Posthuman Blues

The good part about all the crashed/disabled/missing probes littering the Martian surface is that they'll provide a lucrative salvage industry for future astronauts (assuming, as always, that we eventually make it to the Red Planet in person). I wonder what the Mars Polar Lander would go for on eBay . . .





I bet that somewhere there's an extremely wealthy person who'd like to have the Mars Pathfinder displayed in his/her office, perhaps as part of a diorama recreating Sagan Memorial Station. 100% real Martian dirt, of course. (Can you imagine what that powdery red stuff would go for here on Earth? My guess is that it would be somewhere up there with cocaine and those military-grade neurotoxins that only Middle Eastern Evil-Doers make.)





By the way, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (popularly know as "Mad Cow Disease") has finally found its way into the United States. Contrary to what you might read in the ever-dour mainstream press, this is great news. I hope this really throws corporate behemoths like McDonald's for a loop. The next time you sink your teeth into a quarter-pounder, stop to imagine thousands of deadly, invisible prions inundating your brain and chewing great big holes in it while you inexorably go insane and die a spasmodic death . . . Not exactly the stuff great ad campaigns are made of, is it?

Of course, the all-knowing folks at McDonald's assure us that there's absolutely nothing to fear. And we all know that giant, politically esteemed corporations never lie or act against the best interests of their clients.

Mad Cow Disease. I'm lovin' it.