MC, who has been absurdly silent lately, writes in:

OK, I just had to work this out when I saw that GorT lost six yottabytes of data.

The earth’s surface is about 510 million square kilometers (510 x 10¹² square meters, or 790 x 10¹⁵ square inches). So six yottabytes (6 x 10²⁴ bytes) can be thought of as representing a true-color image (24-bit depth) of the earth at about 1600 dots per inch. Uncompressed.

The energy released by the largest nuclear detonation was just short of six yottawatts. Coincidentally (or perhaps not?) it was named the Czar of Bombs (Царь-бомба).

Well, you can see why GorT has some explaining to do.

Meanwhile, the news is not much better in Canada. MH, our sole Canadian reader, finds himself thus inspired:

Mighty Czar,

My apologies for the lengthy missive, but your sole Canadian reader finds it necessary to write in with a proposition. Obviously a little background is required.

Perhaps the residents of Castle Gormogon are aware of the upcoming Winter Olympics to be held in Vancouver, British Columbia; home to Vietnam War draft dodgers, Green party voters, and state-regulated-needle-exchanging heroin addicts (forgive any inadvertent repetition). A Seattle North, so to speak.

Anyhow, apparently some members of the diversity-loving progressive crowd have expressed concern that ongoing Native land disputes may cast a pall upon the quadrennial event. As Kanahus Pellkey of the Skwelkwek’welt territory says:

“For us the Olympics represents the power of the capitalist system, the colonial system, that led to the theft of our land, and now Canada is utilizing the Olympics as a land-grab throughout British Columbia.”

Now, in these situations any Canadian to the political left of Jack Layton usually takes a page from the Harry Reid playbook and says to his comrades, “Hmmm…this light red-skinned Injun thinks the good-think and would normally be quite useful for our purposes; but we can’t let anything interfere with the ‘shining example of international harmony attained through frozen nut sack’ competition, and perhaps we should simply throw around some firewater and another $10B annual subsidy to shut up the Indian givers” (I quote from memory).

Now normally I would utilize this opportunity as a ‘teaching moment’, and deliver a stern lecture on concepts foreign to Canadians such as property rights, moral hazard, treaty obligations, and the perils of glue sniffing, but there is a much larger issue at stake.

How often does a pork extraction opportunity come around from a literally Olympic-sized taxpayer boondoggle with the added bonus of possibly bankrupting a left-wing stronghold in one’s home country? Not often, as I’m sure the Czar knows.

Since the Czar is familiar with my methods, I imagine he’s already deduced that the previous quote was simply a golden performance by my dear agent Kanahus (truthfully, it nearly brought a tear to my eye). While I can usually ‘bread and circus’ away the suspicions of the largely somnolent Canadian public with ‘hockey and healthcare’, unfortunately I have yet to eliminate a few dogged Chomskyish types that have long suspected a few uber-capitalist, colonizing Canucks (two thumbs pointed self-ward) have been softening up the Western hemisphere for Canadian domination for some time now. But this timely denunciation of Maplefest Destiny by yet another supposedly whiny Native First Indian keeps such suspicions well outside the realm of ‘acceptable’ discourse and safely relegated to ‘tinfoil hat’ territory. When such plans come together my inner Hannibal – of both A-Team and Carthage fame – is most pleased.

Anyway, upon completion of the ‘surprisingly hot female curling’ competition, I planned on using the Olympic village and venues for a variety of nefarious purposes (eg. shock troop cross training in the luge and biathlon, judicial training for the future Canadian Commonwealth Office at the ice dance venue, and so forth). However, I’m extremely ashamed to admit that in my almost child like glee I was blinded to an external threat.

In this case, James Cameron.

Most members of America’s royalty think of Vancouver as Hollywood North; a glorious refuge from the Sky God believin’ gun toters, where starlets and titans of popular culture and liberal platitudes can earn countless millions while frowning upon the uncouthness of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and that pesky free market with complete impunity.

While true, JC thinks on a much larger scale, and clearly recognizes an unobtainium-mine when he sees it. Through the ‘accidental’ internet leaking of another script, I have learned that that devious mofo plans to use the Olympic site as the set for Avatar’s icy sequel, tentatively titled, Avatar 2: I Love the Smell of Burnt Na’vi in the Morning, where tools of the military-industrial complex Gaia-rape the planet Niflheim while swindling the indigenous noble savages out of their peacefully and planet-friendly used profitium.

Sounds promising. And generally I wouldn’t dream of interfering, as I enjoy a light-hearted feel good flick as much as the next guy; but as Mr. Cameron himself would say, business is business.

Which leads me to the proposal I most respectfully and humbly put forth for the Mighty Czar’s consideration.

As I’ve already gone on far too long, I won’t bore you with all the details, but let’s just say that I have at my command a pair of Right Honourable ‘Stephen Harper’ androids (*), always prepped for parliament insertion depending upon my requirements. Unfortunately, following my hubristic slotting of the emotion chip, Prorogueicon de-activated Occasionalcon in a fit of positronic pique and subsequently suspended parliament prematurely. As you can imagine, this completely eff’d up my plans, as I still required the passing of a few key pieces of ‘conservative’ legislation to complete my Olympic/native land annex.

Anyhow, while I have made alternative arrangements just in case, it would make life much simpler if the Czar would be willing to discuss with GorTechie the possibility of utilizing his time travelling talents to warn ‘younger-sole-Canadian-reader’ of his arrogant folly. In return, I will have my Maritime agents assist Castle Gormogon’s North-eastern bureau with ‘getting out the vote’ for next week’s Senate election. Assuming we can outmanoeuvre the Democrat/Acorn/Media/Nutroot alliance, I further promise to deflect all media blame for ‘ruining Ted Kennedy’s legacy’ northward (eg. coureur des bois legacy capitalists, Canadian right-wing extremists fearing two year MRI waitlists on both sides of the border, ex-military contractor types profiting from Busharper’s ‘War for Poppies’ in Afghanistan….you get the idea).

Let me know what you think (or remind me of my obligations if you decide to proceed…since I suppose I’d forget)

Sincerely,

Your sole Canadian reader

Say, that reminds us. What happened to Canadian hockey? Glad to see the Flames are starting to climb back up, but what kind of world is this when teams like San Jose, Phoenix, and Tampa Bay are doing better than Vancouver, Montreal, or Toronto? Or did the Czar totally miss the point of your letter?

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.