Grigovian fairy-tales 1

Davoyend of Grissend was a naughty boy. He'd show up late for school; he'd eat only bread and sweets, refusing all vegetables; and he'd steal his younger siblings' presents on the feast of old King Vuolvesst the Merciful, on the night of the winter solstice, when it was customary to exchange gifts.

'Happy Fest of Vuolvesst,' said Therr, Davoyend's younger brother, hoping for a kind word in return. The older son, however, as he was wont to do, reared back and punched the boy in the eye-socket, pushed him down the hill next to their house, and ran inside to raid his meager stash of loose liquorice sticks and peppermint bonbons wrapped in paper.
'Look at me, I am the greatest,' Davoyend yelled as his brother struggled through deep and swirling banks of snow. With brown and sugary juices staining his chin, the older child made as if to push his brother back down the hill. Therr tricked him, however, by feinting left but going right. Rushing through the gathering night back to the house, the young boy pulled the door closed behind him and ran to the fire, to warm up.
'You rush in here caked in snow,' said Ulentha, their mother, shaking her head at the wet footprints staining the rough, wooden planks. Her scolding completed, she resumed chopping vegetables for the mutton stew, a meal customary eaten on the Fest of Vuolvesst. 'Where is your brother?' she asked.
Therr, shivering violently as powdery snows turned to water and ran down the back of his shirt, tried to answer with words, but could only manage a croaking sound.
'Perhaps he went to atone for his sins at the shrine of the mountain spirit,' said Ulentha, bending to the dishes, their clatter keeping her from hearing Davoyend pounding weakly at the back door.

The next morning, the village watchman in the course of his rounds found Davoyend leaning against the wall of his parent's home, frozen stiff, his face stained with sugary juices, his mouth, for once, empty of venomous vituperation.

***

One evening, while following a faint animal path toward his home, woodsman Heiryath Bordendt tripped over a piece of string. The string had been strung across the path and attached to some bells: they chimed softly. From the surrounding bushes came suddenly a couple of men running, bows armed with arrows, hollow eyes flashing in gaunt faces. Finding a man instead of a deer sprawled on the ground at their feet, they decided to rob him.

Heiryath, however, was clever, and quick. As soon as he realized that the men meant him harm, he spun into a fighting crouch with his hunting knife and ax extended in front of him. Blinded by hunger and greed, the men charged. Heiryath knocked each man unconscious with the blunt side of his ax, but instead of causing them injury, he left them with the last of his food and a note telling the local green grocer to feed them and send to the woodsman the bill.

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town sells roads

Hoping to refill coffers sucked dry by years of poor financial decisions, the town of Yankee Hollow, West Virginia, recently sold the rights to its roads. “We thought that, by leasing our highways and byways to Bangalore-Thrimsdale Holdings (ltd.), the town would receive revenues from electronically-enhanced ticketing and pay-as-you-go regional bypass routes,” said deputy mayor Brysz D. Weinericht as he pulled into the queue of drivers waiting to pay in order to drive through the center of town. “But, so far, we've seen little beyond price hikes, aggressive enforcement of the new parking laws, and toll booths going up at our major intersections. I told Beki this was a bad idea.” When pressed for details, Beki-Jane Rathnolnikov, who currently acts as the city council's secretary, said: “I only take notes at meetings, but people keep blaming me because the council sold our water rights to that European conglomerate, and that it voted to reward all sitting members with life-long pensions and health-care. Again, I only take notes.” While pulling the third ticket in a week from under the windshield wiper of his dilapidated Chevy Caprice, underemployed town resident Egon Platts-Duinfeld shook his head in disbelief. “I've been parking my car on this street, in front of the house I pay taxes on, for the past fifteen years. Would you look at this ticket? It says I need to buy an $8 permit, each and every month, in order to park here. I've tried talking to the town council, but they keep adjourning to go on vacation. Do my taxes subsidize the wages of all those foreign-born toll booth operators? Can we expect traffic to get better, or worse? This used to be a nice, simple little town, but now it's just an experiment in fiscal irresponsibility.”

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on MOHD

Have you ever had to choose between a great job and a great apartment? Have you ever wanted to just uproot your crib and truck it to a different city? Have you ever clawed your way out of a mobile home while it was being sucked under by a raging, swollen river?

The new MOHD series from Maison Modular & Mobil lets you watch without trepidation from your living-room window as the tsunami rips your neighboring structures to pieces. Replace your home's entire roof in a single afternoon! Move to any city that has parking spaces, and bring your entire household with you as you go! The Mobility-Oriented Housing Design (MOHD) unit fits in any standard parking space, yet, inside, it is big enough for eight people to sit, or for two to live, comfortably. Once in place, the unit is bolted to the ground via three thick steel cables that are accessible only to the inhabitant via a floor hatch (this makes it difficult to move the MOHD unnoticed). The unit fits onto any but the smallest flat-bed trailer, and its underside-mounted wheels, which were originally designed to aid in positioning it in a parking space, allow it to be towed, albeit slowly. The MOHD's exterior and interior panels can be customized in most any way imaginable and are prefabricated in an ecologically-friendly certified process. The core of each panel contains a sandwich of interwoven, enmeshed circuitry designed to block electronic surveillance. (The circuitry does not interfere with the unit's built-in Wi-Fi router or its send-and-receive capabilities.) The panels, doors, and windows are designed in such a way as to form an airtight seal that, in conjunction with built-in reservoirs, can keep two grown adults alive for at least 48 hours, providing them with fresh air, clean water, and a steady supply of electricity. (The actual length of life-support depends on fuel-cell charge levels, stockpiles of food, and the ability of the semi-rigid, roof-mounted floating snorkel to extend above the surface of the rising floodwaters).

MOHDs are conceived for the urban working individual who wants to save time looking for apartments and spend less money on home repairs. The staff at most home improvement centers is trained to replace or repair MOHD panels quickly and inexpensively, and the panels are easy to replace using a few, simple tools (provided one watches the appropriate training video on YouTube). The septic system of the MOHD includes the recapture-and-reuse of wastewater and methane. (The recaptured methane then recharges the fuel-cells.) Furniture in a variety of styles and shades is available for purchase from third party vendors. MOHD units are designed to connect to one another, so one can create a maze-like warren all one's own in the overflow parking area of an local strip-mall. (The standard MOHD design resembles in appearance a loaf of bread with square sides, a rounded top, and a blunt snorkel.) Inconspicuous (most designs) and intrusion-resistant (all designs), each unit has mount-ready external hard-points for attaching a number of remotely operated items, among them cameras and mini-guns. The MOHD is the complete package: compared to an immobile house, it is low in price; it floats; it is partially self-sustaining (with necessary roof-garden and solar panel / wind turbine upgrades); it is simple to relocate; it is easy to repair and upgrade; and it looks way cool sitting out behind those abandoned stores down the street. Buy a MOHD today, and never hunt for an apartment, die in a tsunami, fall victim to prowling vagrants, or watch your house get towed, ever again. At select retailers.

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in the Americas

Have you searched to no avail for high-quality, low-cost products that were: “Made in America”? Do you yearn to spend your hard-earned money on items made by Americans, in America, for Americans? Are you loathe to purchase items made in foreign factories that took weeks to cross the oceans in a container ship?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, consider purchasing items made by honest and industrious native peoples working in North, South, and Central America. We don't care if the Chinese sell their goods to the Africans, if the peoples of the Pacific Rim peddle their wares to the Russians, or if the Europeans hawk their crap to each other: we Americans buy goods produced by other Americanos using the abundant indigenous resources with which our lands have been blessed. It matters little if the producers live in San Salvador, Columbia, Chile, Brazil, or Nicaragua; what does matter is that they were born in America, that they work in America, and that a love for America burns deep within their loins. Who cares if they come from a nation located on the isthmus of Panama, or if they speak a language dominant in the Americas to the south? All we care about is that the foods we eat, and the goods we consume, come from our own, native soil. So, next time, consider purchasing goods Made In The Americas, because Uruguay is fucking close enough.

(This message sponsored in part by Grupo Internacional De Todos Las Americas, GmbH.)

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ambitions in cash

During a recent conversation about the merits of socialism, my counterpart argued that, in the absence of monetary remuneration for labor, ambition, ingenuity, and creativity would disappear. He claimed, in other words, that people would stop working if they stopped getting paid money to work, that productivity would vanish if the potential for gain also vanished. If this theory were true, parents would stop showing up to coach their kids' little league teams, our interstate hiking trails would become overgrown for a lack of volunteers to keep them cleared of brush and dead-fall, charities would all but cease to function, and little would transpire within religious organizations other than those tasks performed by paid clergy.

Many man hours of unpaid-for labor are performed in the United States, every year. This labor is performed to satisfy an ideal, to give back to the community, even to calm that deep inner need to do something for the good of mankind without being paid or even recognized for it. I believe this zeal to provide for the common good is inherent to all persons (although most of us in the Western world have it stamped or beaten out of us in childhood). I also believe that our current economic system of Me-First Capitalism has ensnared this zeal, subjugating it to the fleeting but hollow satisfaction of conspicuous consumption and generosity for the sake of praise or thanks. We are not all bad, or shiftless; we have merely unlearned to cherish those things that are precious beyond their monetary value. So take the first step on the journey to true freedom, and burn a Benjamin today. Mahalo.

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(due to sickness-induced delirium, I accidentally posted this here; it should have gone to americanifesto.blogspot.com ; whatev's)

anti-graffitos punished

In Los Angeles (LA) county court today, seventeen members of a graffiti removal team were charged with destroying and defacing public property. Armed with metal-scraper-tipped poles, the individuals had been seen poking at and otherwise leaving large and prominent scratches upon mile upon mile of utility- and traffic-signal poles throughout the greater LA area. In their defense, the accused stated that they had been hired by the city to remove stickers, wheat-paste posters, and any other adhesive street-art, and that the scratches were merely a byproduct of their lawful efforts. Judge K. D. Geisternand, presiding, allowed as evidence video footage from cameras operated by the city's Department of Transportation (LADoT), red-light-camera footage that showed eight of the seventeen accused individuals using paint-brush-tipped broom-sticks to apply to dozens of poles layer upon layer of a light-gray paint so thoroughly underwhelming as to cause passing drivers to fall asleep at the wheels of their cars. Pictures of the damage perpetrated by these Artwork Desecration Teams can be found at the LADoT's own website, under subsection Lunacy, by clicking the tab entitled Oh, My Word, What Have We Done.

When asked about the reasons why LA chooses to defile indiscriminately its very own precious and irretrievable graffiti, the honorable judge Geisternand stated from among the dark, shadowy recesses of her chambers: “How these people are allowed to deface and destroy this city's street art; how we pay them to thoroughly damage the structural integrity of pristine metal lamp poles; how they are sent out, in broad fucking daylight, to unceremoniously paint over some of the finest art the world has ever seen; these things I do not understand.” The seventeen counter-vandals were released with a severe warning, but Judge Geisternand docked the graffiti removal teams' organizer – a company owned by the company formerly known as Halliburton – a surliberty of ten whorphans, and sentenced its executive officers to life without joy.

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all step together

(The following is a summary of Erya Rovend's speech to the United Nations (UN) in New York City (NYC), New York, United States of America (USA). To request a full transcript of the speech, contact your local censor.)

“Come now, friends, and let us all step together, a million feet moving as one, a million minds bent to the task of making our common future one of peace, honor, and Happiness.” With these opening words, Erya Rovend addressed the general assembly of the United Nations, the first Grigovian to do so since 1954. After having refused to join this community of states out of a desire to mind its own business and not waste a lot of money on layers of unnecessary bureaucracy, Grigovia has chosen one of its brightest young minds – Ms. Rovend, who leads the Farflung Free Nations branch of the Yaelong tribes – to break its half-century of silence and address the various nations of the world as one.

“Just as the people of Grigovia once suffered from Soviet oppression,” Erya continued, “our brothers and sisters in the Middle East and Central Asia now suffer from America's misdirected energies. When in 1952 our country was overrun by great numbers of Moscow's troopers, we did not complain, nor did we rob our own people of their liberty or invade sovereign foreign states – we bit our tongues, filling our wounded hearts with pride and honor so as to free them of fear and hatred. Grigovians are not special amongst the citizens of the world: all societies can bestow upon themselves the blessings of common purpose and pervasive virtuousness by conquering hardship through honest labor, by ending strife through rational debate. How do we do this? By teaching our children that sharing is better than hoarding, that the prosperity of all members of the community is more important that a few people's luxury, that words are precious and must be closely minded, and that sacrifice must always come before self-aggrandizement.” At this point, most of the individuals in attendance rose to their feet, and applauded. “Please do not look to me as the one who has done these things, as the person responsible for Grigovia's achievements, as she who is to be praised for our high level of productivity, low rates of crime and poverty, universal health-care and top-class educational system – look to the simple lessons that I have come here, today, to share with you. With a bit of effort, we can replace malice and discontentment with peace and prosperity, hunger and privation with joy and productivity.” After praising the achievements of various small nations, Miss Rovend tackled larger and more pressing concerns. “You Americans,” she said, pointing over at that country's delegation, which sat stone-faced and unmoving throughout her address. “You have taken a nation founded on the ideals of shared and common purpose, of liberty and justice for all, and, after having thrown off your own mantle of tyrannical oppression, you yourselves have become tyrants.” Again, much applause. “You spend the majority of your country's wealth on making war when but a fraction of that amount – if spent on civic and social improvements instead of tanks and bombs – could lift millions of your own starving children out of poverty. If you but had the courage to guide mankind to that bright and shining future that you choose rather to forestall with every preemptive strike, with every war of aggression, the world would be better place for all mankind. Shame on you.” Here, she wagged her finger. “My father died fighting the Russians; his father, the British; and these scars here on my torso,” the young lady at this point pulled aside her tunic to show long, deep lacerations pitting her young and supple bosom. “These here come from a land mine made by Americans and sold to a splinter group of religious extremists who were supposed to use them to fight the Soviets, but who instead turned them on women, and children. Again – shame on you.” At this point, a silence fell over the packed hall. A member of the American delegation leaned toward the microphone as if to speak before sitting back, deflated.

“Not that long ago,” the young lady said, smoothing her robes back into place, “the Roman Empire ruled the world; it fell and was replaced. Over and over this process has been repeated – with the Byzantines and the Austro-Hungarians, the Spanish and the English. And nearly every time, these empires fell into shameful ruin because of their aggressive military expansion and a refusal to respect the rights of the rich and the poor as people first, as spreadsheets second. Ladies and gentlemen of the various assembled nations, my brother and sister Americans, the Grigovian people have recently voted to release a Declaration of National Sovereignty. This document was drafted in part to say to the world that Grigovians fight religious extremism as well as imperialistic overreach wherever these twin evils should raise their heads, be they within the ring-road of Grig or on the highest peak of some distant nation; that we shall defend Liberty against all who seek to do her harm, especially against those who claim to be her champions but who are really her foes. So come, friends, let us put aside anger and discontentment, and all step together into a peaceful and verdant future of our own common making. Mahalo.” Ms. Rovend plans to tour NYC while her ocean-going catamaran is made ready for her voyage back across the seas.

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smog settles in

The town of Rykles Hollow, NM (population 3012 as of publication) is unique in the western United States. “There is one other settlement, over in Nevada, whose conditions nearly match these,” said geologist Eluttibandt “Tibby” Dannand of the New Mexico State University, Las Cruces. “This town is much higher in elevation than its counterpart, however, and although it lies far from any major metropolis, the bad air somehow keeps coming.” The bad air, as Mr. Dannand puts it, is very bad, indeed. Tests performed by a seemingly endless succession of forensic meteorologists have shown what the local people have long suspected: their micro-climate contains toxic levels of many long-chain artificial molecules, industrial chemicals, carbon dioxide, methane, DDT, a healthy dose of that new-car smell, and most of the particles that make up smog. State and federal investigators, who change the filters on their gas masks every day – nearly religiously – frequently express surprise upon seeing locals who breathe the air unfiltered still walking around the next day. “I live on a fixed income,” said 82 year-old longtime resident Ida Rimmbrandt-Morales while hoeing a patch of carrots growing in her back yard. “I can't afford new filters for the gas masks the government keeps sending me, so I do without. My vegetables love these conditions, but my doctor and my grandkids keep begging me to stay inside.”

Despite years of intensive study, no one can say for sure why or how so much pollution finds its way into Canyon Escondir Paz Del Mundo, the box canyon's official name. Some theories point to its steep, cliff-like walls and deep, wide basin; others insist that the area just so happens to sit where pollutants from cities farther West, among them San Diego and Los Angeles, make landfall again after having been picked up by sea-borne breezes and blown eastward across the southern Rockies. “I used to ride my horses up through the scrub, all day,” said Jain Nanhoven, 38, the owner of a hermetically-sealed, perpetually-ventilated roadside tavern. “But after Delia, my Bay mare, died of a lung infection, I sold the rest of my livestock to a cousin in Idaho. Now, I barely even go outside. It's a shame.”

Some local businesses, however, are seeking to make profitable use of local conditions. The High Stakes Growers Association, which specializes in running greenhouses and other such industrial farming operations at high altitudes, among other such companies, considers Rykles Hollow to be the prime location for a new venture. “What with skilled labor sitting idle and atmospheric conditions perfect for growing squash and pole beans, we have begun looking for parcels of land for sale outside of town. Our workers will get used to wearing respirators when they see how fast things grow up here, and how quickly their common shares gain in value.” Most residents seem content to stay, and adapt. “I grew up here,” Ida said as she sat drinking tea by an open window near her back door. “And I shall die here.”

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Rovend in Manhattan

Erya Rovend traveled to New York City (NYC) recently as the spokesperson of the Grigovian delegation to the United Nations. Chosen for the role at Grigovia's recent Summit to Secure our Sovereignty, the young lady – an avid equestrian and spiritual leader of the Farflung Free Nations, a Yaelong tribe – asked us to condense her interview into the following piece.

In many ways, the American metropolis known as the Big Apple rivals fair, cosmopolitan Grig. Both are world cities with extensive public transportation networks and lively, vibrant night-life; both are regional powerhouses to which the young and the ambitious flock, places where dreams are made real as often as they are crushed and the opportunity for rebirth and renewal is always there, waiting. Grig's Ring of Woods cannot compete with the sheer size of Central Park; however, its green-spaces, while generally smaller, are spaced about town more evenly while offering more amenities, such as clean public bathrooms, high-speed Wi-Fi, and performance spaces within which artists and members of the public can perform, share, and congregate, year-round. In New York City, prostitutes and drug dealers have been forced to retreat behind closed doors and to execute their trades away from the public eye; in Grig, though, as in most other Grigovian cities, these specialty services have their own districts and unions, colors and routines, circumstances which conspire to improve the health and wellbeing of such citizens as are interested in buying clean sex or unadulterated cocaine. (A glaring exception is alcohol. Grigovians, who are intelligent enough to apply the lessons learned through scientific inquiry, classify booze as a hard drug; it is sold only to persons of legal age; those who abuse it are treated similarly to the poor, lost souls who have succumbed to meth-amphetamine or heroin.)

Another differences between these two cities is the number of police officers roaming NYC. Whereas in Grig the streets are kept safe by the united vigilance and mutual respect of its inhabitants, and people go about their business without fear of institutionalized reproach or admonition, in New York one is constantly watching one's back to make sure there are no cops snooping, or spying. The police state that exists within Gotham closely resembles that of Nazi Germany during the 1930s and -40s, with the modern addition of cameras and other surveillance technology, facial-recognition-software, and crime-prediction algorithms. To top things off, legions of homeless children populate this city's dirty and forgotten places, where they are exposed to violence, hatred, and filth, while in Grig, these too-easily disenfranchised individuals have access to resources and programs which provide them with the tools they need to become productive and happy members of society, once more. That this American metropolis allows its young people to huddle and shiver, ignored and unwanted, in the shadows of glass-and-steel temples that reach into the skies in honor of greed says a lot about its dark and twisted soul.

In all, according to Erya, New York is a nice city to visit, so long as one has money to burn. (Miss Rovend spent less than a quarter of the funds allotted her for her stay by the Glorious Republic of Grigovia, preferring modest quarters to presidential suites, simple meals to lavish feasts, and the freedom of walking to the mobile prison of a taxi-cab.) She invites every American to come see Grig, where they might learn a lesson or two about the benefits of mutual prosperity through individual modesty and communal sacrifice.

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grumpy cat purrs

In an instant shedding all vestiges of fame and losing every single follower on facebook, tumblr, reddit, and fark, the droopy-faced feline known as Grumpy Cat purred for the first time, last night. The audible indication of pleasure was brought about by the attentions of Vil Ignacio Plour, a 3 year-old human child and son of Grumpy Cat's fifth owner in as many weeks, who bashed it on the head repeatedly with a plastic shovel after kitty had refused to move from a warm spot by the window. Mewling with glee, the feline shuddered with delight upon having finally found a person brave enough to push all of its buttons and punish it for being such an adorably despondent dunce.

Having bought Grumpy Cat from its previous owners – the staff of a small web-design firm in Brooklyn, NY – in order to capitalize on its popularity by first securing the copyrights to its image and then selling t-shirts and bumper-stickers with its face and trite sayings printed on them, Mr. Thomasz Plour, 42, was outraged to find the cat's fame tanking. “I thought this was a done deal,” he said while he was pounding cough-syrup in an upstairs linen closet. “My son and I drove all the way to New York to pick up the worthless beast and payed good money for it. Now, the thing will cost me more in litter and food than I stand to make off of merchandising. And here I thought my late entry into the market for 9-11 memorabilia was a bad move. Sheesh.”

While not a single person in the cat's legions of fans actually heard it purr or saw it leap friskily, they could all totally tell from its most recent video that something had happened to make it just a bit less grumpy, enough to ruin the joke. “Damn it, that shit was perfect,” said tumblr re-blogger wayfunnystufftwofourseven. “Now I'll have to go back to band-wagoning on those stupid Victorian-era postcards with their snide modern captions.”

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drones over America

As a sign of mutual respect amongst nations and an attempt by the U.S.A. to prove her dedication to multilateral cooperation with her foreign allies, the Obama administration granted the armed forces of Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan the right to assassinate suspected enemies living or residing in America. “It was not enough for us to provide financial and material support to these, our allied nations,” said president Barack Obama at a press conference held in unseasonably warm weather out in the Rose Garden. “Therefore, we will reciprocate our ability to kill persons we merely suspect of wishing to do us harm who are living in the rugged hills of Kundus or the jumbled suburbs of Aden by giving our allies the ability to rain death from the skies anywhere from Spokane to Bangor, from the Twin Cities to Corpus Christi – basically from sea to shining sea. Our allies now share with us the right bring their foes to justice, wantonly and without oversight, in blatant violation of international law and a half dozen different treaties, just as we continue to do, today.”

In preparation for this significant policy shift, foreign soldiers by the thousands have been arriving quietly on Ynki shores through various ports of entry. Traveling exclusively by night in blacked-out military convoys, the newcomers only got a glimpse of non-military American culture before they arrived at far-flung, mostly secluded Air Force bases, to begin training. “Through a loose flap at the back of this truck, I saw a woman driving a car with her shoulders exposed,” said Garnush Muhammed, a lieutenant in the People's Army of Afghanistan (Air Division), who comes from Herat. “The sight of her has offended my religious sensibilities; I shall talk to my superior about annihilating her, and her family,” he said, smiling kindly. Many of the other soldiers we interviewed expressed excitement about their new role, but also trepidation. “My brother and his children were killed by a terrorist group funded in part by hard-line Islamic extremists living in the western region of an area known as Oklahoma,” said flight group leader Esto Buiyeh of the Yemeni National Air Defense Wing. “I hope I will be stationed within range of their meeting hall; I hope to pilot the done that bombs it into ruin, killing everyone inside. With god's blessing, it will be so.”

President Obama and a slight majority of Congressional Democrats approved the measures, citing in part the fact that America has already violated every virtuous ideal it might have once stood for. “Look,” said Harry Reid, (D) Nevada. “We have stood by these past few years as the president approved the killing of foreigners and Americans not convicted in any court, not condemned by any judge. Is it so much of a stretch that we are now allowing foreigners – good foreigners, mind you, ones with whom we have friendly relations, ones trained by our allies – to operate a few drones over a couple of cities here in the homeland? Relax, people – if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about.” The first missiles fired from drones by foreigners operating on American soil have already begun to fall, mostly as part of military training exercises. “Would you look at that,” said major-general Rick P. Snolpe, of the United States Air Force, as a he watched a missile fired by a Pakistani pilot destroy a remote-controlled school bus. “These little brown fuckers can shoot.” Washington has mailed out fliers to Americans who may be targeted by state-sanctioned foreign aggression; the pamphlets read, simply: “Run, but don't expect to hide.”

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Grigovia harnesses wind

Fed up with importing natural gas from plutocratic Russians, and sick of buying sweet crude from autocratic Saudi Arabians, the Glorious Republic of Grigovia (GROG) embarked on an ambitious national program to become energy independent. Whereas in other modern nations such projects are heavily subsidized by – and therefore beholden to – federal governments, here in this small, landlocked nation that straddles a mountain-range known as the Yiptlong Massif, private industry is leading the charge. “Operation Updraft was designed for maximum citizen participation,” said, in a joint statement released shortly after the project's modest unveiling ceremony, GROG's Ministry for the Interior and the nation's Alliance of Executives for Grigovian Independence and Security (AEGIS). “All companies interested in enhancing the development of native battery and wind turbine design are welcome to the research data we already have on hand; all we ask is that any technological breakthroughs in and improvements to current methods for harnessing and storing renewable energy be shared with the rest of the parties working on this program, in the interest of improving the lives and wellbeing of all Grigovians, equally.”

Blessed with extensive deposits of such rare-earth-minerals as are needed to make cutting-edge, high-capacity battery banks, and with a landscape dominated by sloping foothills that culminate in high, craggy cliffs, Grigovia is a nearly perfect candidate for the adoption of large-scale wind farming. “The wind gains in intensity as it rises up from the plains around Grig, reaching nearly gale-force as it enters the jagged spires and stark facades of the mountain peaks in the higher elevations,” said Ordend Haryyiend, Ph. D., a geologist at Pyltagrad State University. “According to my colleagues in this school's department for electro-physics, even if we built a mere handful of wind farms using current technology, we could capture and transmit enough electricity to power most of beautiful, cosmopolitan Grig, our nation's capital, as well as many of the bucolic regional population centers. These are exciting times.”

In recent years, Grigovia has faced pressure from Western conglomerates – chief among them Ynki organizations applying pressure through the American Department of State – to lease out vast stretches of pristine national parkland for environmentally-unsustainable mining, forestry, and resource extraction. “We have been fighting a shadow war against foreign parties hellbent on raping our land of its treasures and transporting our riches to distant markets beyond our borders,” said Hesta Noryindt, an analyst at the Ministry of Natural Resources, which controls leasing and licensing on Grigovian territory. “Similar to the Ynki Apollo program, which harnessed the will of the American people to reach a goal, Operation Updraft aims to harness the will of the Grigovian people to shake off our addiction to foreign energy and to become a world leader in methods for capturing and storing direct and indirect solar energy.” (Wind is caused in part by changes in atmospheric pressure resulting from solar radiation, i.e. sunlight.) AEGIS thanked the people of Grigovia for their enduring patience and communal sacrifice by installing German-made GMG grenade launchers at all major civilian defense centers.

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child sues president

Upon reading the Constitution to the United States of America for the first time in her second-period civics class, 11 year old doll enthusiast and life-long Illinois resident Georgette Jeane Yarbroshnikov filed suit against president Barack Hussein Obama. Citing in her case the commander in chief's wanton disregard for the role clearly spelled out for him in the Constitution, our nation's second-most important document after the Declaration of Independence, Ms. Yarbroshnikov also referenced Common Law, the law of the forest, and the law of the preservation of energy to dismiss the president's more heavy-handed actions, among them the signing of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 and his continuing insistence on killing Americans and foreign citizens alike via drone-strike.

“There is an old saying that goes something like this,” Georgette said during a press conference held in her older brother's ramshackle tree-fort out by Mr. Eth's pond. “Before I forget, though, please don't tell my brother we were in here, because he'd get pissed at me and torch my doll's clothes again. Anyway, the saying is: 'It is so obvious even a kid could see it,' or similar. What it means is that our sitting president's actions constitute continuing, glaring, and brazen assaults on the fabric of this nation's democracy; his persecution of non-violent marijuana users alone is a crude erosion of the Constitution's very preamble, in which it states that the role of government is to secure for us all – commonly and individually – the Blessings of Liberty. Do no-knock raids and the levying of prison sentences and fines against peaceful drug consumers sound like the Blessings of Liberty to you? No, not to me, either. In fact, they sound like full-blown tyranny.”

To the surprise of prominent law professors, activist judges, and officials at the falsely-named Department of Justice, Ms. Yarbroshnikov's suit has proceeded past the lower court of Illinois, its progression to the Supreme Court all but assured. “Not only are the young lady's arguments slick, concise, and well-written, she makes a compelling case against many of Mr. Obama's actions as president,” said Dr. Theobald D. Kluff, former dean of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “It is not for a lack of trying that we have not been able to check and balance the various branches of government according to the Constitution. Believe me, we have been concerned with presidential power-grabbing since Mr. George W. Bush started going overboard in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania, but we have not been willing to spell things out so clearly. My hat goes off to this young lady.” Although Georgette's lawsuit does not specify punishment beyond a harsh, public scolding and increased scrutiny of the president's future behavior, rulings from previous cases – among them Winnifeld v. Stone and Hsu v. Gonzales – show that such cases can have teeth, and are nothing to be scoffed at.

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