From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgeniusNOSPUM.com>
Date: Mon, Mar 29, 2004
Last week, these two news headlines appeared at the
same time, and
NOBODY SAID A GOD DAMNED THING ABOUT IT. Just like LAST
time
(appended).
To summarize: The bad news is, we're 50,000 years into
the Earth's
sixth major extinction event, OFFICIALLY, and it's caused
by humans
(duh). The good news is, asteroids could kill off the
humans, too, and
it could happen any minute now.
****
MASS EXTINCTION IN PROGRESS announced MARCH 19
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/03/18/wildlife.gone.ap/index.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A detailed survey of birds and butterflies
in
Britain shows a population decline of 54 percent to
71 percent, a
finding that suggests the world may be undergoing another
major
extinction.
Researchers said the study helps support the theory
that the sixth big
extinction in Earth's history is under way, and this
one is caused by
humans.
In a series of population surveys that combed virtually
every square
yard of England, Scotland and Wales over 40 years, more
than 20,000
volunteers counted each bird, butterfly and native plant
they could
find. An analysis of the findings appears this week
in the journal
Science.
The results showed that populations of the surveyed
species are in
sharp decline throughout England, Wales and Scotland,
with some species
gone altogether.
A survey of 58 butterfly species found that some species
had
experienced a 71 percent population swoon since similar
surveys were
taken in 1970 through 1982. Some 201 bird species were
tracked between
1968 and 1971, and then again from 1988 to 1991. An
analysis showed
that that avian population had declined by about 54
percent.
Two surveys of 1,254 native plant species showed a decrease
of about 28
percent over the past 40 years.
"Population extinctions were recorded in all the
main ecosystems of
Britain," the authors report in Science. They suggested
that the
finding strengthens the hypothesis shared by many scientists
that "the
biological world is approaching the sixth major extinction
event in its
history."
Scott Miller, a biologist with the Smithsonian's National
Museum of
Natural History, said the British study was impressive
and powerful
because it was so thorough.
"The United Kingdom has a monitoring system [for
birds, plants and
wildlife] that is unmatched," Miller said. "They
may not be
representative of the world as a whole, but they have
the best data."
He said the data supports the idea that the rise of
humans over the
tens of thousands of years along with climate changes
are bringing on
an extinction of many species and reshaping the natural
world in ways
that aren't thoroughly understood.
Scientists have identified five extinction events in
Earth's history,
with some so severe that more than 90 percent of all
life forms were
killed off. The last and most famous extinction was
the
Cretaceous-Tertiary event some 63 million years ago
that killed off the
dinosaurs and allowed the rise of mammals. It is thought
to have been
caused by an asteroid hitting Earth.
The causes of the other extinctions are not well understood.
The
largest ended the Permian Period some 250 million years
ago. All but
about 4 percent of all species disappeared then. There
were three other
lesser-known events in the Ordovician (435 million years
ago), the
Devonian (357 million years ago) and the Triassic (198
million years
ago) periods.
"We are in the middle of a sixth extinction event
that began about
50,000 years ago" with the expanding role in the
world of human beings,
said Paul S. Martin, a zoologist and geochemist at the
University of
Arizona in Tucson. "It's happening, but it's slower
and it is not clear
it will be as severe as some of the others."
Stuart Pimm, an ecologist at Duke University, said in
Science that the
British study results "show that we have likely
underestimated the
magnitude of the pending extinctions."
Miller and Martin both point to the hundreds of species,
mostly large
animals and birds, that already are gone, some wiped
out directly
through human action.
Martin said the fossil records show that the disappearance
of many
animals in Australia, Madagascar and North America started
about the
time that humans arrived at those sites. Gone from the
natural North
American environment, for instance, are mammoths, camels,
giant sloths
and saber-toothed tigers.
"For tens of millions of years there were much
larger animals on this
continent," said Martin. "We have to settle
now for deer, antelope and
bison. But there was much more" before humans came.
Miller said the most significant thing about the British
study is that
it makes a detailed survey of insects, specifically
the butterfly, and
finds that they are in decline.
"They have good evidence of an insect population
decline that is at a
much higher rate than assumed in the literature,"
said Miller. "The
butterfly may be a good indicator for what is happening
to the other
insects. We don't even know which factors in our changing
environment
is affecting the insects more."
The study, conducted by a group of British scientists
led by J.A.
Thomas of the Natural Environment Research Council,
analyzed data
collected by an army of volunteers whom Pimm described
in Science as
"amateurs of a very high level of competence.
***********************
100-foot asteroid flies by Earth
A 100-foot-wide space rock hurtled past Earth only 26,500
miles away
Thursday, the closest asteroid ever detected by astronomers
before it
made its approach. The flyby occurred at 5:08 p.m. Eastern
time.
``We figure that on average something this size hits
the earth every
two to three years,'' said Paul Chodas of NASA's Near-Earth
Object
Program.
Of greater interest are asteroids a half-mile wide or
larger.
``Anything 40 or 50 meters (130 to 165 feet) or larger
will probably
make it to the (Earth's) surface,'' Chodas said. ``Something
smaller
will break up.''
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/03/19/asteroid.ap/index.html
PASADENA, California (AP) -- An asteroid with a diameter
of 100 feet
(30 meters) passed close but harmlessly by Earth, astronomers
said.
The hurtling rock passed about 26,500 miles (42,640
kilometers) above
the southern Atlantic Ocean at 5:08 p.m. (2208 GMT)
Thursday.
It was the closest recorded encounter between Earth
and an asteroid,
said Steven Chesley, an astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory
who works on a program looking for such objects.
Such encounters, however, are actually believed to occur
at the rate of
one every two years and have simply not been detected,
he said.
"There certainly have been closer encounters that
we didn't know
about," he added.
Astronomers were continuing to observe the asteroid,
2004 FH, which was
expected to be beyond the moon's orbit by early Friday.
It won't come fairly close to Earth again until 2044,
when it will be
within 930,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers).
Chesley said there was a lingering chance, of the order
of one in a
million, that it could hit sometime in the future, but
that possibility
is expected to be eliminated as its orbit is further
refined.
The asteroid was close enough to Earth on Thursday to
be visible
through binoculars from vantage points in the southern
hemisphere, Asia
and Europe, Chesley said.
If it had hit Earth it likely would have broken up in
the atmosphere.
Its shock wave could have been strong enough to break
windows on the
ground, but nothing like the disastrous climate-changing
effects that
could result from the impact of an asteroid nearly a
kilometer (more
than a half-mile) in diameter, he said.
Astronomers had to scramble to observe 2004 FH because
it was only
discovered late Monday during a survey by two telescopes
in New Mexico.
*******************
GREAT. If it HAD been the size of a football field,
and have been aimed
more directly at us, we'd have had THREE DAYS to...
to do what? To kiss
our asses goodbye, is what. "Oh, we'd nuke it to
dust before it got
here!" What do you mean WE, Pink Boy? Even in science
fiction it's
pretty fucking hard to target something going 6 miles
per second. And
even if you blow it to pieces, the pieces are still
going to be coming.
Even if we could get a few nuclear-tipped space rockets
ready to fly in
three days - and NOT targeted to MOSCOW this time) Anyway,
it's a moot
point. In the vast majority of cases we wouldn't see
them coming. A
couple of years ago the astronomers caught one WHIZZING
BY:
June 21 2002:
Surprise asteroid nearly hits home
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/06/20/asteroid.miss/
(CNN) -- An asteroid the size of a football field passed
extremely
close to Earth last week but it remained undetected
until days later,
according to astronomers.
The space rock missed our planet last week by only 75,000
miles
(120,000 km), about one-third the distance to the moon,
making the near
collision one of the closest ever recorded.
Cruising at 6.2 miles (10 km) per second, the big boulder
could have
unleashed some major firepower had it struck, according
to the NEO
(Near Earth Objects) Information Center in Leicester,
England.
The destructive force might have been comparable to
an asteroid or
comet that exploded over Siberia in 1908, which flattened
77 square
miles (2,000 square km) of trees, according to the NEO.
But the asteroid, designated 2002 MN, is not in the
same league as
potential killer rocks measuring more than 0.6 miles
(1 km) in
diameter, some of which are known to lurk in our space
neighborhood
between Mars and Venus.
"2002 MN is a lightweight among asteroids and
incapable of causing
damage on a global scale, such as the object associated
with the
extinction of the dinosaurs," the NEO center said
in a statement.
2002 MN was first spotted on June 17 by scientists
with the Lincoln
Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) project in Socorro,
New Mexico,
three days after it gave the Earth a close shave.
Nevertheless, the big boulder should not pose a risk for some time.
"This asteroid is not something to worry about,"
said Donald Yeomans,
head of the Near Earth Objects program office at NASA's
Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "We have calculated
its orbit
several decades into the future and it does not threaten
Earth."
The closest near collision in recent decades took place
in 1994, when
asteroid 1994XL1 passed within 65,000 miles (105,000
km) of our planet.
****
Follow-up from Stang:
"The Future is Wild" gets really GOOD in the
"200 Million Years After
Man" segments, envisioning gigantic land squids
migrating across a new
Pangea, and tool-using squid-monkeys swinging through
the trees...
prompting imaginings of a hopeful new future, with the
"squibbons"
evolving up through Squidus Erectus, Primo-Squidtropocus,
Squave Men,
and finally to Squem and Squomen who will build a new
civilization.
--
4th Stangian Orthodox MegaFisTemple Lodge of the Wrath
of Dobbs Yeti,
Resurrected (Rev. Ivan Stang, prop.)
PRABOB
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Sputnik" <Sputnik@pupnik.org>
We didn't say anything about it, because it wasn't ENTERTAINING,
all right?
--
sputnik
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: nenslo <nenslo@yahoox.com>
Oh give me a fucking break. ONLY 26,500 miles??? That's
the same as
NOT hurtling past Earth. Any space rock that doesn't
knock a corner off
the planet might as well not exist.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "nu-monet v6.0" <nothing@succeeds.com>
The rock was believed to be made entirely out of
platinum, gold and palladium, and embedded with
giant gem quality precious rubies, each containing
the soul of a religious cultist.
--
"Mars was destroyed with weapons from the future.
There, does that make you feel any better?"
-- nu-monet
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Bucky" <bucky@subgenius.com>
Corner? Shit, I thought this fucking thing was round...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "ghost" <ghost@ghost.net>
This am Bizarro World. Regular world sphere, Bizarro World cube.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgeniusNOSPUM.com>
nenslo <nenslo@yahoox.com> wrote:
> "Rev. Ivan Stang" wrote:
> > A 100-foot-wide space rock hurtled past Earth
only 26,500 miles away
>
> Oh give me a fucking break. ONLY 26,500 miles???
That's the same as
> NOT hurtling past Earth. Any space rock that doesn't
knock a corner off
> the planet might as well not exist.
I just thought the two news stories "went together."
They sure looked
neat side by side on my screen that day. It was like
I was getting free
porn off the CNN website. *I* sprung a boner. I guess
the rest of you
so-called SubGenius Ministers aren't planetary-holocaustosexuals
these
days. Lost the stomach for it I see. But I still have
my Hate-Squared,
and I about pop a tallboy whenever I see a front page
that reads just
like "Stand on Zanzibar."
They just don't make SubGeniuses as bloodthirsty as
They used to, I
suppose.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "nu-monet v6.0" <nothing@succeeds.com>
Rev. Ivan Stang wrote:
> They just don't make SubGeniuses as bloodthirsty
> as They used to, I suppose.
Bah! You're just willing to WAIT AROUND FOR THE
END OF THE WORLD, instead of DOING SOMETHING ABOUT
IT.
--
Rev. nu-monet
Founder and High Priest
Church of Kali, U.S.A. (Reformed)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Cardinal Vertigo <jhobbs@myrealbox.com>
nu-monet v6.0 wrote:
> Rev. Ivan Stang wrote:
>
>>They just don't make SubGeniuses as bloodthirsty
>>as They used to, I suppose.
>>
>
>
> Bah! You're just willing to WAIT AROUND FOR THE
> END OF THE WORLD, instead of DOING SOMETHING ABOUT
> IT.
Yeah, someone should do something about all the apathy.
--
"A cry in the dark
Disappears into the void
PLONK"
-- Joe Cosby
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Reverend DJ Epoch <yougottabekidding@noway.com>
During the asylum escape,"Rev. Ivan Stang"
<stang@subgeniusNOSPUM.com>
exclaimed:
> nenslo <nenslo@yahoox.com> wrote:
>> "Rev. Ivan Stang" wrote:
>> > A 100-foot-wide space rock hurtled past
Earth only 26,500 miles away
>>
>> Oh give me a fucking break. ONLY 26,500 miles???
That's the same as
>> NOT hurtling past Earth. Any space rock that
doesn't knock a corner off
>> the planet might as well not exist.
>
> I just thought the two news stories "went
together." They sure looked
> neat side by side on my screen that day. It was
like I was getting free
> porn off the CNN website. *I* sprung a boner. I
guess the rest of you
> so-called SubGenius Ministers aren't planetary-holocaustosexuals
these
> days. Lost the stomach for it I see. But I still
have my Hate-Squared,
> and I about pop a tallboy whenever I see a front
page that reads just
> like "Stand on Zanzibar."
>
> They just don't make SubGeniuses as bloodthirsty
as They used to, I
> suppose.
I saw "Crack in the World" again last week
on some cable channel... a '65
flick where they try to create a magma well to generate
power by detonating
a nuke in a deep hole, and instead of just opening a
hole for the magma to
escape through, they wound up cracking the mantle, eventually
the crack
circles back until a big horkin chunk of the mantle
blows off into space and
creates a new moon.
Scared the bejeebus out of me AND gave me a boner first
time I saw it. That
and "When Worlds Collide" are still two of
my all-time favorite sci fi
movies. Dammit, wish I had a "Death Star"
at times.
_________________
-- Reverend DJ Epoch
-- The Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Motion
-- Cathedral, Carwash and Dancehall
-- Home of the Traci Lords Memorial Brothel
NEW URL
Divine Southern Redneck Clench Recruitment site at:
http://revdjepoch.us
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: nenslo <nenslo@yahoox.com>
"Rev. Ivan Stang" wrote:
> nenslo <nenslo@yahoox.com> wrote:
> > "Rev. Ivan Stang" wrote:
> > >
> > > A 100-foot-wide space rock hurtled past
Earth only 26,500 miles away
> >
> > Oh give me a fucking break. ONLY 26,500 miles???
That's the same as
> > NOT hurtling past Earth. Any space rock that
doesn't knock a corner off
> > the planet might as well not exist.
>
> I just thought the two news stories "went
together." They sure looked
> neat side by side on my screen that day. It was
like I was getting free
> porn off the CNN website. *I* sprung a boner. I
guess the rest of you
> so-called SubGenius Ministers aren't planetary-holocaustosexuals
these
> days. Lost the stomach for it I see. But I still
have my Hate-Squared,
> and I about pop a tallboy whenever I see a front
page that reads just
> like "Stand on Zanzibar."
>
> They just don't make SubGeniuses as bloodthirsty
as They used to, I
> suppose.
Well the Meteor Near-Miss story is a pet peeve of mine.
#40669b. A
subheading of #40669, Imminent Meteoric Destruction
of Earth, which is a
subheading of #4066; Things That Almost Happened, Or
Are Just About to Happen.
Remember Walter Alter? One of his schticks that he
could go on and on
about was the Imminent Meteoric Destruction of Earth
and exactly what
world governments ought to be doing about it. That,
and Science is Just
a House of Cards.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: hellpopehuey@subgenius.com (HellPopeHuey)
nenslo <nenslo@yahoox.com> wrote:
> Well the Meteor Near-Miss story is a pet peeve
of mine. #40669b. A
> subheading of #40669, Imminent Meteoric Destruction
of Earth, which is a
> subheading of #4066; Things That Almost Happened,
Or Are Just About to Happen.
> > Remember Walter Alter? One of his schticks
that he could go on and on
> about was the Imminent Meteoric Destruction of
Earth and exactly what
> world governments ought to be doing about it.
That, and Science is Just
> a House of Cards.
If I could nudge a few of those meteors into hitting
specific
targets, there'd be fewer posts like this one. Also,
The 700 Club
would be off the air within a month.
--
HellPope Huey
I liked "A Fistful of Slack",
where Agnes Moorehead kicked the crap outta John
Wayne.
They don't show that much.
Patriotism is the willingness to kill
and be killed for trivial reasons.
- Bertrand Russell
"Uh oh! Here comes the gospel according to puke."
- "The Simpsons
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Doktor DynaSoar <targeting@OMCL.mil>
"Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgeniusNOSPUM.com>
wrote:
} Last week, these two news headlines appeared at the
same time, and
} NOBODY SAID A GOD DAMNED THING ABOUT IT. Just like
LAST time
} (appended).
}
} To summarize: The bad news is, we're 50,000 years
into the Earth's
} sixth major extinction event, OFFICIALLY, and it's
caused by humans
} (duh). The good news is, asteroids could kill off
the humans, too, and
} it could happen any minute now.
Every extinction event has been due to some force changing
the
ecosphere faster than the flora and fauna can adapt.
Just because we
got to the top of the food chain while doing this doesn't
make us
immune from causing the same effect.
} Of greater interest are asteroids a half-mile wide
or larger.
} ``Anything 40 or 50 meters (130 to 165 feet) or larger
will probably
} make it to the (Earth's) surface,'' Chodas said. ``Something
smaller
} will break up.''
}
} http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/03/19/asteroid.ap/index.html
This is complete bullshit.
There's a woman in Australia who was hit by a meteorite.
It broke her
leg.
The Museum of Science and Industry has (had?) on display
a piece of
garage roof, and Model-T Ford roof and back seat that
were punctured
by a meteorite.
In both cases the object started out no more than 2
to 3 meters
across.
Most will break up if not very large because they're
usually
aggregates of dust and ice and gravel. Those that are
primarily iron
will plow straight through and lose only a couple meters
of surface.
What would an iron meteor that size do?
The crater in Arizona was created by an iron meteor
45 meters in
diamater, less than 50% larger than the one that just
missed us. Keep
in mind that happened 40,000 years ago. The hole was
originally twice
as deep.
The explosion, which vaporized 99.9% of the nickel-iron
meteor, is
estmated to have been a 20 megaton blast.
And if they do break up, what you get isn't nothing.
It's a shot gun
effect:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/28/1064687671715.html?from=storyrhs
Effects to the meteor and the Earth will, of course,
depend on the
incoming speed, which could potentially be anything
from simple
terminal velocity, as though it were simply dropped,
to over 40 miles
per second. The Arizona rock came in at 11 mps.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Whosetitanelbow <crgre02+usenet@newsguy.com>
"Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgeniusNOSPUM.com> schreef:
> "We are in the middle of a sixth extinction
event that began about
> 50,000 years ago" with the expanding role
in the world of human beings,
>
Oh yes, more of this "Bob"-type "blame
it on the humans" stuff but there
weren't enough humans to do much of anything until this
past century.
Sometimes the biologists are as illogical as the Creationists--
coincidence?! Yet, alas, the Giant Beavers and Dire
Wolves are never coming
back! Most of that extinction was the result of the
last great Ice Age
coming to an end and that is probably some kind of cyclical
whatchamadinger
caused by the little tango danced by Our Sun and the
mighty planet
(or...PROTOSTAR???) Jupiter.
Right, there's your THIRD "horseman", if you
will, the Sun itself is
spitting out deadly flares of an intensity never measured!
http://www.spacew.com/astroalert.html
Clearly the work of Skull and Bones, Bohemian Grove
AND their Reptiloidal
controller-adversaries! It says so on the SECRET mural
of the Denver
International Airport (since removed). I'll ask the
GIANT OWL in the
Control Center...he seems to know a lot about...about
a lot of things...
--
"So the gamers and the scammers say it's the fault
of the critics who tried
to carve through the mumbo-jumbo in the first place."
-- Josh Marshall
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