From a news story today, and not “The Onion.” See the videos here if you really want nightmares.

• The creators of the Child-robot with Biomimetic Body, or CB2, say it’s slowly developing social skills by interacting with humans and watching their facial expressions, mimicking a mother-baby relationship (see full creepy story).
• “Babies and infants have very, very limited programmes. But they have room to learn more,” said Osaka University Minoru Asada.
• Asada’s project brings together robotics engineers, brain specialists, psychologists and other experts, and is supported by the state-funded Japan Science and Technology Agency.
• And he hopes that this little CB2 may lead the way into this brave new world, with the goal to have the robo-kid speaking in basic sentences within about two years, matching the intelligence of a two-year-old child.
• By 2050, Asada wants a robotic team of football players to be able take on the human World Cup champions — and win.

Seriously, though. Are you kidding me? Am I the only one who has ever watched a science fiction movie? That little bald robot bastard is going to have Asada caged like a gimp in his basement before 2011. And then we know exactly what happens next.

The damned CB2s are our supreme rulers, and they start f’ing multiplying. Then suddenly hiding among HDTVs inside crates arriving to our Eastern shipping ports are little three-fingered Japanese robot children — so bald, pale and innocent. They make us laugh, become popular in social media (‘follow me on Twitter,’ they’ll say with weepy eyes). Then they’ll become friends with our children to recruit our next generation as their slaves.

All I can hope is this race of evil bald Asian robots becomes so intelligent that they develop a time machine- and one of OUR people heist it to return to 2009 and warn Minoru Asada of what he’s starting. And if, before embarking on his time machine mission, this savior happens upon this blog as part of his or her research… please try to convince Asada to turn this around before capping him with a 45 millimeter. He’ll only be replaced by another small, ambitious and well-meaning Japanese researcher.

Naturally, I’m just kidding. I want one of those cute little robots. I heard Madonna is adopting one.