So this morning, I'm walking back from brunch, and wind up following these three guys back towards my dorm. We pass by the flagpole, where the flag is naturally waving at half mast.

One of them looks at the flag and says:

"Psht. It's at half mast. I mean, c'mon, seven people died."

One of his buddies: "Oh, come on! That's horrible!"

First one: "Seriously! They were going into space! You mean they didn't expect this sort of thing to happen when you send hundred of tons of metal into space? C'mon!"

The only thing that prevented me from winding up arrested on assault charges is the fact that he was about 5 inches taller and many, many pounds heavier than me.

And then it just gets better from there.

Cynthia and I start talking on AIM. She tells me of an auction on ebay. It's 2 mission patches from the mission that Columbia was returning from. $160.

A link to an auction for a newspaper from Columbia's first launch. $100. Oh, but he'll throw in some special edition newspapers that came out by noon after the accident Saturday. It's a good deal, he says, because those are going for $40 on ebay.

Cynthia links me to an ebay search results page. 62 pages of results. About 50 results per page. We perform an experiment. World Trade Center: 16 pages. Britney Spears: 69. Bugs Bunny: 52. Jesus Christ: 11. New York Yankees: 56.

Perhaps capitalism isn't all it's cracked up to be. Perhaps humanity as well.

The Other "Only marginally serious with that last paragraph" Matthew