[lit-ideas] Re: It all begins with mad cows.
- From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:27:31 EST
Absolutely priceless. I must now also look up this Lor fellow.
Julie Krueger
========Original Message======== Subj: [lit-ideas] It all begins with
mad cows. Date: 1/18/2007 10:51:14 A.M. Central Standard Time From:
_john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxxx (mailto:john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx) To:
_lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) Sent on:
John Wager used to (maybe still does) have a wonderful signature line to the
effect that one should never blame on malice what is likely due to
incompetence.Wired columnist Lor Sjoberg does a wonderful riff on a similar
theme.
---------
2007: A biotechnology company in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, breeds cattle
that are immune to mad cow disease. A relieved beef industry pours funding
into
the lab.
2008: Mad-cow-immune cows become the standard for livestock, but it is
discovered that their prion-resistant brains have given them a primitive,
sinister
intelligence. Farmhand kickings, rodeo clown gorings and milkmaid stompings
rise 400 percent. A few of the cows escape into the wild, making capture
difficult. The government decides to sow biogenetically engineered grasses in
their grazing areas, grasses that will release deadly spores into their
systems.
2009: The genetically engineered grass spores fuse symbiotically with the
musculature of the cows, giving them enhanced strength, increased endurance
and
possibly X-ray vision. These evil veg-cows begin to harass South Dakotan
suburbs. Deciding to give genetic engineering a rest, the Department of
Homeland
Security instead creates a small army of cybernetically enhanced cougars to
track and hunt the super-cows.
2010: The cybercougars are able to take out nearly all the veg-cattle except
for a few pockets of resistance. They then turn their attention to the human
population. Cybercougars spread throughout Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska.
Omaha is evacuated and falls to the cougars, and all major cities in Wyoming
are abandoned, to the extent that Wyoming has major cities. Government forces
are unable to restore order, and the president orders non-nuclear
electromagnetic pulse bombs to be fired into much of the Midwest, hoping to
disable the
robotic predators.
2011: The electromagnetic pulses take out only about half the cougars, but
interrupt the electric grid from Utah to Kentucky. Half the population of the
United States is in darkness, and the cougars prey on those who dare leave
their homes, batting their bodies around for hours in a grim mockery of
adorable kitten posters. The military authorizes the construction of tens of
thousands of units of exoskeletal battle armor, the most powerful personal
armament
ever constructed, in order to take back the Midwest.
2012: The battle armor is stolen from a secret research laboratory by a
well-organized group of militant swingers, who use it to take over the state
of
Nevada, rechristening it the Progressive Republic of Swapovia. The cougars
spread into Idaho, Washington and Oregon. The government reveals the existence
of a secret cloning and neurotransfer program designed to replicate important
celebrities. A special forces unit made up of clones of Dr. Phil is airlifted
into Nevada with the goal of talking the Swapovians into a life of monogamy
and weight loss.
2013: The Dr. Phil clones, on the verge of a negotiations breakthrough,
suddenly contract a virus to which they are all genetically susceptible. In a
desperate move, they are all given an untested super-antibiotic.
2014: An antibiotic-resistant form of the Dr. Phil virus assails the general
public. This disease affects not only Dr. Phil, but any professional
advice-giver. Columnists, life coaches and bartenders alike fall to the
virulent
disease. Without sound advice, wives are unable to leave their deadbeat
husbands, teenagers are not warned against drunk driving, and nobody knows how
to fix
that knocking noise their '87 Grand Am makes when it gets rainy. American
civilization collapses. Chicago is in flames. Boston is reduced to rubble. Los
Angeles is somewhat less pleasant than it used to be.
2015: Aliens stop by Earth because they heard the Western Hemisphere was a
good place to pick up a burger and a microbrew cheap. Disappointed in their
quest, they extinguish the sun on their way out of the solar system, partially
because they come from a vindictive planet, and partially because one of them
got a sun extinguisher for his birthday and wanted to try it out. As the
Earth enters an eternal freeze that no form of life will survive, America's
global approval rating goes down by another 4 percent.
-------------------
Something for everyone here.
John
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
_http://www.wordworks.jp/_ (http://www.wordworks.jp/)
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