Rate the Doomsday Scenario

Bozhe moi! have I been posting a lot about God, religion, the rapture and what-not. This isn't surprising to me, especially the rapture part. It's not a question of belief. It's a question of annoyance. Allow me to explain.

I've always been obsessed with doomsday scenarios. Not judgment-day-rapture-repent! horsecrap, I mean things that could actually happen. As a kid it was nuclear war. Growing up in the early '80's I spent many a sleepless night waiting for the bombs to fall. Any time a test of the Emergency Broadcast System or the giant "Special Report" flashed on the TV screen, my stomach dropped and my heart raced. And when the made-for TV "The Day After" came out? fuhgeddabout it. I was inconsolable. What can I say, I was a nervous kid.

With the fall of the Soviet Union and the onset of puberty, I suppose I grew out of that fear and daily obsession. But I still spent plenty of time worrying about things that could REALLY happen.

And that brings me back to the annoyance part. I don't for one second believe that the world will end because some crackpot read about in a book of fables, but it does bother me that said crackpot receives so much attention. It was everywhere. Even on the friggin' Mets-Yankees Broadcast Friday night. [If you don't know who John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman are, count yourself among the truly blessed and fortunate.]

John Sterling: That's it from Yankee Stadium. We'll see you tomorrow, first pitch 7:05. That is, IF there's a tomorrow. -chortle, chortle-

Suzyn Waldman: Oh Jawn...

I find it immeasurably annoying that so much attention is heaped upon this heap of crap and zero attention is paid to actual dangers to human civilization. Heck, It was one of the first things I ever blogged about back in Aug., 2009.

So what am I going to do about this? I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to BLOG about it. That's right. I am going to present different doomsday scenarios that are actually plausible and rate them on whatever categories I want. I'll do this until it sort of fizzles out and I find something else to impotently rail against. God I hope Michelle Bachmann runs...

Anywho, I give you...Rate The Doomsday Scenario, part the first.


Scenario: Killer Asteroid.

Overview: The intergalactic game of billiards continues as it has for billions of years as a several miles wide hunk of iron slams into a planet. Only this time countless of conscious beings will be snuffed out of existence. And all the puppies, too!

Pros: Those lucky enough to be directly under the rock will be instantly atomized.

Cons: Those left behind will eventually starve to death as the ensuing cloud of debris will encircle the earth, blocking the sun and, subsequently, photosynthesis. Well, at least after the canned peaches run out.

Reality Check: It's only a matter of time. It's happened before, it'll happen again.

Can we stop it: There are plenty of theoretical techniques that could change the course of an asteroid enough to miss. Unfortunately, these techniques rely upon a big time advance notice. We're talking years, not next Teusday.

Rating: 8/10. cuz I say so.