http://StopSequestration.com
Kaor Good Peoples of Barsoom,
As currently mandated by the Barsoomian High Council, SEQUESTRATION goes into effect January 2, 2013 (earth time) enacting broad-based reductions in spending. To quote myself, John Carter Warlord of Mars, as stated before the Barsoomian High Council, "this situation will devastate our national defense and irreparably harm the defense industries manufacturing base." Should SEQUESTRATION occur, it would have a substantial, negative impact on the Jeddak I serve under, resulting in a significant loss of the defensive and retributional weaponry and armaments needed to fight off the influx of marauding green hordes. Further, it has been estimated that sequestration could result in the loss of more than two million primary and secondary support agents across our empire, driving the homeless level well above nine percent, and causing severe harm to the stability of Helium Prime.
My Jeddak (Tardos Mors the Jeddak of Helium) has launched the StopSequestration.com electronic information kiosk where you can go to communicate with your sector's Council representatives on this issue. Through this electronic information kiosk, you, other family members, and friends will be able to generate personal letters of appeal asking your sector representatives to stop sequestration. I encourage you to at least look into the issues and ramifications regarding SEQUESTRATION. Your participation is strictly voluntary and could be dangerous. A code red alert has been issued advising to be on the lookout for High Council assassins and spies. Hopefully with enough action on all our parts the effectivity date, or SEQUESTRATION itself, can be changed or repealed and replaced by a less harmful and workable budgetary control device.
Prince of Helium,
Mitchem Warlord of Mars
Saturday, December 08, 2012
An Ally on Mars
Due to the relatively lower gravitational force on Mars, my strength was magnified many times compared to that which it was on Earth. Deimos and Phobos did little to help illuminate the lichen filled dead seabed that stretches out into the darkness surrounding me. Having just arrived and not actually knowing I was on Barsoom with it's two moons hurtling across the sky overhead I my military training instinctively had me attempt to scout out my location. Trying to move about at night was awkward and dangerous. Unaccustomed to the lower gravity I was getting banged up and bleeding from my attempts to just walk, so I settled down where I last had fallen and waited hoping daylight would fall upon this alien landscape.
Daylight did arrived and the frost that covered everything slowly evaporated, the shimmering white expanse that surrounded me dissolved into a mottled gray-green. The step I took in my attempt to set out and explore sent me hurtling high above, up and over the darkly shadowed broken rocky landscape. Gaining agility with every bound, I proceeded on to where I knew not. My immediate goal was to get out and beyond this endless dead seabed without battering and bruising myself too severely in the process.
It was hard to tell on my first day of travel on Mars as it all was quite new and odd, but I could not fight off the sneaky suspicion I was being watched. This feeling was surely fostered by the low rumbling sounds coming from out beyond the distant boulders. I set out to make a beeline to anywhere but here.
My mode of travel was bounding haphazard jumps that generally took me forward. I needed to focus and pay close attention while airborne to the terrain and rocks below me in order to prepare for the preferred clean two point landing. This gave me only a split second to glance out to determine a path, but in those glances from the corner of my eyes I'd swear I saw movement. Where I had particularly open areas to land in I took the opportunity to turn my head to look around at the apex of my bound but I saw nothing; only the still lichen covered boulders that extended on out into the hazy shimmering horizon. I knew I needed to press on in haste because if there was something out there, I couldn't be leaving it a scented bloody trail to stalk me any better, or provide it a more conspicuous spectacle in the sky to target and attack.
It was only later that I was to learn the name of the hideous beasts that were stalking me as foothills finally came into sight through the red barsoomian haze. The banth were all about in a feeding rage and closing in.
This eight-legged beast is the most ferocious carnivore which roams the low hills surrounding the dead seas of Mars. It is almost hairless, having only a great, bristly mane about its thick neck. It's long lithe body is powerfully muscled, its enormous jaws are equipped with several rows of long needle-like fangs, and its mouth reaches to a point far back of its tiny ears. It has enormous protruding eyes of green. My only hope was to find high ground in the near hills where I might best position myself to wage a proper defense.
I had bounded into the rocky hills not seeing hide nor hair of any of the stalking beasts. Much to my avail I had little time to wonder what dissuaded them from following when the assault began. Odd blue humanoid creatures with mouths and hands like octopus and bodies that were a cross between human and kangaroo.
I made my way up a rocky mound to find Tars Tarkus there fighting off the lot of them. With his 4 limbs and 2 legs standing 9 feet tall he was getting the best of them but they were not letting up. He saw me and we had no time to quibble. He tossed me a side arm and I fought for my life.
Daylight did arrived and the frost that covered everything slowly evaporated, the shimmering white expanse that surrounded me dissolved into a mottled gray-green. The step I took in my attempt to set out and explore sent me hurtling high above, up and over the darkly shadowed broken rocky landscape. Gaining agility with every bound, I proceeded on to where I knew not. My immediate goal was to get out and beyond this endless dead seabed without battering and bruising myself too severely in the process.
It was hard to tell on my first day of travel on Mars as it all was quite new and odd, but I could not fight off the sneaky suspicion I was being watched. This feeling was surely fostered by the low rumbling sounds coming from out beyond the distant boulders. I set out to make a beeline to anywhere but here.
My mode of travel was bounding haphazard jumps that generally took me forward. I needed to focus and pay close attention while airborne to the terrain and rocks below me in order to prepare for the preferred clean two point landing. This gave me only a split second to glance out to determine a path, but in those glances from the corner of my eyes I'd swear I saw movement. Where I had particularly open areas to land in I took the opportunity to turn my head to look around at the apex of my bound but I saw nothing; only the still lichen covered boulders that extended on out into the hazy shimmering horizon. I knew I needed to press on in haste because if there was something out there, I couldn't be leaving it a scented bloody trail to stalk me any better, or provide it a more conspicuous spectacle in the sky to target and attack.
It was only later that I was to learn the name of the hideous beasts that were stalking me as foothills finally came into sight through the red barsoomian haze. The banth were all about in a feeding rage and closing in.
This eight-legged beast is the most ferocious carnivore which roams the low hills surrounding the dead seas of Mars. It is almost hairless, having only a great, bristly mane about its thick neck. It's long lithe body is powerfully muscled, its enormous jaws are equipped with several rows of long needle-like fangs, and its mouth reaches to a point far back of its tiny ears. It has enormous protruding eyes of green. My only hope was to find high ground in the near hills where I might best position myself to wage a proper defense.
I had bounded into the rocky hills not seeing hide nor hair of any of the stalking beasts. Much to my avail I had little time to wonder what dissuaded them from following when the assault began. Odd blue humanoid creatures with mouths and hands like octopus and bodies that were a cross between human and kangaroo.I made my way up a rocky mound to find Tars Tarkus there fighting off the lot of them. With his 4 limbs and 2 legs standing 9 feet tall he was getting the best of them but they were not letting up. He saw me and we had no time to quibble. He tossed me a side arm and I fought for my life.
Rocky Mt. National Park Odessa Lake
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| Rocky Mt. National Park Trail to Odessa Lake |
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| Rocky Mt. National Park Odessa Lake |
Save Our Heartland
Juan Santo started off raising crops in the Danish West Indies. Then as the business grew so did Mr. Santo's ambitions. Mr. Santo was know by many names; Don Juan Santo, Don the Man Santo, but most often he just went by the name Muan Santo. Muan Santo got his hands in local government and kept in touch with politicians on the hill. The money he got from his crops he quickly replanted in the pockets of the chief of police and local politicians.
With business booming he knew the only way to grow was to capture a broader market. He had his eye on moving and looked for a new place to base his business. A place where law-and-order and justice-for-all was just a code name for morally-corrupt and welcome to the land where capitalism is king. Muan Santo knew right where he needed to go.
Muan Santo no longer had the bother of customs and coast guard payoffs or the transportation costs from his new location smack dab in the center of the midwest US of A. His headquarters was in Creve Coer Missouri were he thought to divert piles of cash into the hands of local politicians and police. No better way to take control than to get people to take dirty money and lots of it. All in the name of bettering the community for ones self of course. Muan Santo continued with their successful business model, and with the wheels greased and all the pegs falling properly in place the sky was the limit. No one dared contend with Muan Santo, and so the business grew by leaps and bounds.
The hybrids he had developed in the West Indies grew tall and strong in the humid hot Missouri summers. Muan Santo had the best and most potent crop, and found the local growers unorganized and easy to bring aboard or get rid of. With the proper payoffs he got the government to give him lucrative contracts for hemp for war efforts. He got politicians to pass laws to legalize use for medicinal purposes. Laws got passed so Muan Santo could patent the genetic footprint of all their hybrid plant varieties. If that wasn't enough Muan Santo even got subsidies from the government in the guise of a farmer's aid bill. Muan Santo was now set to plant everywhere, and anywhere.
What land Muan Santo couldn't take outright, got sucked away by proxy. The wind and weather spread Muan Santo plants-on-steroids far and wide, contaminating neighbor farms fertile fields like the wild weed they were. The farmers had to leave these invading foot soldiers to grow and multiply on their land in silent fury or face reprisal and persecution from Muan Santo gang members. If they were caught trying to pull them out they'd be arrested for harvesting. Defending oneself from accusations of being an unlicensed grower and a patent thief became an rather tiresome and unproductive pastime for more and more farmers. With Muan Santo owning patent on all the seeds, the farmer couldn't collect the seeds, plant them, and partake in this profitable harvest without the real probability of a Muan Santo lawsuit, litigation, and the real fear and possibility of losing the ranch.
And if that isn't bad enough, if a neighboring Muan Santo field were to cross pollinate with your heirloom seed crop you can't harvest and plant seeds from your own crop. Your crop is contaminated by Muan Santo and instead of being able to sue them, they'll be bringing you to court for harvesting seeds because they now contain part and parcel of Muan Santo's hybrid plant DNA. The present situation is unprecedented, at least since the time of serfdom. Farmers have either sold out or lost their land to Muan Santo. And so it goes, such is the sorry state we find ourselves in today.
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