Wednesday, July 06, 2005

I'll Sue!

Every time I think I've seen and heard everything, something else comes along to make me shake my head and say what the fuck.

About 1:27 AM EST on the morning of July 4th, the NASA space probe Deep Impact struck a inbound comet, Tempel - 1 for the first time ever.

This was pretty astounding stuff, because it's like trying to hit a bullet with another bullet from about a trillion miles away, and the study is supposed to help scientists discover where life really came from. Pretty cool shit if you're kind of a science nerd when it comes to this stuff like I am.

Now enter Marina Bai, a 45 year old Russian astrologer. She's suing NASA for 311 MILLION dollars because the crashing of the probe Deep Impact "violates her spiritual rights, changes the natural order of the universe which interferes with my practice of astrology and deforms my horoscope."

The 45-year-old mother of two is so upset about the space agency's scientific assault on the celestial body that she has taken the step of suing NASA in Moscow courts. Her lawsuit seeks to recover $311 million in "moral" damages.

Bai, a self-published author and spiritualist, said that she couldn't sleep after watching a television report about the Deep Impact mission, which is led by a team of astronomers at the University of Maryland, when it was launched Jan. 12.

In court papers filed by her lawyer, Alexander Molokhov, said that the case is based on solid legal ground, since NASA has a representative office on Russian territory.

Bai asserts that Deep Impact will "infringe upon my system of spiritual and life values, in particular on the values of every element of creation, upon the unacceptability of barbarically interfering with the natural life of the universe, and the violation of the natural balance of the universe."

I'm so glad that since the collapse of the Soviet Union not only have the Russians taken hold of our free-market system, it has also embraced our legal system with it's love of silly lawsuits with a vengeance.

Again, it gives me warm fuzzy feelings as to where we're headed as a species.

Copyright 2005 Thomas J Wolfenden

1 comment:

DivineMsN said...

I was on the U of MD campus last night and they had these cool flags with some saying about "Deep Impact". I wonder what Einstein would think of all this planetary action?