Mars Attacks!
Sweet, NASA has received a signal from the Spirit rover! Woo hoo! Unlike Britain's Beagle 2, our rover works. Make no mistake, I love the Brits, but the chode in charge of Beagle 2 is a) in league with the Europeans and b) was engaging in some pretty venomous trash talking before his baby turned out to be a dud. Piss off, you wanker! Or, if you rather, "U-S-A! U-S-A!" No, no, that's not right; in the immortal words of Richard Nixon, immortalized in the plaque left behind by the crew of Apollo 11, "We came in peace for all Mankind." There's little reason to believe we'll ever hear from little* Beagle 2, but I hope we do. Also, I wish a successful landing to Spirit's brother Opportunity in its January 24 landing.

*Beagle 2 is roughly analogous in size to the American Sojourner rover, the cute little guy who trucked around Mars in the Summer of 1997. Yeah, six years later, while the ESA was trash talking about finally catching up, we were building bigger, badder, and better rovers: Sojourner and Beagle 2 are each the size of a kitchen microwave, Spirit and Opportunity are the size of friggin' golf carts! Yeah, that deserves a chorus. "U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!"