It Appears That We Have Apparently Not Learned Our Lesson

Human hubris, so it is said, knows no bounds. Barely three weeks after our planet was treated to a cosmic "warning shot" courtesy of asteroid 2005 YU55, we are continuing in our quest to antagonize our solar systemal neighbors.

The Mars Science Laboratory, nicknamed "Curiosity" by NASA managers, launched this morning on its journey to the red planet. The boring, lifeless red rocks found by the Viking landers and the Pathfinder rover and the Spirit and Opportunity rovers were not sufficient to satisfy astronomers' Barsoomian curiosity about the boring lifeless planet, so we just had to send one more probe just to be sure.

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An Egregious Invasion of Jovian Privacy!

When I first heard that those poindexters down at NASA were planning to launch another one of their cornfangled probes at the planet Jupiter, I was concerned. We've bugged the giant planet quite a lot in recent decades, with those Voyager flybys and the Galileo intrusiveness.

But all of that pales in comparison to the interplanetary indignity of the Juno probe. This elliptically-orbiting robotic voyeur will literally be looking at Jupiter where the sun don't shine.

This outrage is simply outrageous!

If the planet Jupiter wanted us to see its poles, it would show them to us with a nice sideways orbit. Like Uranus. But the giant gas giant obviously values its privacy, keeping its nether regions far from the ecliptic.

When Juno arrives in July 2016, it will be taking the most invasive images of Jupiter ever made. Sure, these Jovian upskirt photos might tell us all about the planet's magnetosphere and internal structure and auroral activity, but the astronomical indecency is most definitely going to piss the gas giant off. Mark my words.

It's going to take the astrologers years, perhaps decades to atone for this iniquity. If they can calm Jupiter at all. After we've embarrassed the planet like this, we might just lose the protection of its gravity well forever. It may even decide to throw a few excess trojans at us, out of red-spotted spite.

If we manage to survive the coming apocalii in late 2011 and 2012, come 2016 our doom may be cooked!

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NASA! You're Playing With DANGER!

Just a month after launching Voyager 2 on a mission to annoy the outer planets, NASA has launched the Voyager 1 space-probe to further antagonize the biggest of the gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn.

Due to arrive at Jupiter in January 1979 and Saturn in November 1980, this little probe will no doubt be an irritating annoyance to the otherwise private outer planets. As the Astrologers have been warning us for centuries - ever since a young patent clerk named Galileo turned his new "tele-scope" skyward and became the first Jovian paparazzi - the gas giants value their privacy, and do not appreciate our telescopic and robotic invasions.

And, thanks to the ingenious doings of certified brainiac Carl Sagan, we won't be able to claim innocence when the Jovian ire is enraged. The Voyager probe contains a gold record saying "Hello from Earth", complete with maps and diagrams and sounds so that the gas giants will have no doubt as to its origin.

We can only hope that the Astrologers will be able to keep the enraged outer planets at bay so that they will decide not to attack us with their asteroid arsenals.

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Environ-mentalists About To Endanger Us All!

Today, the environ-mentalists and nature-huggers and tree-hippies will celebrate a new made-up holiday Earth Day. The brain-child of California Senator Gaylord Nelson, this much-ballyhoo'ed manufacture-bration is intended to celebrate the Earth and encourage all of us to conserve and preserve our planet. Cities all around the world -- from New York to Philadelphia and everywhere in between -- will be shutting down so that scientists and conservationists and green-types can preach about the evils of our convenientalized technological era.

It is a silly idea, of course. Our Earth has been around for thousands and/or billions of years and will be here for thousands and/or billions more, whether we have a holiday for it or not. Even more infuriatingly, it's not even a real holiday, so I still had to come to work today! Thanks for nothing, hippies!

But that's not the worst part, of course. The plain fact is that this so-called "holiday" is a highly dangerous idea, for a number of reasons.

First of all, the so-called "teach-ins" that will be hosted across the country will likely be highly influential on the minds of the general public. Let's face it: most people out there (with the obvious exception of my regular readers, of course) are gullible meat-heads who will obey anything told to them by a so-called scientist wearing a short-sleeve shirt and a tie.

Secondly, the designation of Earth Day without corresponding holidays for the other bodies in our solar system will no doubt anger them. As we know from centuries of Astrology, planets have extremely fragile egos. If we anger them by singling out Earth for a holiday, they will undoubtedly punish us with bad luck in our financial situation and personal relationships, and may even send an asteroid or two our way out of sheer spite.

Finally, the dedication of a holiday to our planet may dangerously overinflate the Earth's ego. This could cause our Earth to swell with pride and accreted matter to gigantic proportions. Our comfortable terrestrial planet may turn into a gas giant, crushing all of us with its massive gravity and drowning us in liquid air.

As irony would have it, this Earth Day intended to save our planet may indeed be the thing that brings life as we know it to an end!

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