Eerie as all hell, sure, but this is one of the coolest things I've ever seen: Red Menace. I'll be a monkey's uncle if there aren't a gaggle of great fictional stories to be told about the Great Red Dust Storm of '09: panic, paranoia, isolation—the very sky falling down about your ears—what's not to love about life on our Red Planet?

This Week in Motorsport
Wow, there's so much to tell you that I hardly know where to start and I'm so far behind I doubt I'll ever get caught up. So, let's not worry about that.

There are going to be fourteen… er, thirteen… er, maybe only eleven… more than the current ten teams in Formula One next year! Okay, here's the way it is: the F.I.A., F1's governing body, already passed the rules necessary for thirteen teams to run in 2010's nineteen(!) grands prix, compared to ten teams in seventeen grands prix in '09. That's the current ten constructors—by points, why not: Brawn, Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Toyota, Williams, B.M.W. Sauber, Renault, Force India, & Toro Rosso—plus the three new entries already announced—Team US F1, Manor, & Campos. But wait, earlier this summer B.M.W. announced their departure from F1 at the end of this season, leaving only twelve teams on the 2010 grid. Enter: Lotus, the famed British team, now owned by a public-private Malaysian consortium. Back in business with a lucky thirteen constructors! (And, like Team US, Manor, and Campos, Lotus announced that they'll be using engines supplied by Cosworth, a noted manufacturer back in the Formula One engine business after a three-year absence.)

But that's not the end of the story: the soon to be B.M.W.-less Sauber squad found a buyer, and hope to be on the grid in '10 if the F.I.A. can get the other teams to agree to allow twenty-eight cars onto the track instead of the planned twenty-six. Note that this year twenty cars race in each grand prix. Between a thirty and forty percent expansion in the number of competitors for next season's driver and constructor World Championships, holy moley!

And there will be two more grands prix on the calendar: the restored Canadian Grand Prix (welcome back to North America, Formula One!) and the inaugural Korean Grand Prix! All the hubbub about a spending cap and rumors of a breakaway championship before the agreement of the new Concorde Agreement this summer, the recession prompting the withdrawal of Honda and B.M.W. from F1 and raising doubts about other teams as well, a first-year team all but certain to win the constructor's championship, and four new teams and two new grands prix for next year, my first full F1 season. Did I pick a great time to fall in love with this sport, or what? Woot!

Still to come:
Renault's unbelievable scandal
The Belgian Grand Prix
The Italian Grand Prix
Fandom: Driver or Team?
and coming this weekend
The Singapore Grand Prix
and
Petit Le Mans!

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
The Atomic Fireballs, "Calypso King" from Torch This Place (T.L.A.M.)

Dienstag, 22 September
They Might Be Giants, "Why Does the Sun Shine? (The Sun Is a Mass of Incandescent Gas)" (live) from Severe Tire Damage (T.L.A.M.)