Space Balls

So, I've just spent the last few hours trying to find out everything I can about this whole "Deep Impact" Mission that NASA's got going on with the University of Maryland, the Jet Propulsion Library, and Ball Aerospace & Technologies. Apparently, this has cost the American people only $333 million dollars (and, hey, that's the basic net worth of one Walton, so, what are we complaining about, Walmart Shoppers?). The scientists behind the mission (which was named Deep Impact at about the same time the name of the movie, Deep Impact, was devised, but only coincidentally) are excited to find out what's inside of a tootsie--I mean, frozen ball of dust and ice, because, despite what those other scientists say, it's anything but highly explosive antimatter. Perhaps we can learn if something inside comets contributed to life evolving on Earth! (Isn't that kind of like shooting your mother in the foot?)

Now, while I don't really believe in suing people (in my ideal world, people acknowledge what they are accountable for, and take responsibility for what they have created as a result, whether that be monetarily or otherwise), I found some relief in reading that a woman astrologer in Russia has been given permission to plead her case that the US government is disrupting the life of the cosmos and the natural balance of the universe, and in addition, infringing on the spiritual life and practice of thousands, by taking such needless, aggressive actions out on a comet of which we know nothing, other than it circles the Earth every 5.5 years, and, of course, its location at approx. 10:52 p.m. PDT July 3, 2005, so that we can slam a washing machine-sized projectile into it, and see what happens.

According to the officials, "A side benefit of the mission is that it will teach researchers something about how to deflect a comet or asteroid, in the event that one ever is heading our way". Well, Harry Walther says that it's quite likely that G.W. Bush and his administration are supporting this mission because the comet Nibiru is coming to bring about the prophecies of both Nostradamus and Revelations around 2012, and that our government plans to protect us from Armageddon. In fact, Walther even ventures to say that the war in Iraq, and possible invasions of Korea or China are likely all linked to preventing utter chaos from erupting when this comet actually comes into plain sight of the general public in the next 7 years.

I don't know, folks. Sometimes I worry that the basic thought patterns of the human race create an unnatural disturbance in the Universe, even before we take on such actions as that of blowing up a comet. I don't know how to be responsible for this, as an American, as a human, as a girl who once wanted to be an astronaut (really, though, I just wanted to build space colonies with low gravity swimming pools...). I guess I also used to be a scientist, and I performed all sorts of unnatural acts on ants in order to figure out how their nervous systems worked. But I'm prepared for a hell filled with ants slowly gnawing off my head in retribution. What's George ready for?