I am appalled. Simply appalled!
Washington based apologists for a well-known group of galactic killers have managed to get the charges dropped in a case that might be the greatest unsolved massacre in history. Involved are two high-profile families of troublemakers, both of them familiar to anyone who loves popular entertainment.
The facts:
65 million years ago, an enormous explosion wiped out everybody in the famously lizard-like Dinosauria family. These were nasty characters whose offenses against plants, animals and each other, but especially against scientists, have been well documented in prehistoric-themed movies, with particular honors going to Jurassic Park.
For the past few years it has been suspected that this explosion and the ensuing global calamity was the work of one or more members of the Baptistina family, a rogue cluster of asteroids once described “aimless chunks of useless metal” known for their propensity to fall violently on unsuspecting planets and their moons.
According to the oft-repeated story, friction, infighting and outright collisions within the Baptistina family led to a violent split, sending certain members of the tightly knit clan into a headlong exile outside the comfortable orbit that had marked their brutal existence for so many years.
One of the renegade Baptistinas is said to have flown so far off course in its blind rage that it crashed into the only home the Dinosaurias had ever known, causing a huge dust cloud that fouled the atmosphere and choked off sunlight for eons, and leading to the death of every Dinosauria in the place, which was a lot.
But now the asteroid-loving excuse-makers at NASA say the Baptistina break-up happened 80 million years ago, too late to allow for one 6 to 9 mile wide disgruntled ex-Baptistina to go on a Dinosauria killing rampage as soon as 65 million years ago.
“The demise of the dinosaurs remains in the cold case files,” said Lindley Johnson, program executive for the Near Earth Object (NEO) Observation Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The original calculations with visible light estimated the size and reflectivity of the Baptistina family members, leading to estimates of their age, but we now know those estimates were off.”
I have no idea what Lindley Johnson is talking about, but I think at least one of the Baptistinas had the means (they’re huge and suicidal) and the motive (dinosaurs are incredibly ugly). But did they have the time? As for sequencing, I think it’s easy to under-guess how far an annoyed asteroid can go in 15 billion years.
But apparently no one is going to prosecute any Baptistinas from here on out.
“We are working on creating an asteroid family tree of sorts,” said Joseph Masiero, the lead author of the study. “We are starting to refine our picture of how the asteroids in the main belt smashed together and mixed up.”
Yes, asteroids getting smashed together is definitely the problem. All sorts of reckless things begin to sound like a good idea when you are an asteroid who has had one too many bumps. Don’t close the book on this, NASA! They’re hiding something!
The most annoying miscarriage of justice you can recall?
Trail Baboon 
bush beating gore with the electoral vote from florida gets me twitching every time it comes up
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Yes. Me too.
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radio heartland giving dale the boot
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That tops my list too. 😦
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margeret anderson kelaher getting the nod over rt
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pepsi being proclaimed the winner of the taste test over coke
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tim,you are God! This is a superb list of unspeakable crimes. Well do I remember the day I was performing an innocent chore when (within the space of ten minutes) I flunked the Pepsi Challenge and got bit on the finger by an Arctic fox. Still, in the cosmic scale of things, what compares to Bush v Gore or MPR v DC?
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Baboons, Put on your tinfoil hats-it’s a day devoted to conspiracy theories here on the trail
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The Twins season.
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99 and counting
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Whew. That was close.
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Morning all.
Rob Morrow leaving Northern Exposure
Discontinuation of sugar-free Tang
Every single computer virus perpetrator that isn’t in jail
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Rise and Shine Baboons!
That tomorrow I undergo that intrusive punctuational procedure, a COLONOSCOPY, so I won’t be on much today or until tomorrow afternoon when it is blessedly over. This is unfair and unjust.
See you all later tomorrow.
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Oh, Jacque! I’d like to say that this procedure is easy, like getting your teeth polished, but the one experience I had with it ended up becoming an essay on the internet (that, fortunately, is very hard to find). The story is not one I could or would repeat on these pages. Good luck!
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We’ll hope that yours goes easily like mine did, then.
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Slept through mine.
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The prep was, by far, the most uncomfortable part for me.
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I lost 5 pounds having mine.
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Time to have another one!
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I don’t want to hear about this. I need to have one of those before long.
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Most are just fine, Jim. I was just unlucky. Not to worry.
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Colonoscopy can prevent a cancer from occurring. Whatever discomforts the procedure carries pale in comparison to what cancer treatment is like. Don’t put it off. This has been a public service announcement from the Office of Punctuational Procedures.
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Noted
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…from the OPP.
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Just so it’s not from the Office of Punctured Procedures.
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Fascinating stuff, Dale. But what a bummer! I wanted—really wanted–the Baptistinas to take the fall on this one.
I envision a Los Angeles park bench encircled by yellow crime scene tape. Two veteran cops stand nearby, their faces wreathed by too many years of contemplating such spectacles. The nude corpse of the male victim sprawls on the bench, apparently the victim of an exploding cigar. He holds an old campaign pennant claiming “Nixon’s the One!” Beside him on the bench is the severed head of a pig, its lips covered with bright red Maybelline lipstick. The tape recorder on the bench is set to play an endless loop of Bert Parks singng, “There she goes, Miss America!”
“It’s too early to jump to conclusions, Ed,” says one cop, grinding out his cigarette on the park path. “But this murder has every telltale sign of being the work of the Baptistinas again.”
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So, Steve, in your story those Baptistinas are the kind of guys who offer you a deal you should not refuse. The guy with the “Nixon’s the One” pennant didn’t understand their offer and he got the exploding cigar accompanied by the pig’s head and the music. Is that right?
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You have gone right to the heart of the matter, Jim!
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Is this where we offer a blanket apology to any Baptists named Tina?
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Knew her. Did not know she was a Baptist.
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Good morning to all,
I try to put annoying misjustices behind me and I will not try to revisit them here. I have one coming up that I can talk about. I learned yesterday that the building permit for replacing the front steps to my house is ready and the bill for this will be $67. I need a building permit because we decided that it would be good to attach the steps to the house so they couldn’t shift away from the house. If they are attached to the house they are lumped in with decks and decks require a building permit. So, because I decided to make my steps stronger by attaching them to the house I will have to buy a $67 building permit. That is annoying.
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Yes, don’t get me started on building permits.
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That bites. Sorry!
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Ditto on losing TLGMS and the Dale Connelly Show.
Weight gain after dieting.
Not getting into Bobettes my junior year of high school (reunion coming up, so it’s on my mind).
for starters…
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Being informed by a bunch of administrative knuckleheads last week that my treatment plan objective of 5 or fewer tantrums per week for some of my young clients was not “positive” enough, even though they have approved such objectives for the past 3 years. I asked them what a measurable and “positive” objective would look like, and they had no idea. I was fuming. I came up with something acceptable and meaningless and they were happy.
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Oooh! Nasty! Reminds me of the time I was dinged on my annual review, at an educational non-profit of all places, for using “big words” (it was like being called “smarty pants” on the playground all over – but in a job setting, where one would think it would be good to be smart). Grrr. You keep making reasonable and useful objectives, Renee!
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This kind of stuff comes up all the time in corporate America, doesn’t it? I had a team leader once who was clearly in over her head, over-stressed, never had time for me, never checked to see what was going on and then on my review, I got dinged for “not being a team player”. $%^@@#!@
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My brother got the “natural” red hair…and he’s losing his. I have to pay cold, hard cash to maintain mine, which should have been my birth right (though perhaps I have been doing this long enough I could be considered a “common law” redhead). Oh the injustice of it all! (My mom agrees – so you know it’s true.)
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Does a fictional injustice count? The conviction and killing of Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird.
The Hollywood blacklist, the Rosenbergs, Emmett Till, Thomas vs. Hill.
Jerry Trooien’s ham-handed hijacking of the WSCO board a few years ago. (One of the participants is running for city council, in case anyone is wondering why I’m still holding a grudge on that one.)
The analog-to-digital broadcast TV conversion. &*%#$@ converter boxes.
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That city council candidate lists the Lilydale Park as one of his accomplishments in his campaign literature. He had nothing to do with it! That whole Jerry Trooien debacle still makes my blood boil.
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The fact that 1% of the population holds 50% (or is it more?) of the wealth.
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That Andrew Wakefield and opponents to vaccines use as one of their arguments “50% of MD’s graduated in the bottom half of their med school class.”
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Duh!
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:-))) Lies, damned lies and statistics, they’ve got them all!
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I really have to slow down. I just put my new cell phone through the washing machine! Thank goodness it is insured. It is the third thing that I have washed by accident in the last month including jusband’s wallet and daughter’s ipod. I will take this as a sign from the heavens to stop and regroup.
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Ouch! Maybe you should let someone else do the laundry for a while?
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I thought you were going to say it’s time to stop doing laundry…
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You just need a machine that belts out a “Warning – Warning – Warning” signal whenever an electronic device is in contact with it… like the Ethel Merman one on TLGMS.
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If you have to dry the dishes
(Such an awful boring chore)
If you have to dry the dishes
(‘Stead of going to the store)
If you have to dry the dishes
And you drop one on the floor
Maybe they won’t let you
Dry the dishes anymore.
-Shel Silverstein
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Well, to be honest–
that I was ever admitted ti the U of Chi
that we had a house right on the North Shore for 30 years
that money has somehow shown up in odd ways right when we needed it
that I wasn’t killed about three times while driving in my high school years
that I was born (long story)
that I had a wonderful amazing dog as a child
that I grew up as much in the woods as in a house when so many kids never see the wild or anything close to it
Grace
that my wife was willing to marry me when I was so poor with so little prospect
that my wife forgives everyone for everything, instantly
that I have to put up with the two worst brothers-in-law in creation
that I lost the “wrench with a hole in it”
the baggage retrieval system they have at Heathrow
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Bless you, brother Clyde, for perspective.
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Not getting into the Honor Society during high school because I “wasn’t involved with my church” and thus “wasn’t showing leadership” wasn’t very fair. Worse yet, another girl–who I thought was my friend–protested the same ruling and got in, but didn’t tell me about it until it was too late for me to try. Oh well, I’m prouder of my PBK key than I could ever be of the Honor Society of that cruddy little school!
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That the FDA is beating up on raw milk producers, while letting other issues slide. (Joanne knows lots of detail about all this…)
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Yeah, little issues like Monsanto taking over agriculture in America….
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All of the injustices I can think of right now have to do with working for the State of Minnesota and probably won’t be of much interest to you. But I have to ask – in a time when so many people seem to despise government, and especially government employees, why do all the worst examples float to the top so easily? Why can’t we promote our most dedicated and productive workers rather than our most dunderheaded examples of brown-nosing inefficiency? Just asking.
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The daily good is not news. Sigh.
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OT, not very far OT, but OT: my favorite William Carlos Williams Poem, “Reverie and Invocation,” is on Almanac today. The end of it:
“Come back and give us
those days when passion drove us
to break every rule.
We weren’t bad, but good!
May our preachers find us
the courage still to sin so
and win so! and win so!
a life everlasting.”
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How about Sioux Falls teachers having to take pay cuts?
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Any teachers having to take a pay cut, really. Or have their pay frozen (which winds up being a pay cut as things like their co-pays for health insurance inevitably go up, reducing their take-home pay). Or having to teach more kids with the same resources. Or…
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…eliminating successful tutoring programs, cramming 29 kindergartners into a classroom, placing 2 or more special needs students in the same room so they can share the educ. assistant.
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