Disasters Real And Imagined

It's going to be in the 80s (Fahrenheit, of course) here in the Northwest today, and for some reason I haven't felt much like blogging this morning. Thankfully, there are plenty of people who have been imagining how bad things could be, so I don't feel like I need to apply my imagination in that direction today.

Our first disaster warning is a real one, from Ian Welsh. He manages to sum up our federal government in a single sentence:

Instead of dealing with real problems, instead of tackling the medical industry or the military-industrial complex, instead of fixing the job situation, they want to steal money from old people.

Social Security Trustees Report: No Social Security Crisis

Anyone who doesn't recognize the reality of that statement hasn't been paying much attention recently. I've mentioned all this often enough already. I just haven't done it quite so succinctly.

Those dumb enough not to be concerned about our government's priorities probably will probably be scared shitless by this next bit of imagination gone wild:



Yes, someone, we're not sure who, sets one of the largest asteroids in the solar system on fire and steers it toward Earth. How would that turn out?

Personally, I could have figured that one out on my own. The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was about 10km in diameter, which works out to it having about 50,000 times less mass than this asteroid. It would be bad. Somewhere out there, though, there was someone who felt the need to apply a lot of imagination and computer graphics to making sure we knew that it would really suck to be us that day.

I love the eerie, screamy, Pink Floyd The Dark Side Of The Moon soundtrack, too.

Fortunately, there aren't very many bodies in the solar system that are larger than this, and we know where they are. None are headed in our direction, and, with some notable exceptions, most aren't on fire.

Thanks for that image, PZ.