Day 72

Earlier this week, an asteroid which nobody saw coming missed the Earth by the astronomical equivalent of inches - closer than the Moon's orbit and that of some GPS satellites.  Today NASA announced that they have seen another asteroid heading our way, this one scheduled to arrive in November, the day before Election Day.  The nerdlings at NASA say the asteroid has "only" a 1% chance of hitting Earth. 

WHAT?  ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?  A 1% CHANCE OF THE EARTH ENDING OR A MAJOR EXTINCTION EVENT IS WAY MORE THAN I'M COMFORTABLE WITH!!!  DON'T TELL ME "ONLY" 1%!!!

Would you get on a plane knowing that one percent of all flights were going to crash that day? Would you let someone fire a random gun at you knowing that only one percent of the guns were loaded? Would you support government policies that would result in one percent of the population contracting the coronavirus?

Actually, if you're a Republican, you do and worse - at 5.7 million Americans infected, 1.7% of the population has now contracted the virus.  You're almost twice as likely to get the coronavirus in America than the asteroid striking the Earth, but a 1% chance of global annihilation is still too high! This is 2020 we're talking here.

Also, another reason to be nervous:  What are the long-tern effects of coronavirus?  No one knows, because no one's had it yet for more than a year.  Does is leave long-term heart and lung damage? Does it accelerate or increase the chances of other illnesses or cancers? Who knows?  Only time will tell. Does it reoccur on any frequency?   Maybe, maybe not.  Does it turn its victims into nocturnal cannibalistic humanoids bent on destroying civilization?  Probably not, at least no evidence suggests that it might, but no one knows yet because it's still so new.  

If it in fact does cause a zombie apocalypse, then maybe we should be cheering for the  asteroid to rid the world of the undead menace.