Worst-Case Scenario

I'm often given pause by how casually some people use the phrase "worst-case scenario", and then proceed to describe some situation that is truly trivial.  For example: "with some traffic, worst-case scenario we'll get to the party an hour late".

The worst-case scenario, given everything that philosophy and science tells us about ourselves and the universe, would be the chance generation of a virus that infects the brains of human beings rendering them absolute hallucinatory schizophrenics.  Driven only by their instinct to eat and reproduce, yet forever tormented by imagined pains, visions and horrors existing only in their own minds, our world would be bereft of all remnants of humanity, save for the shuffling, brutish walking dead.

Some say this might have already happened, but at least in my version the rest of the universe is safe from us.

And speaking of space flight....

Are celebrity space boondoggles covered in real time by the media?