Back in 2005, I reported that monorailists were threatening to weave nanomonorails into our clothing. At the time these nanomonorails were constructed using nanobiotechnology adapted from Black Helicopter research. The Monorailists used ATP and kinesin, two biological molecules found in our cells, thus making a nanomonorail that was a sort of human/nanomonorail chimera -- a "manomonorail", if you will.

Nanomonorail stalled in middle of track -- just like a real monorail!

Now Monorailsts in Spain -- presumably following some sort of disagreement with the Black Helicopter nano­bio­tech­nicians -- have devised a new form of non-biological nano­monorail technology which they claim has the theoretical ability to move 100 million times faster than those using biological motor proteins.

Both the rail and the shuttle of their nanomonorail are built from carbon nanotubes, the car sliding over the rail like a sleeve. Movement comes from thermomechanical action instead of through a perversion of biology:

They attached each end of the nanotube track, about 300 nanometres long, to metal platforms, so that the tube stretched between them through empty space. Then they fixed a flake of gold to the shuttle tube, which was intended to hold molecular cargo.

When the researchers passed an electrical current through the bridging nanotube, which acts like a 'wire' connecting the metal plates, they found that some shuttle tubes moved towards the nearest plate. Others simply revolved at a fixed location.

"At first we thought it was the electrons that were moving the nanotube," says Bachtold. But the direction of motion didn't depend on the direction of the current.

Instead, the researchers concluded that the current was simply heating up the device, and that this was what was moving the shuttle. This mechanism "came as a surprise", says Bachtold.

Because heat is conducted out of the nanotube by the metal plates, the system is hottest in the middle and cooler at the ends. This means that the thermal shaking of the track tube is strongest in the middle -- which makes the sleeve tube move towards whichever end is nearer. It is a little like shaking the free end of a rope tied to a tree, with a hoop threaded onto the rope. The waves in the rope will usher the hoop towards the tree.

Fortunately for those dreading the day when nanomonorails bind the entire biosphere into a fine, homogeneous gray mesh, there's a major problem the Monorailists need to work out: their shuttle gets hot enough to destroy any cargo on board. Not surprising considering the same problem is too-often exhibited by macromonorails.

Seattleite Goodspaceguy Nelson is a politician with a very forward-looking agenda: he wants humanity to colonize orbital space. Besides being his passion, orbital colonization was the major platform plank in his unsuccessful 2006 bid for US Senate.

Now that Goodspaceguy is running for King County Council, he has apparently had to put aside that big dream for the time being (there's only so much a Councilman can do in the arena of space colonization, after all,) and is instead focusing on removing restrictions on building height so the people of King County can live in "beautiful, high density communities filled with sky homes" -- slyly encouraging citizens to take baby steps into orbital space.

Intrigued by his bold vision of an orbital future, I wondered what he thought of that other ostensibly futuristic vision that has gripped the region since 1910: the monorail. While monorail fever has become somewhat dormant as of late, there's always the threat that it may flare up again (figuratively and literally) and as a Councilman he may have to address the monorail issue.

I emailed him and the other two contenders for the District No. 8 race to see what are their official positions on monorails. John Potter (R) and Dow Constantine (whom Nelson is running against in the Democratic primary) never bothered to respond, not even with a form letter.

However, Goodspaceguy not only responded, he responded with a fragment-of-fiction, titled "Life in the Colony: Space Sonja and Monorails". Set in the Boeing Blue District of the orbiting space colony at the dawn of orbital colonization, it comprises a Socratic dialog between himself, as a newly elected colony councilor, and Sonja, a "state approved, professional tease" who does performances imitating the spirit of Cher:

To prove that she had been reading, Sonja asked, "When our Boeing orbiting space colony becomes really, really large, do you think that our descendants ... of both we, the current space colonists, and of the new colonists still to be sent up by Boeing and Microsoft and the other space companies of King County ... I mean, do you think they will build space monorails or will they continue to float and glide themselves and their equipment through the zero gravity of space, as we do now?"

Goodspaceguy's position is that monorails are not cost-effective: "To be profitable, monorails require a huge number of people who use them regularly and around the clock ... The government transit systems turn out to be real money losers. The tax payers end up paying for the loss." Instead, as I mentioned above, he proposes high density communities and "24 hour, never-stop, go-go cities" that would get rid of rush hours. As to monorails in the orbital colonies (which I asked him about) he downplays them (and presumably other forms of transit) and suggests that colonists should get exercise by walking in "gravity corridors" to compensate for all their time floating weightlessly.

At the end he includes a poem which sums up his position on monorails nicely:

Monorails, Like Sonja, Can Be Fun!

by Goodspaceguy

Bodaciously beautiful call girls
Are expensively fun like monorails,
But Sonja finds that many would-be riders
Are without sufficient money pails!

The would-be-riders ask, "Oh, who will
Pay for our fun and frenzied riding times?"
Look to the sleeping tax payers. Their pockets
Are filled with dollars and dimes."

Some taxpayers shout, "Please, please stop.
Our dollars and dimes will not be enough!
Let us avoid frenzied transit monorails,
Paying for transit trips will be too tough."

Let us build more homes up in our sky,
And continue to walk under our Sun.
We want sky homes near our work, but we agree
That monorails, like Sonja, would be fun!

Bodaciously beautiful call girls
Are expensively fun like monorails,
But Sonja finds that many would-be riders
Are without sufficient money pails!

(While he may get flack from some for the subject matter, the correspondence of monorails to prostitutes is not undocumented.)

Given his sensible position on monorails (and the rude non-response of his opponents,) we here at ZPi are proud to endorse Goodspaceguy Nelson for King County Council to the people of District 8. I look forward to the day when the mile-high and monorail-free condos of Cascadia are serenaded from orbit with Cher's "Believe."

UPDATE (2006-08-26): Sad to report that Goodspaceguy Nelson lost the Democratic primary to water-taxi proponent Dow Constantine, 8.89% to 90.84%. Just more proof of the inordinate sway that the powerful Water Taxi Lobby holds over the primaries. Remember King Countyites, you can still write-in Goodspaceguy in the general election.

Last year I wrote an open letter to Iranian president and doctor of Transport Engineering Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, urging him to abandon the fruitless, non-monorail-related direction he was taking his nation and to return to his roots as a monorail engineer and advocate for Monorailism: "Expand the Tehran Monorail," I challenged him, "engage the Monorailist Revolution!"

Today, Tehran responded to my letter -- and what a bold response it is!

Dr. Ahmadinejad has begun the process to build a maglev monorail line between the capital of Tehran and the holy city of Mashhad, home of the shrine to Imam Ali Reza (PBUH). Much like with the planned Hajj monorail in Saudi Arabia, the line's secondary purpose -- after that most primary of all purposes: the Elevationment of Mankind -- will be the transportation of pilgrims. Upwards of 15 million faithful visitors a year from around the Shiah world will be exposed to the singular perfection of monorail transportation and will take back with them a new found Faith in Humanity's shared Monorailular Future.

When built (and I have every confidence that Dr. Ahmadinejad's pro-monorail administration will see this through) the 800 kilometer track will be the longest maglev monorail line in the world; a gleaming beam stretching through the cultural heart of Iran, humming with potential -- both human and electric; a technological marvel that will usher in a Renaissance of Monorail Culture!

The monorail will be built by German maglev experts Transrapid with the initial feasibility study being handled by engineering firm Regierungsbaumeister Schlegel GmbH.

MORE BREAKING NEWS: This wondrous development in the spread of maglev monorail technology comes on the heels of disturbing reports out of China. Claims were being made in the media that the planned Shanghai-Hangzhou maglev monorail, also to be built by Transrapid, was canceled following protests from those fearful of radiation from the magnetized track. It now turns out that these reports were false and that both government officials in Shanghai and Transrapid were unaware of any halt to the plans.

I suspect that the initial report was agitprop placed in the media by Anti-Monorail Activists -- those bitter, petty Luddites who fear Monorail excellence and despise those who strive for it. These agitators have infiltrated the Chinese Central Government and seek to use the mechanisms of intra-party politics to spread doubt about Monorailism's rightful place as Humanity's central guiding principle. And they're doing this by playing on people's irrational fear of electromagnets! What's next? Wearing tinfoil hats like a paranoid pneumatic tubeist?

Rubbish, I say! Let us not cower from electrical phantoms, boogeymen from the timid minds of those who would rather creep along the ground on wheels than soar through the sky on a cushion of energy. Now is not the time for timidity -- not now, on the cusp of Global Monorail Consciousness! If the circumambient electromagnetic fields of our bustling Monorailtopias should set our hairs to stand on end and put a tingle in our skin, then so be it! Such is the physiological state we should be in when standing in awe before the ethereal spectacle of our manifested Monorail Destiny!

The June issue of Scientific American is running an article advocating Pleistocene rewilding for North America. This would involve reintroducing to the continent the wild megafauna (or their closest living relatives) that disappeared after the arrival of humans, hopefully restoring the ecological balance of the region. (For more on these theories, see The Rewilding Institute.)

While I, for one, fully support releasing wild lions throughout the Mid West, I noticed something disturbing in the depiction of their vision for a rewilded America that makes me question the competency (or motives) of those behind this movement:

Proposed middle North America circa 2027, with enlarged detail.

That's right: they want to build monorails through their rewilded America!

Now, I'm no paleoecologist, but I'm fairly certain that monorails were not part of the natural habitat of North America 13,000 years ago. Have they considered the negative impact that introducing such a dangerous and out of place technology would have of the sustainability of this ersatz ecology?

For example, they blithely plan to mix monorails with elephants -- something that has been tried before with disastrous consequences. What happens when a large herd of elephants is existentially disturbed by the sight of anachronistic monorails and, in a deranged rush to get as far away from the menace as possible, stampedes right through the "high-tech electrified fence" supposedly keeping in check the pseudo-Pleistocene? Are Americans willing to risk the loss of, say, Topeka to total tramplement? Has any thought gone into these dangers?

But maybe there's something more sinister afoot than simple disregard for monorail dangers. Monorailists would have us believe that monorails are not only futuristic, but an integral part of our planet's history; see the robotic Jurassic Park in Dubai that will feature a historically inaccurate monorail-chasing T-rex, and the unlikely theory of our own resident monomaniac, the Monorailist, that ancient India was home to the world's first monorail (built by monkeys, no less). This tendency to revisionist history is as common among Monorailsts as their tendency to unrealistic futurism, so it would not be surprising for them to misrepresent the Pleistocene Epoch as the Age of the Woolly Monorail.

If, as I fear, the field of ecological engineering has been infiltrated by monorailistic forces bent on using Pleistocene rewilding as a cover to further brainwash the public into accepting monorails as a natural part of the environment, then I must dissuade people from supporting those pro-rewilding organizations that have not yet officially rebuked the use of monorails. (Fortunately, all Sasquatch groups involved in the reoctopusing of Cascadia's forests are staunchly anti-monorail.)

The dangers monorails pose are many: spontaneous combustion, collisions, flying debris, falling elephants, alien abductions, and now... mobs of prostitutes!

Prostitutes jump on Monorail tracks to escape cops

KUALA LUMPUR: About 20 prostitutes disrupted the Monorail service for an hour last night when they leapt from a shoplot onto the tracks to avoid arrest.

...

Assisted by Monorail staff, police and firemen took an hour to round up the prostitutes who were running on the tracks. They were nabbed and brought down via emergency stairs used by train engineers during repairs.

Of course, if Malaysia had chosen enclosed, family-friendly pneumatic tube transit they wouldn't be having this problem. City planers considering monorails: do you really want to put parents in the awkward position of having to explain to their children who all the half-naked women running ahead of the monorail train are?

News from the East: The Hajj to be Monorailized!

A study prepared by the International Transport Projects Company for a monorail system that will transport pilgrims to and from the holy sites of Mecca, Mina, Muzdalifah, and Arafat has been joyously welcomed by agencies of the Saudi Arabian government. The $1.86 billion, four-line project could be completed in a mere four years and will be able to carry nearly 800,000 pilgrims during the Hajj in the sort of dignified efficiency that only monorails can offer.

As explained by monorailologist Dr. Muhammad Naji Kurdi, a Mecca monorail system will have wider social benefits beyond easing the pilgrimage: "It will also create new job opportunities for young Saudi graduates, especially in operating monorails and manufacturing carriages and their spare parts."

With the coming of the Monorail, disaffected Saudi youth will turn away from anti-social avenues of expression to embrace the uplifting of mankind through monorailular knowledge. This will lead Saudi Arabia inexorably away from their destructive oil-based economy toward a sustainable monorail-parts-and-services-based one -- a positive transformation that we must all go through in this new century, the Century of the Monorail!

Although the current plan only encompasses transporting pilgrims between the holy sites, my contacts in the International Monorailist Community assure me that Phase Two will present a bolder vision: Once the four separate lines are connected into a single, continuous one -- complete with spiraling track around the Kaaba, switchback tracks between Safa and Marwah, and the ability to cast stones from the monorail's window as it passes by the jamarat in Mina -- and a high-speed line from Mecca to Medina is added, pilgrims will one day be able to make the Umrah and the Greater Hajj without ever disembarking the Monorail.

Some in the Muslim world may be leery of such modernity coming to this, their most holy of places. But let me allay these fears: This choice to submit to the Monorail -- if such an irrefragable inevitability can be called a choice -- is the right one for Mecca and for Islam.

There is a natural concinnity between Monotheism and Monorailism -- a shared purity of Singularity that speaks to Unity and Transnational Brotherhood. While the Monorail is the epitome of Ultramodernity, it is also a timeless invocation of Oneness, uniting the Future and the Past in a continuously looping track with a station conveniently located at Now. How fitting then that the Five Pillars of Islam should be joined by the Concrete Pillars of the Monorail. In fact, I would dare suggest that it would not be theologically unreasonable to proclaim: "There is no God but Allah, and Monorail is His public transportation!"

I say unto the people of Saudi Arabia: Welcome! Welcome into the fold of Monorailfaring Nations! While Dubai may have gotten here ahead of you by creating the first monorail in your region, your contribution to the Monorailist Cause will be no less important, as you will be poised to introduce the profound spiritually transformative power of the Monorail to pilgrims from all over the World.

So, to the minarets, you muezzin of Monorailism, and let this be your adhan: A Mecca for Monorailists! a Monorail for Mecca!

First it was a monorail built exclusively for puppies, which the Monorailists hoped would lower people's natural resistance to monorails. At the time, I noted that the canonical psychotronic enamorment memeplex involves cute kittens and wondered why the monorailists would choose the non-standard cuteness vector of puppies.

Well, now the monorailists are closing the cuteness gap with their newest propaganda ploy. I introduce to you (assuming you haven't already seen it in the memeosphere):

As with the Toyger and Hitler cats, the Monorail Cat was bred by eugenicists to resemble something it is not. In this case, a monorail train.

Most likely building on the work of the controversial Munchkin cat breeders, the Monorailists have created a cat with only vestigial legs and a ventral groove that allows it to slide on its belly fur along smooth tracks. Soon they will have a whole army of Monorail Cats with which to slide across the railings and banisters in our communities, lulling naive people into acceptance of -- and, eventually, desire for -- monorailular movement.

I just hope breeding these cats for monorail-like traits hasn't resulted in them exhibiting the same propensity for spontaneous combustion as with real monorails.

More examples of Monorail Cat propaganda images are being spread via a cat fancier site called "I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?" (and possibly at monorailcat.com, which for now only says "Coming Soon!").

The Footlight Theater in Orlando, Florida is restaging Michael Wanzie's 1986 musical Monorail Inferno, a story of monorail passengers having their trip to Disney World interrupted by a mysterious malfunction that causes the monorail to burst into flames.

While I support the use of the Monorail as the singular unifying theme for all the arts, I must strongly rebuke the anti-monorail sensationalism and, ultimately, nihilism that this musical represents! Yes, it is true that the story was inspired by an actual monorail combustion event at Disney World in 1985, but why must the musical theater industry choose to focus on such rare, certainly-sabotage-related monorail combustions instead of portraying the Monorail in a positive light? -- the light of hope that radiates from the Monorail to all who have the eyes and soul to perceive it.

Where are the taut, character-driven plays about simple folk embracing Monorailism and transcending the mundanity of their work-a-day world? Where are the operatic sagas of bold City Leaders vanquishing the Foes of Monorailular Progress and ushering in a New Age of the Monorail? Where are the light romantic comedies of love found, love lost, love regained, and lives lived all aboard the Monorail? It's bad enough with all the anti-monorail propaganda coming out of Hollywood, must we find nothing to uplift the minds and bodies of the masses through pro-monorail theatrical arts?

All that being said, I do have to commend the Footlight Theater for having a two-for-one Monorail Pilots night tomorrow:

MONORAIL PILOTS get TWO 4 ONE admission! Saturday March 17th ONLY.: Buy one - ONLY if you arrive at the theater wearing your Monorail Costume, or bring along a photo of you in your monorail costume - or some other sort of documentation which proves you have at some point in your life, piloted a Walt Disney World Monorail.

But is this really enough to honor our brave Monorail Pilots? Have we as a society lost our ability to show proper gratitude to those with the fearless audacity to pilot our destiny?

There was a time when a Monorail Pilot wouldn't be able to walk among the surface-dwelling populace in his uniform without drawing the attention of all who passed by: Women would alternately swoon and giggle. Men would be so overcome with pride in Humanity's accomplishments that they would forget their envy. Children would point and squeal in wide-eyed amazement: "Look Mommy! Could that really be a Monorail Pilot?" Monorail Pilots were constantly being stopped and asked for autographs, or to have their pictures taken with the kids, or to officiate at weddings or store openings or beauty pageants, or to settle disputes both civil and philosophical. Such was the respect, the awe, with which people held those who commanded the vehicles that commanded our dreams. In those times, giving Monorail Pilots free tickets to the theater was more a moral obligation than a one-day promotion.

Like most young boys, it was always my dream to some day become a Monorail Pilot -- to soar along the track with my hand on the throttle and my gaze set stalwartly toward the infinite reaches of Mankind's potential. But, alas, it shames me to confess that I was found ineligible for the Monorail Pilot Corps due to a congenital strabismic condition that causes me, when I look out the cockpit window, to see two rails instead of one.

Although I cannot enjoy the privilege of being a Monorail Pilot, I will do my part, without bitterness or self-pity, for the cause of Humanity's Elevationment; I will continue to press for the adoption of the Monorail throughout the world and to rebuke those who spread lies about this most singular marvel of Mankind's ingenuity. The jaded anti-monorail views of the musical theater community will find no quarter with me!

...But monorail chasers?

Subject: Website Suggestion

Hello

My name is [REDACTED!] and I'm with [REDACTED!].com. Our site is dedicated to informing the public about auto accidents as well as providing the service of locating a lawyer for anyone in the United States.

We have recently come upon zapatopi.net and we believe that your site's audience will take advntage of the service we provide. That's why we would like to inform you about our site and to propose submitting our link to your web page located at [Monorail Collision Over Seattle]

Our site information is:

URL: http://www.[REDACTED!].com
Title: Auto Accident Lawyer
Description: Find Auto Accident lawyers specializing in auto accident SUV rollovers, roadway lighting hazzards, commercial vehicle accident, DUI AUTO accident, catastrophic auto injury, elderly driver accident, auto seat belts, child auto restraints and more.

We would appreciate it if you could include a link to our site on your web page. Thank you and all the folks at zapatopi.net for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

[REDACTED!]

Please note I am only the webmaster of [REDACTED!].com and not a lawyer. We are a marketing company promoting website visibility on the internet. Link exchanging is one way to build site popularity.

{To opt out from future emails, please reply to this message with "unsubscribe" in the subject box.}

Another reason to avoid monorails: they're magnets for sleazy lawyers.

Walter emailed me two bad ideas (not his)...

Brandon Flowers of the RIAA-approved music group The Killers is promoting a bad idea in an upcoming music video:

While building an AFDB using a hardhat substrate is a valid, if somewhat harder to hide, method of beanie construction, connecting two of them together with an aluminumized tube that will allow psychotronic energies to be transmitted back and forth between two wearers is strongly unadvised. Yes, it will still protect you from most mind control, but do you really want some strange little Japanese kid piping his thoughts directly into your brain, nullifying your individual brain patterns and turning you both into a two-person hive-mind obsessed with Ultraman and sexual ambiguity? Try again, Brandon.

The next bad idea is from Mass Tram America, Inc. and is called The Highway In The Sky:

They propose taking old Boeing 7x7 fuselages stripped of wings and tail fins, attaching them below monorail tracks hung from suspension cables on towers, and powering the whole system with solar cells and wind turbines. Even by monorail standards this is just daft. What happens when it bursts into flames and the cables melt? At least with traditional above-rail monorails the pedestrians below need only fear flying debris. When this system fails, the whole train will plummet to the ground like a streamlined bomb. And with no control surfaces, there's no way for the monorail captain to steer the flaming mass away from the innocents on the roads over which they propose to build these things. Try again, Mass Tram America, Inc. (perhaps by putting the repurposed fuselages safely inside tubes).