I wonder why this story was sent out today? Oh my God, the end is near and they don’t want to tell us. Thank the Lord, I know duck and cover.
Our only hope is to burn down the observatory!
As much as I would like to burn down the observatory, or any building, I need to know. I’m counting on the last minute deathbed confession to slide under the gate after maximizing a lifetime of heathenism, wickedness, idolatry, impiety, villany, prolixity, verbosity, and redundancy.
I vote for tell us. Actually I vote for tell Zebra and give him a 48 hour head start on the rest of the planet.
What’s the big deal? Won’t SDI protect us? That’s what it was really for, right??
I’ve got my torch and pitchfork! Let’s go!
Remember this threat the next time you hear a politician or a neighbor say that the space program is a waste of money. With a good space program, we’d be able to see those bad boys coming in time and turn them away (all the while mining the gold and even more precious metals out of them.)
Yup. That’s what I’ll say when the sky is blotted out by THE BIG ONE and we all have seconds to live. “Good thing we saved all that money,” I’ll say.
Space program is too expensive… grumble grumble grumble…
Besides, if they warned everybody, they might lose their grant.
In this case, I’m with the “ignorance is bliss” crowd. If there is truely nothing that can be done about it, I’d rather be totally happy up until the point I’m vaporized.
This story is NEWS? On CNN? In their Science and Space Section?Complete with an “Artist’s concept of a killer asteroid strike.”
This is beyond idiocy. I hereby vow to never, ever watch or read anything affiliated with CNN.
filmore - I’m with you. Why be stressed beyond belief if there’s nothing that can be done?
From the link provided - " Yet collisions with such monster rocks are rare. They take place about only once every 1 million years or so."
Let’s hope our million isn’t up yet…
So, pravnik, you’re saying we due to be hit by 64 of those suckers all at once?
Where’s my little umbrella and my sign saying “Mother!”?
ugh.
:: ups the tranquilizer dosage::
I was having a good day. These things grab hold of me like barbed wire.
Depends on what they mean by “not enough time”…
If it means we’re all toast in a couple of weeks or even a couple of days, I want to know. There’s no freakin’ way I want to waste time on things like work, paying bills, etc. I’d rather spend it with family, get that “oh crap” confession in, etc.
If it means we’re all toast in an hour or two and I can’t even get home from work, then don’t tell me…
How could a person writing an article both write, “we got one 65 million years ago that killed the dinosaurs,” and, “we get one about every million years”? Don’t they even read what they write?
Anyway, tell us. They might think it’s positively hopeless, and there’s nothing that can be done, but they don’t know for sure.
Boy. SeaSorbust would be all over this thread.
Of note, there is a GD about this going on right now http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=166297
Oh my God…go and look out of the window…
Well, before you begin your boycott consider that the BBC covered the same story 14 days ago with an even better artists rendition of the Earth getting walloped.
If they don’t tell us, and we do find out then I vote for us rounding up all the scientists who knew and putting them in prison for their last few years. The nerve robbing us of our rights as an adult to decide for ourselves how to spend our last few months on this planet with full knowledge of what the future holds.