Grigovia blocks pipeline

After reviewing numerous environmental and economic feasibility studies, the Grigovian government is blocking a plan to drain local aquifers and export the water via pipeline. The decision is based primarily on concerns for the country's future independence and enduring water security. AguaMundo Holdings Ltd. (AHL), the Argentinian-Indian company that first proposed the idea, claims that the pipeline will bring prosperity to parched communities throughout Central Asia. “By moving water from these pristine limestone aquifers to the rain-deprived steppes of Grigovia's neighbor nations, we will help impoverished people gain self-sufficiency through agriculture,” said Armando Gupta, chief operating officer for AHL. “With access to these reserves and a 40 year exclusive contract to carry water anywhere in the Yalung River watershed or floodplain, our company will be able to operate at a relatively low cost to the consumer.”

News of the proposed pipeline (as well as the selling off of Grigovia's sovereign resources) sparked protests and indignation. Tens of thousands of people carrying signs and banners have gathered in front of the nation's parliamentary buildings to protest the pipeline talks; some three hundred environmentalists have set up a tent village in Free Speech Square, just down the road from the prime minister's house, where they plan to remain until the threats to Grigovian sovereignty and national resources have passed; and a group of vocational-technical college students is traveling on foot in the areas along the pipeline's proposed route to record the flora and fauna that live there and upload their videos to Youtube, in order to showcase the ecologically-diverse landscapes that would be threatened. “We will not rest until the threat to our homeland has passed,” said a masked protester in Free Speech Square who was perched atop a lamppost talking to passers-by. “We do well in Grigovia because we protect our resources, using them wisely and slowly, using them so that we all share equally of our natural bounty. This foreign company, however, wants to take our water and sell it to the Tajiks and the Uzbeks, our kind and generous regional neighbors. We love our oppressed brothers and sisters, and we wish them the best, but we refuse to let outsiders drain our aquifers and pipe our water – the very lifeblood of our people – beyond our borders and down into the dry and the dusty plains.”

Initial support for the pipeline came from a group of politicians from the Grigovia Forward Grigovia First Party (ЮВЮД). The group, which is known as the Kremlin 7 for their close ties to Russian business and political leaders, was also behind efforts to privatize Grigovia's national forests and open strip-mining concessions in the Yiptlong massif. Despite receiving less than 10% of the votes in national elections, ЮВЮД maintains influence in Parliament due mostly to its sizable war-chest, which is estimated to be as large as the gross domestic product of Sri Lanka and Liechtenstein, combined.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

guerrilla tactics - squared

(This update covers the first and second of November.)

  On Wednesday, I arrived on the square around noon, and skipped diagonally across it to my post opposite the anti-choice crowd, leaping high in the exact center to click my heels. Once entrenched, I bowed to them, low to the ground and proper-like, to initiate the day's bout. Among my counterparts were new faces, most of them boring except for the blatantly sex-deprived young man who recited his religion's slogans at high volume, continuously. There was also a curious older man who walked up carrying a cane and pushing a wheelchair (briskly), only to sit in his device and to prop his PRAY TO END ABORTION sign on his seemingly all-too-functional legs.

  My dear readers, the foes of freedom are pulling out all the stops in their battle against the right of the American adult to make a decision. While their minor offenses of blatantly and continuously obstructing foot traffic on their staked-out sidewalk and of jaywalking in full view of the world (to escape proximity to me), their major offense is their continued struggle to force the American People to live according to one set of religious rules among the thousands practiced here every day. Such actions, honored friends, constitute religious oppression by any rule and measure. Hence, my newest sign, END THIS RELIGIOUS OPPRESSION.

  Regarding the name of this article, my guerrilla tactics have proven very effective. (I would like to thank Sun Tzu, and Mao Zedong.) Instead of just waving at the people who give me thumbs up, I have begun waving at everyone who honks or waves, without exception. This has led to a general decrease in honking, and to many upset anti-choicers who try to convey with any hand signal but the middle finger that they in no way support me. This has also led drivers who happen to be watching to think that I am waving back at my supporters, which helps them to override their fears, whereupon they give me a nice broad smile or a secret nod of approval.

  As I am taking from my opponents their (open) public support, so have I taken their slogans. My signs, (DEFEND FREEDOM | END THIS RELIGIOUS OPPRESSION | WHAT'S NEXT? PRAY TO END FREE SPEECH), when used properly, in thirteen words are capable of changing the mind of the wary passer-by, whom I can watch evolve from impartial spectator to full-blown, horn-honking supporter. If I am lucky, I actually witness the beginning of long and potentially deal-breaking conversations between romantic couples who probably should have talked about the whole abortion thing before they read it on some crazy guy's signs.

  As an effort to maintain a level of self-mockery, I always come dressed in different costumes. This confuses my foes and robs them of the power to offend my pride. (Pride is a huge factor in participatory democracy: maintaining a stable emotional state is crucial, so my distinctive lack of self-respect is really coming in handy.)

  In line with the ancient tactics of long-deceased military minds, I am flexible where my foe is stagnant, my message fresh, entertaining, attention-getting, their message one-sided, fixed. I have side-stepped the false prizes my counterparts have offered (calling the cops of them, responding physically to harassment by priest or parishioner), striking instead boldly to the crux of the issue. One of the most important victories I have won is the ability to control the dialogue. By addressing my opponents directly (when they are trying so hard to ignore me, and to shut me down), and by cutting to the honest core of the issue, I have exposed the cruel, thinly-veiled heart of their message: YOU WILL BOW TO OUR GOD. To force the American People to live according to the rules of one god in particular is to rob us completely of our freedom. If we ease off, and allow religious fanatics to erode just one of our Constitutional rights (such as a woman's right to her body, which is her property), we will forsake all of our rights, we will destroy our inalienable protections, and we will make a mockery of a once free People.

  I was in the middle of my dramatic farewell bow, when, righting myself, I turned to find a quasi-homeless man (with whom I have spoken previously) smiling at me from a few feet away. “Why don't you leave those poor crazy people alone?” he said. A note to the anti-choicers: if homeless people are calling you crazy, then your message is in serious trouble. Our foes are shaken, their position increasingly untenable.

  Long live the forces of freedom!

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp