People are freaking the hell out. Not surprising given the reporting in the media… a combination of actual bad/scary news, and overblown hysterics. I am, perhaps oddly, fairly calm about things even though I know that if *I* catch the Wu Flu chances are pretty good it’ll kill me. Anyone been on this blog long enough may remember a number of bronchitis episodes some years ago that almost did me in then… something like the corona virus seems like it would ride the coattails of that issue to piledrive me straight into my grave. Yay. But a whole lot of people are losing their damned minds to panic. It is thus incumbent upon the media and the political leadership to try to put forward a calming influence.

And then THIS article comes out:

Asteroid Could Cause Atmospheric Explosion If It Gets Too Close

But the article *ends* with:

CNEOS said the asteroid is expected to approach Earth on March 18 at 11:15 p.m. EDT. During this time, the asteroid will fly past Earth from a distance of 0.04241 astronomical units or roughly 3.9 million miles from the planet’s center.

For frak’s sake. That’s not even close from an astronomical standpoint. There’s no valid math that would put that asteroid on anything like an impact trajectory, and thus “could” is in my opinion inaccurate to the point of dishonesty.