Random Thoughts

Comets, Climate Change and Congress

My inner science geek (usually deeply buried) has surfaced:

“The evidence is pretty strong that the Earth was hit by a comet in 1908.”

Ever since something generated a huge explosion over Siberia in 1908, flattening an area as big as a large city, scientists have been trying to figure out what caused it.

Among the enduring mysteries: Following the explosion, the night skies shone brightly for several nights across Europe all the way to London, 3,000 miles away…

The explosion on June 30, 1908, flattened some 500,000 acres (2,000 square kilometers) of Siberian forest. Estimates are the Tunguska Event was as strong as at least 10 megatons of TNT and perhaps a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.Just last year, many experts were figuring it was an asteroid.

But Kelley’s team thinks a comet fits better, since comets are loaded with water ice (asteroids are mostly rock and metals). The comet would have started to break up at about the same altitude as the release of the exhaust plume from the space shuttle following launch, they calculate. In both cases, water vapor was injected into the atmosphere.

But how did the water vapor travel so far?

“There is a mean transport of this material for tens of thousands of kilometers in a very short time, and there is no model that predicts that,” Kelley said. “It’s totally new and unexpected physics.”

Cool.

The Tunguska Event and its cause create serious ramifications for the global climate change theory. Never say it; the concept that *gasp* nature itself could be behind climate change is unthinkable. Can’t get any tax money from evaporated comets, can we.

His death was not a tragedy

I’m waiting for the hype over Michael Jackson’s death to stop filling the TV/radio/newspapers, ’cause really.  Rachel Lucas sums up an attitude pretty close to mine, based on Jonah Goldberg who clarified exactly why the fuss over Jackson is so pathetic.

Brian Suits (filling in for John & Ken) on KFI 640 AM gave the best eulogistic response I’ve heard:

Yesterday, a wealthy, talented pedophile died. His wealth and talent kept him out of jail, but just barely. An overwhelming majority of you seconded my repulsion of the fast growing list of celebrity mourners declaring his demise a “surprising tragedy.” A handful of you chose to send me notes of disapproval for even reminding people of Mr. Jackson’s disgusting sexual appetites. If you were one of those offended, I’m sorry. I’m sorry you don’t understand why so many of are disgusted by the outpouring of surprise and shock at the death of a drug addicted pederast.

A tragedy is when someone is taken unexpectedly before their time, leaving behind great promise and no victims. A tragedy is when a box full of puppies falls and breaks the neck of a mime. Poor puppies. But when a goulish, self-mutilating molester finally succumbs to the drugs he’s relied upon for several decades in order to function in his freakish world, that’s called an eventuality. His tragedy was the waste of potential of his life, the syncophants who profited from his abyss, and lastly, the millions of fans who can’t acknowledge that it was his flaws that should define him.

Everyone forgets Vlad the Impaler’s good side. That’s what drinking blood will do to your legacy.

If you’re mystified why I can’t join the weepy throng of celebrity stalkers pantomiming grief and loss, it’s because I didn’t lose anything yesterday. I wasn’t related to him, my paycheck doesn’t rely on his box office, and he never touched my bathing suit place. I have lost close to a dozen friends and comrades in the war on terror, occasionally right in front of me. They were strangers to you, but they stood between unspeakable evil and your family. I would trade a hundred Michael Jacksons for just one of them back.

“Can’t you respect the dead?” one grief stricken troll has asked. “Sure,” I answered, “If they didn’t leave any victims.” Besides the greedy parents who served their children to Mr. Jackson like an appetizer on a Big Wheel, there are real victims out there in Southern California watching this grotesque celebration of a singing Caligula.

Meanwhile, BrentwoodWhiteBroncoUSCMVP32@NevadaPrisons.gov emails “But a court found him ‘Not Guilty’!” Yeah. That’s why he paid out 25 million dollars to one of his victims, because he didn’t do it. Innocent men move to Florida, I hear.

Every society reserves special disgust towards those who prey on our children. No matter what strata of society they dwell, they’re still monsters. Monsters never know they’re monsters. That’s why they’re scary. It’s the people who tell the monster “You’re not doing anything wrong” that scare me the most.

If Charles Manson had 13 number one singles, he might be a free man. Instead he’s a failed songwriter-slash-mass murderer. Luckily for us he can’t dance.

And that’s all I care to say about the matter. I’m now hoping we have some huge newsworthy event to overshadow the celeb mourning. Like maybe Obama could kill a spider on camera or something. It doesn’t take much to fascinate the public.

Neighborhood Nazis

I live in a neighborhood with an HOA (home owner’s association, for those of you in rural America). It sets all kinds of rules, some sensible (no painting your house turquoise) others silly (no permanent basketball hoops on driveways). Privately, I call the people on my HOA the “neighborhood nazis” because they can get a little carried away with enforcing the rules. But I’ve never run into this level of assininity:

H/T Brutally Honest.

If I was unfortunate enough to live under the despot running that neighborhood, he/she/it would rue the day.  And putting retaliatory stickers on his/her/it’s car would be just the beginning.

I’d start with a few of these on the HOA prez’s bumper…

No, it’s  not subtle, but someone who thinks that a sticker saying “Semper Fi” is advertising is not going to benefit from subtlety.