The original source seems to be here:
Huh. I bet there’s lots of rich folk wanting to rent this place out for a few months.
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:
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.
It’s almost like they’re taking this seriously.
Bonus round:
An interesting interactive map showing where there are confirmed cases, recoveries and deaths:
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
From the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Hmm. Supposed to be embedded here, but at least on my system it’s not displaying. Well, it’s available at the link above.
There are few enough stories of new government initiatives actually succeeding in doign anythign useful. Look at the SLS, for instance, But here, at last, is a project that has not only succeeded, it should be emulated:
The Bureau of Land Management, which deals almost exclusively with land issues in western states, wisely is moving form Washington D.C. to Grand Junction, Colorado. Given that the only reason to be in D.C. is to be near other government agencies, and nobody *needs* to be near other government agencies to do their jobs (since we have these things called telephones, fax machines, email video conferencing, etc.), moving to where the job is actually relevant makes all kinds of sense. And so in November 2019 173 employees were told that their jobs were moving and to reply by December if they were moving with them. As of December, about 80 had replied in the affirmative. With luck, the other 93 or so have been given the opportunity to explore new career opportunities.
And here’s the best bit:
(Interior Secretary David ) Bernhardt told lawmakers he has no concerns about unfilled positions, saying BLM is hiring at the local level to backfill any vacancies.
Good. Who would be best to understand the nature of BLM issues than someone from western states?
With the Wuhan Flu force-demonstrating the utility of telecommunications and also the need for decentralizing and de-densifying governmental systems, the BLM bailing from D.C. should be only the first in the scattering of the Fed Guv. NASA headquarters? Why not Montana? Social Security headquarters? Try Nashville. Or maybe Sioux City. Leave D.C. for just four things:
1: White House
2: Congress
3: Supreme Court
4: Museums
Spread the actual governmental apparatus around the whole country. This would play merry hell with lobbying… which would be a *good* thing.
A 100-watt lightbulb is no big deal, and quite often very insufficient to provide adequate lighting. But of you can make all one hundred of those watts into a single color, collimated into a series of parallel beams with a total cross sectional area of much less than one square inch, there is really only one rational category of response:
Perhaps Gropey Joe *didn’t* just fever-dream it up…
Our post just mysteriously disappeared, so here it is again! Also please go follow a true patriot @…
Posted by Next Level Armament on Wednesday, March 11, 2020
And the gullible… and the charlatans.
It’s a worldwide race to the bottom of the dumbucket:
Political tattoos are always going to be questionable, as anyone who got a Mondale, Dukakis, Perot or Palin tattoo can attest. And then there’s *this* which has the dual feature of not only being of temporary relevance, but also *immediately* recognizable as being in astonishingly poor taste:
What we have here is a Comrade Warren staffer who got a tattoo reading “#B7E4CF,” the hex color code for the color used by the Warren campaign.
And… yeah. Took about a millisecond for people with more awareness than her to realize what it actually looked like:
Smart to memorialize a decision they'll regret for the rest of their lives with a decision they'll regret for the rest of their lives.
— Jake Sperling (@Jake_Sperling) March 10, 2020