.

It was published inside the cover of an Oregonian magazine or some sort of periodical. I'm still trying to track down the details. The email address I have for Ketner returned a "no such user" error, so if you know him or Brown, please let them know I'm looking for them. In the meantime, if someone knows more about exactly where and when this was published (or would like to get me a physical copy), please email me. I'll update this post if I learn more.

Update 2007-10-30: The publication is The Bear Deluxe Magazine, issue #25, published by Orlo, a "nonprofit organization using the creative arts to explore environmental issues" based in Oregon.

Lyle Zapato

Macroscopic Black Helicopters Watch Protesters

Lyle Zapato | 2007-10-10.1830 LMT | Black Helicopters | Technology | NWO | General Paranoia

The Washington Post reports on macroscopic Black Helicopter sightings at anti-government protests:

Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an antiwar rally in Lafayette Square last month.

"I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college senior from New York recalled. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects."

Of course, the government denies that they have unleashed their nanobiotechnological menace on innocent protesters -- in fact, the FBI flat out said "We don't have anything like that" (which is technically true, the UN, not the FBI, is in charge of Black Helicopter breeding, but that doesn't stop the FBI or other NWO subagencies from contracting their services.)

As I reported previously, the NWO has been slowly acclimatizing the populace to accept the eventual panopticonic reign of swarms of black helicopters monitoring our every move. By flying a few of their larger, more primitive breeds over the heads of protesters who they know would report the sightings on COINTELPRO honeypot sites like DailyKos or Wired, the NWO is both further desensitizing people to accept nanobiotechnological agents among us and marginalizing those who complain about them as cranks.

The WaPo article closes with this message of passive acceptance for orthonoids from Ronald Fearing, the memetically named roboticist (and possible Simulacrum robot) of the University of California at Berkeley:

"I don't want people to get paranoid, but what can I say?" Fearing said. "Cellphone cameras are already everywhere. It's not that much different."

You already accept cellphone cameras, why not accept artificial lifeforms controlled by shadowy government agencies spying on you? But, whatever you do, don't get paranoid!