Slashdot Mirror
Asteroid 2004 MN4 May Hit Earth After All
ControlFreal writes "Asteroid 2004 MN4 was introduced earlier on Slashdot, and although scientists are now fairly certain that is will miss earth on April 13th, 2029, the modification to its orbit caused by Earth's gravity may still cause an impact one or a couple of orbits further down the road, the Times reports; the impact probabilities in 2035, 2036 of 2037 will not be known until the exact modification to its orbit is known; in 2029, that is. By then it may be too late for effective counter-measures.
An impact would cause an energy release equivalent to about 1 Gigaton of TNT (~4e+18 Joule), and while that won't cause a massive extinction event, it causes widespread devastation.
More info on 2004 MN4 can be found here and here."
Dear Slashdot: Please report some real news instead of copying other sites' postings. Thanks for nothing.
BTW, Here's my complaint about the newest of BushCo's war criminals: John Bolton.
I just want a little editorial balance here. Although not without overlap and simplification, I plan to identify three primary positions on John Bolton's objectives. I acknowledge that I have not accounted for all possible viewpoints within the parameters of these three positions. Nevertheless, Bolton's desire to reap a whirlwind of destroyed marriages, damaged children, and, quite possibly, a globe-wide expression of incurable sexually transmitted diseases is incontrovertible evidence that Bolton harbors some insidious grudges. Now that that's cleared up, I'll continue with what I was saying before, that some people think it's a bit extreme of me to detail the specific steps and objectives needed to thwart his ill-bred, odious little schemes -- a bit over the top, perhaps. Well, what I ought to remind such people is that Bolton is doing everything in his power to make me cry. The only reason I haven't yet is that I believe in the four P's: patience, prayer, positive thinking, and perseverance.
Although Bolton obviously hates my guts (and probably yours, as well), if Bolton had done his homework, he'd know that if he can one day infiltrate the media with the express purpose of disseminating atrabilious information, then the long descent into night is sure to follow. Although he has unfairly depicted me and those who share my beliefs as traitors and so-called experts, we are neither. Yes, we should give Bolton a taste of his own medicine, but his shell games are a mere cavil, a mere scarecrow, one of the last shifts of a desperate and dying cause. Even though he presents a public face that avoids overt tribalism, it seems clear that the issue of what to do about obdurate politicos is a hopelessly tangled and complicated issue, impossible to discuss due to the intensity with which each side holds its beliefs. But we ought to look at the matter in a broader framework before we draw final conclusions on the subject: We see that Bolton contends that his animadversions are not worth getting outraged about. Excuse me, but where exactly did this little factoid come from?
Here's an idea: Instead of giving him the ability to move sick revanchism from the moonstruck fringe into a realm of respectability, why don't we lead him out of a dream world and back to hard reality? If we do, we'll then be able to expose the connections between the pudibund problems that face us and the key issues of extremism and credentialism. In the end, we have to ask, "Why can't Bolton live among us in peace?" A complete answer to that question would take more space than I can afford, so I'll have to give you a simplified answer. For starters, unless Bolton provides unequivocal evidence to the contrary, I will continue to insist that his machinations appeal to people who are fearful about the world's political and economic situation and long for simple solutions to complex problems. That's pretty transparent. What's not so transparent is the answer to the following question: To what depths of depravity does he need to descend before the rest of us realize we must stop the Huns at the gate? A clue might be that I respect the English language and believe in the use of words as a means of communication. Stuck-up lunkheads like him, however, consider spoken communication as merely a set of noises uttered to excite emotions in the most brusque bohemians you'll ever see in order to convince them to pose a threat to personal autonomy and social development. I suspect that another piece of supporting evidence is that investigators who have spent many years attempting to penetrate the dark recesses of his lawless underworld frequently conclude that it is incumbent upon all of us to confront his demands head-on. My views, of course, are not the issue here. The issue is that if we let him poke and pry into every facet of our lives, all we'll have to
They misspelled "paternity"!
Sounds good to me as long as Natalie Portman is in my bunker.
If I mod something funny as Insightful or Informative, it is because I love irony. I couldn't give a rat's ass about karma. I will post this with the karma bonus for no reason whatsoever.
Texas isn't that bad. It's been made to look bad lately because the Bushes moved there, but they're not even Texan: they're from New England.
Personally, I think the USA should reorganize itself into larger regions with greater autonomy from each other, and from the federal government. The federal government should be drastically reduced in size and scope, so that it only provides for defense, space exploration, international treaties and diplomacy, etc. The rest should be handled by the semi-autonomous regions, which are large groups of states in a region: Texas, Alaska, and California would probably be their own regions; other states would be parts of larger regions, such as New England, the Mid-Atlantic, the Southeast, the Southwest, the Pacific Northwest, the Ohio area, the Dakotas area, etc. This way, people wouldn't be able to complain that their tax money is used to pave roads in a totally different part of the country, or whatever. Taxes from your state wouldn't be wasted on infrastructure in slacker states in another region because some politician there wants to create jobs by building unneeded roads. Laws that make sense in your region wouldn't be overruled by Federal laws because some activists on the other coast think they know what's best for everyone (like California trying to legalize pot but the Fed overruling them). If people are pissed off by their politicians, they won't have far to look for blame because most of the decisions affecting them are being made by politicians located within a couple hundred miles, not 3000 miles away on the other coast, and the total number of politicians affecting them will be less.