Posted 12:58 PM by Gene

eBay prospects the dark side of humans again: Since yesterday there has been fierce trading on any memorabilia (not debris; Meg [pronounced "mug"] Whitman's goody-goodies would never permit that! ha ha) connected to Columbia. The shuttle astronauts aren't even buried and the sound of KA-CHING!! rings over their dead bodies. There have been many disallowed (read fake) bids. One coin with a listed price of $25,100 is going for $2,025. Meg will insist, we can't stop every unscrupulous seller, or buyer, and she'll point once again to the fig leaf in the Community page, that outrageous statement that "all people are basically good." She forgets eBay people. The site suffered a grievous blow to its reputation after 9/11, when anything and everything did sell, and it took weeks to get all the offensive listings off, and Meg started a PR charity fundraiser that she suspended when it didn't bring the requisite money. eBay can do nothing wrong now, but enough scams and trading off the dead and it will be in the same boat as porn sites -- which are sometimes, compared to eBay, respectable.