Asteroid + Dow Jones = You Know's Prophecy

by Amazing 25 Replies latest jw friends

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  Amazing

  My Secular Humanist Response: The markets go up and down as they always have. During BEAR markets people get scared and think about God again, repent and worry about prophecy. During BULL markets, people get comfortable, thank God, and eventually forget about prophecy. Atheists and Agnostics simply make money either way ...

  As for the Asteroid, Humankind will save itself, because with our nuclear technology we can pulverize a small Asteroid with a 10 megaton bomb years before it hits earth ... no muss, no fuss ... survival of the fitest species ... yes sir ... no messy little religious prophecies to explain away when it is clear that we humans can take care of ourselves just fine.
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  Satanus

  If the asteroid actually was on a collision course w earth, it would likely bring world leaders to cooperate more. They would need to, to find a solution. After the danger was passed, the world would again be a slightly better place, becuase of the international barriers/pressures that were diminshed for their global effort against an alien enemy. IMHO

  SS
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  Nathan Natas

  Hi Amazing,

  I'm not sure I'm as confident as you are that mankind has the resources to "deal with" an "extinction event" sized asteroid. For openers, we're talking a pretty good sized piece of flying real estate: more than a mile in length. Now if it was a comet - a virtual snow-cone - yes, maybe a decent sized nuke could deflect it or even pulverize it, but what if it is a piece of iron/nickel core matter? It could be that all of our nukes would have little effect on such a dense mass.

  Then there's the question of delivery - FedEx hasn't opened their interplanetary division yet. It is unlikely that a mere ICBM "bottle rocket" could get to where the doom is.

  Then there's the political problem. Who would do this? THE good ol' USA, of course. Our government has repeatedly demonstrated it's ability to act swiftly and efficiency - oops! I was day dreaming!

  Would Greenpeace not protest such a presumptuous and rash act?

  Overall, I think we're just about as prepared as the dinosaurs were, and just as likely to be preserved by some supernatural agency.

  We humans mean a lot to ourselves, but to the cosmos we're a thin schmear on a small bagel.

  By the way, we don't need to wait for the asteroid. What would we do if the Yellowstone caldera opened up again? We know that it will, and we know that it is about due to become active in a matter of days or weeks certainly not months or years (). I think that a typical eruption there would terminate the existence of the USA as a political and economic entitiy. Why hasn't YK addressed this burning issue? (pun intended)

  Edited by - Nathan Natas on 24 July 2002 20:0:25

  Edited by - Nathan Natas on 24 July 2002 20:5:20
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  Amazing

  Hi Nathan: First, if for example a 10mt thermonuclear bomb were detonated 10,000 ft above San Francisco, it would literally evaporate everything in a 5 mile radius (ten mile diameter) buildings, ground, humans, plants, animals, bridges, water, everything ... and leave a crater perhaps a 1/2 mile to 1mile deep (it would be deeper than that, but the mass of the earth would resist much of the impact. The resulting pressure wave would go out undampened for at least a 50 mile radius. Therefore, if a 10mt thermonuclear bomb were detonated within a few thousand feet, just off-center but still in front of an oncoming asteroid that is 1.2 miles wide, it would more than likely break it up into very small chunks, and deflect it to a new course. It could evaporate it as well because the mass and motion of the asteroid is driving it into the bomb as the bomb's destructive power it blasting back at it.

  Edited by - Amazing on 24 July 2002 20:22:27
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  heathen

  I have to say myself after reviewing the facts on the shady dealing going ons of the wall street punks ,I would have no confidence in an end to shady dealing going ons.As far as the asteroid story ,they claim that an asteroid passed the earth at half the distance to the moon and it was 3 days after that they discovered that it even existed .Definately sends shivers down my spine and makes me wonder how long before some unpredictable chaos will reek havok on the planet.
• 

  Xander

  it would literally evaporate everything in a 5 mile radius

  Yes, but keep in mind, MOST of the effect of a modern nuke is from atmospheric shockwaves. The actual explosive force (all the matters in the vacuum of space) is...well...surprisingly low, all things considered.

  The range for blast effects increases significantly with the explosive yield of the weapon. In a typical air burst, these values of overpressure and wind velocity noted above will prevail at a range of 0.7 km for 1 kiloton (Kt) yield; 3.2 km for 100Kt; and 15.0 km for 10 Mt.

  It's interesting that the actual 'crater' depth of a nuke has been the cause of some debate lately, specifically in regard to 'battlefield nuclear weapons'.

  See chart below for depth in feet of crater from a 1KT burst:

  

  Even much larger nuclear weapons don't 'crater' much more than that -their principle effect is still pressure from the superheated atmosphere creating a shockwave.

  It seems (doing a little more reading) that deep-underground nuclear testing with 'higher yield devices' still manages to only produce a surface crater 600m across, which is a good guess to the diameter of the evaporated rock the nuke destroyed.

  SO....if you could get the nuke to go off RIGHT at the asteroids surface, at 1000 ft radius apiece of 'melting rock' effect - it would take, what, a dozen nukes to take out that asteroid?

  Edited by - Xander on 25 July 2002 10:53:7
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  dubla

  yk-

  There are massive short positions that have been built up in recent weeks, but the bullish investors still have access to several trillion dollars of money market funds that are parked on the sidelines, as they say in the business. So, what happens is that the bulls with deep pockets dump a few billion dollars into the markets in order to spook the bears into covering their short positions, which means that they have to buy the stock that they had previous sold short by borrowing shares and selling them, which in turn drives up the share prices and the hope is that they can jump start some kind of rally before the whole thing simply collapses.

  me thinks youve been reading a few too many conspiracy theories. short covering was no doubt a part of yesterdays rally, but to say that the money managers could manipulate the market so severely as to produce the second biggest dow gain in history, is simply nonsense. the last time we had a gain that big was back in 2000 during the bull market.......i suppose the money managers manipulated that gain as well? it wouldve been pretty tough, considering there werent near as many shorts out there in 2000.

  there were many factors involved in yesterdays rally. number one, the volatility index was finally hit the highs we saw in september, and the oversold levels hit -17 to -20, again what we saw in september. the "get me out" attiditude has been more and more prevalent over the last month, and as i said before, this loss of confidence in the markets is how bottoms are formed. we finally got two straight weeks of bears > bulls....believe it or not, up till then there were still more bulls than bears (always a bearish sign). it is also worth noting that the '98 reaction low (ltcm) of 7539 held as a support level, and the market immediately soared when hitting this support yesterday (7533)....only 6 pts off! technical analysis can be almost amazing sometimes with its accuracy.

  aa
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  Crazy151drinker

  Well they have developed nukes as larbe as 50MT. I dont know exactly how they would deliver this payload, but I think that would be a pretty big punch. All they have to do is change the course of the the Asteroid. hmmmm Are ICBMs designed to function in space??? I wonder how long they would go for? How acurate would they be???

  Edited by - crazy151drinker on 25 July 2002 13:9:46
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  You Know

  short covering was no doubt a part of yesterdays rally, but to say that the money managers could manipulate the market so severely as to produce the second biggest dow gain in history, is simply nonsense.

  The big hedge funds and others institutions definitely do have the power to manipulate the markets, and they do it all the time. You sound like one of those dummies on MSNBC spouting gibberish& about "forming a bottom."LOL /You Know
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  Farkel

  Nathan,

  : When I read YK's financial prognostications, I'm reminded of the joke about the fellow who predicted thirty-eight of the last seven bear markets.

  In 1981 I was a Mortgage Banker and worked in an office in La Jolla, Ca. One of the other suites was occupired by a man named Richard Russell. He wrote and peddled a well-known newsletter on the Stock Market and his letter and advice was often quoted in the Wall Street Journal. From time-to-time he would join us after hours for a few beers in our office. He was the consummate bear.

  I asked him one time why all he ever predicted was gloom-and-doom and his reply to me was quite revealing. He said, "If I predicted prosperity, no one would ever remember me when I was right about it. When I predict gloom and doom, no one remembers when I'm wrong, which I usually am. In fact, they are glad I was wrong. But when I'm RIGHT about gloom and doom, they think I'm a genius and that's why I get the big bucks for making predictions."

  He was very candid about how he viewed the whole prediction business as a game. YK also views it as a game, but unlike Richard Russell, he's not candid enough to admit it.

  Farkel

  Edited by - Farkel on 26 July 2002 11:32:19