The historic Handing Over of the Licensing Agreement "Hello, I'm Lembit Öpik, the Chair of Parliament for Asgardia, the worlds' first space nation." Oh yes, the Asgardian adventure is still very much a thing, and joining Lembit today to see in the year "Triple-O Five" are Asgardian Prime Minister Lena De Winne, the "CEO of Asgardia Financial Ark and Minister of Finance" Mark Bogen, and "business person who wants to do business with Asgardia" Ben Dell, all here to witness the signing of this, the very first business contract between Asgardia and "an Earthling business". That's not what we're actually witnessing though, is it? You can't just hand stuff over in a zoom chat, can you? And then cut to it being signed? And why are they boasting about the "many, many" "long and sometimes challenging sessions" it's taken to draw this licensing agreement up, given that business person Ben Dell is, according to his own linkedin profile, Deputy Chair of Parliament for Asgardia? Wouldn't that have made negotiating quite easy? I should stop minding. Ultimately the Asgardian project has always been an adventure in presentation, and it's the little things, like Lembit Öpik's joke at the end, in which the real thrills are to be found.
Thank you very much. In other news, I'm keeping the tree up until at least February.
If they ever actually figure out how to hand stuff over via a zoom chat, then I'm definitely in - well, except for the part where I'd have to chuck a huge sum of money their way in order to buy citizenship, if I recall correctly. And I know this has very little to do with how sensible the Asgardian project is in and of itself, and a hell of a lot to do with how crazy the world has gone of late (and I'm not even talking about the current situation so much as how mind-numbingly exhausting the sheer incompetence-cum-hubris of our earthbound leaders has proved to be over the past year alone) but somehow, all this space-nation nonsense doesn't come across as quite as bonkers as it once used to. I mean, it's hardly their fault/merit that they can't seem to trump (pun very much intended) the madness of their earthling peers, but still.
ReplyDeletePossibly this is a version of the Trump project that only effects those who sign up for it, and I'm a lot more fine with a corrupt dictatorship populated entirely by volunteers.
ReplyDeleteOh good grief, looks like Trump's all set out to outdo himself, again. Why can't he just get his own orbiting external hard drive and stop messing about with his idiot supporters, for pity's sake.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of micronations, The Republic of Rose Island was just mentioned in the news, so I thought I might share it here. (Never heard about it until they announced they were making a film about it, but at least 'When Italy went to war with the esperanto micro-nation Insulo de la Rozoj' makes for a rather interesting post title, if nothing else.
Brilliant. Thank you. I've been thinking of posting something about Molossia Nevada, which looks cute.
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