Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

I've sent Ryan the designs for the 4000, 4500, and 5000-level reviewer shirts… And I also have to define a new “pantheon” of title levels, since people are starting to reach the 5000-level and above, and I only defined as far as 5000 [update: since posting this I've updated the table of names]…

Anyway, here are the new shirts. They are only available to experience reviewers, and they are only available for free. If you are qualified for one of these, but they're not in stock (none are), drop Ryan a line with your desired size, and when he's got a small waiting list he'll run them [update: the typo in the second shirt wouldn't is fixed].

4000 Level

4500 Level

5000 Level

So I've been thinking a lot about Spain's political flip after being struck by terrorists. I'm not sold on claims that it'll affect the Iraq war — the fact is that's a US war with primarily US troops and losing a small number of Spanish troops isn't going to make a difference. In addition, reading interviews with resistance fighters it seems that they have such a bizarre set of ideas about the invading forces and the world in general that I can't imagine rumors of the Spanish leaving will have a huge general impact.

However, I worry that Spain may have signed itself up for a world of pain with the Basque separtists. Not only has the government shown that it has little respect or trust for them (by blaming them first without evidence, and then continuing to blame them after other culprits were more likely), but they've shown that the single most effective (and it really is functionally effective, with proof now) way to influence an election is terrorist bombing. If I was a Basque terrorist, I'd look at this and say “maybe this is the right path after all”.

This — of all these bombings and attacks (9-11, Bali, Ireland, Oklahoma, etc.) — is the first that one can very clearly say is a “victory for terrorism”, and you can bet that it's going to invigorate terrorist groups around the world and start new ones as well… And you really have to wonder whether this increases the chances of a bombing in the US right before the election.

Of course, if you really want to get paranoid, here's where it gets scary.

Let's rewind for a moment into conspiracy land and assume that the US government was involved in the initial 9-11 attacks, either as a “let's take advantage of something terrible” or as a “we need to funnel money into the megacorps to get rich” or as a “we need to cover up preparations for a much bigger war”… When you assume that, you realize that there's a real good chance that they'd actually want an attack right before this election (but like I said, you have to jump to the conclusion that the government may be evil — or at least full of greedy old men — to one extent or another).

However, they can't do that because there are already enough fingers pointing at them. An attack in Spain first is a diversion and preps the stage for a “politically safer” attack in America. In addition, because of the Spanish election flip-flop, you can bet that Americans won't make the same shift… and even if they do, the Democrats have promised more military spending than the Republicans anyway.

The “we need to cover up preparations for a much bigger war” conspiracy is the one to point at if you like pointing at such things I think… It's where all the kook evidence is pointing anyway (big nukes getting dusted off, climate wars documents, missile shields, mega-armies, the draft gets refined, etc.). Goodbye, Earth…

Oh, and as a general PS, go and read the warning issued by “al Qaeda” regarding the Spain attacks. They suggested that the next attack was going to be a major bioweapons attack. Problem is, it's highly unlikely that they have the capability to develop let alone launch such an attack. So why would al Qaeda make a bluff that it knows everyone can see though?

But if you're still in conspiracy land, you have to ask yourself first who can actually deploy a bioweapon attack (the major superpowers and a couple military-tech nations like Israel, France, etc.), and then which of them might gain from this, and then finally which of them has a track record for falsifying public documents, operating on falsified intel, and generally misleading its people and the world?

Totally unrelated, but this is really cool.

When I posted his radical cock-skinning photos a few weeks ago there was concern that he (or his genitals) might actually not survive. I just wanted to report that he is in fact healing well. Here's a few photos, and there are of course tons more at high res in today's update (tonight's, that is).