Happy New Year's Redshirts!

Hey, it's New Year's and that means it's time to take a look back at the trail of dead people we leave behind in 2013. Well, not all the dead people, just the important ones.

Sorry 99% of all people who have ever lived...

Tasha's will specifically requested
that her holo-funeral take place on
the Windows XP Desktop. 

This is one of the many ways in which real life is just like Star Trek: The Next Generation. On Star Trek, death is always sad, but most of the time nobody cares unless the person who dies is a reoccurring character. Take Tasha Yar for example. Remember her? She was killed by a sentient oil slick at the end of season one. It was super sad. But do you remember Marla Astor, Chief Engineer Singh or Ensign Haskell? No? That's because they were all proverbial Red Shirts. Extras. Cannon fodder. Like most of us. New Year's is for famous people, the Tashas Yar, if you will.

So who's dead now? Lots of people. Lou Reed, Marcia Wallace, James Gandolfini, Karen Black. Peter freaking O'Toole died this year and-hey, did you ever see The Lion in Winter? No? Watch it right goddamn now, it's amazing.

It's a little like Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe
but with the ever-present threat of bubonic plague.

The end was nigh all right...

Apocalypse fans lost Harold Camping. Remember him? The radio host/doomsayer who predicted that the world would end on May 21st, 2011? You don't? Oh, right, that's because it didn't and Camping was a crackpot who used made up math and crazy to convince people that the end was nigh. Harmless fun, right? Well, when the world didn't end, he went back to his gin-fueled calculations, but the hundreds of his followers who sold their homes and cashed in their pensions to pay for billboards warning us about the Rapture were shit out of luck.

Who spilled the dressing?
It's Doris Lessing.

Oh, and can we talk a little about how the grim specter of death went to town on Earth's many authors this year? Like for real. British writer Doris Lessing died, so did crime writer Elmore Leonard and sci-fi novelist Frederik Pohl. Older white Republican men who wear tracksuits and love 'merica will have to muddle through without any new Tom Clancy novels. Also, Iain M. Banks, who's like one of my favorite authors ever died of cancer because cancer is an asshole. In an excellent move, astronomer and fan José Louis Galache got an asteroid named after him.

Also dead are Nelson Mandela and the opposite of Nelson Mandela, Margaret Thatcher. Speaking of world leaders, David Frost, the guy who rung an apology out of Richard Nixon is dead too, which I find a little suspicious. I'm not one to believe in zombies, but if Nixon was going to claw his way out of the grave to take revenge on someone...

Above: Richard Nixon mentally adding
David Frost to his Zombie Murder List.

No really, why is he on television
and not say, in an institution?

In abstract concepts, the world said good bye to sanity this year. Take, for example, this Canadian doctor who wants to clone John Lennon...from his rotten tooth. And then there was this radio host who accused Captain Kirk of bestiality for getting it on with aliens. And let's not forget about Pat Robertson who shed light on a secret plot (which he totally made up) by HIV positive people to spread the virus with razor sharp joy buzzers. Holy shit...I mean...just, holy shit, he's still on TV.

Speaking of crazy, I for one enjoyed watching the GOP, in a valiant effort to save us all from medical coverage, absolutely lose their shit over Obamacare. They were willing to plung the world into another economic catastrophe rather than see poor people go to the doctor.

Above: John Boehner crying like a child because
people have to be able to afford health insurance.

Tough luck religious people, better
luck next life...just kidding.

I hope you weren't attached to any particular religion because belief in such nonsense has been forever dashed by these scientists who've discovered that there's no afterlife and that anyone who believes in one is a stupid idiot. So much for that. Oh, and this group of scammers were quick to take advantage of the moral void left behind by religion when they promised a bunch of homeless people a free meal to help them get iPhone 5's (to sell overseas) and then didn't give them their damn sandwiches.

Authors, entertainers, world leaders and the last remaining ember of human compassion. Wow, 2013 had quite a body count, can't say I'm going to miss it. Also, 2014 means we're only a year away from hoverboards, so like Happy New Year.

Above: Future!