The Gods Must Be Crazy

“El Grimlock” has some cool Deviant Art

My friends and I used to joke that God must have it in for me, as my best-laid plans would always go awry, travel would never go as it should, and bursts of rain would always seem to coincide with my being outdoors. But if any anthropomorphic entity has a right to feel persecuted by the big man these days, it has got to be Japan. While struggling under massive national debt about 200% their GDP, Mother Nature went and slammed them with the fifth-biggest earthquake ever recorded. Followed by a devastating tsunami. Which wiped out a nuclear power station. As well as a nuclear explosion which will taint the ground for centuries to come, staple foods such as rice inland and fish in the ocean were irradiated, simultaneously vanquishing both food supplies and several exports. Exports were also destroyed due to factories being demolished, and those that remained having reduced power thanks to the lack of nuclear reactors. Speaking of power, the whole country had to deal with reduced power, or in the case of those further north, no power, in the middle of a biting winter. Tourists and expats fled, and tourism in general took a massive dive. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands dead or freshly homeless.

Given the situation, Japan seemed to handle it well. The Fukushima 50, as well as hundreds of others, sacrificed their own health to try and contain the nuclear situation and stop it getting out of hand. Tablets were distributed to absorb large amounts of the radiation taken into the bodies of those nearby, in order to prevent long-term problems. Attempts were made to deal with the nuclear material as much as possible. Nuclear material is now held at other spots around the country, for example Yamaguchi, way down the other end of the country.

Where it was then struck by lightning. Two days ago, lightning struck a chemical storage compound in Yamaguchi, causing an explosion which resulted in at least one death and a fire. Uranium and radioactive waste is being stored there. It was apparently about 400 metres away from the fire, which has been extinguished, and reports are that Nature has at this stage failed to spread more nuclear harm. But not for want of trying. Incidentally, the particular form of badness held at this complex is especially difficult to detect, so the possibility of a leak which has gone unnoticed is still very much on the cards.

Japan wonders if it’s too late to move to Korea

I can just picture Japan, with its little balding head in its hands, shaking its head in misery and miserably asking itself, what’s next? And would it be giving up to just up and go somewhere else?

In unrelated news, in its latest attempt to wipe itself out, humanity has decided to start playing around with a machine to fuck with the heavens themselves. Our good friends over in the United States are developing the wonderfully-named HAARP in an attempt to protect us all, or at least, we assume, those whom it would be financially beneficial to be protecting at any given time.

The HAARP will shoot waves into the sky, screwing with atmospheric pressure and ionisation, and will apparently help us by clearing paths for air travel, and deflecting hurricanes from entering friendly areas. It is also able to send low-frequency waves through the earth to detect submarines at low depths, and hidden bunkers anywhere on earth. Meaning, it will be able to create and send those hurricanes to any other parts of the world it so chooses, as well as create earthquakes, and even call down angry vengeance from above in the form of, holy shit, lightning bolts.

This whole game has been on since around the mid-90s, but is gaining momentum all the time. I, for one, am a little more than concerned about the implications of man being able to literally wreak Acts of God on any nations who fail to curry his favour. At the moment, of course, we are safe as only America has this technology, and we all know America only attacks the bad guys. But this is one thing it might pay to have in the back of your mind.

Of course, Japan is not the only country to have its weather woes – everybody’s noticed that the world has been playing up far more than it used to in these last few years. Also worth noting: according to these people, the data for the HAARP in the day prior to the Haiti earthquake was removed from its records.