Big Rock Gives Earth a Close Call

An asteroid the size of the one that struck Siberia 100 years ago (and exploded with the force of 1,000 nukes) came within 50,000 miles of the planet yesterday. While that may sound far off, it's a near miss in astronomical terms...being only twice the distance from the surface as our satellites.

Which leads me to the question...if an asteroid was about to hit the Earth, who would you call:

Robert Duvall (Capt. "Fish" Tanner)

or

Bruce Willis (Harry Stamper)?

TEOTWAWKI*

*The End of the World As We Know It.

There are people who beleive that the world will end sometime later this year through 2010. Here are a few theories:

According to the Weekly world News for 2001-FEB-13, the rapture will occur on the 7th hour of the 7th day of the 7th month of the Hebrew calendar year that corresponds to 2007 CE. Jesus will appear simultaneously in Jerusalem, Baghdad, Washington, Moscow and in every other capital city of the world.

2008-MAR-21: After a lengthy calculation based on the Bible, a British group, The Lord's Witnesses, has concluded that the start of Armageddon will happen on this day. Three quarters of the world's population will die during the subsequent war. This will be preceded by the United Nations taking over complete control of the world

2009-AUG-29: John Dutchman claims to be an astronomer at the Mount Wilson Observatory. He allegedly believes that a small star is passing through the Oort Cloud, the area surrounding the solar system where comets originate. He says that the gravitational pull of the star is forcing at least a third of all of the comets into the sun -- over one million. He predicts that the earth will be hit by from one to many hundreds of comets, ranging in size from 100 meters to near 600 miles in diameter. He expects the collisions to happen on 2009-AUG-29.

2010: Phil Stone of Bible Time interprets the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37 symbolically. He computes the date of the second coming of Jesus as being 2,000 years after Jesus' visit to the Temple at the age of 12 in the year 12. Because the Biblical calendar is slightly shorter than the Solar calendar, we hit the 'two day" mark in 2010..." Actually, the situation is even more dire than he computes. Most theologians believe that Jesus was born between 4 and 7 BCE. This means that Jesus could return at any minute.

Uh-oh. Look busy.

Via Religious Tolerance dot org