Force Equals Mass Times Awesomeness

Conditions: Sultry, Dangerous

Flash: Earth Even More Vulnerable Than We Thought.

In the wake of that big asteroid blowing up over Chelyabinsk, some boffins have been hard at work on their calculators, and have come to a stunning conclusion.

Now a team of scientists is suggesting that the Earth is vulnerable to many more Chelyabinsk-size space rocks than was previously thought. In research being published Wednesday by the journal Nature, they estimate that such strikes could occur as often as every decade or two.

The prospect “really makes a lot of people uncomfortable,” said Peter G. Brown, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Western Ontario and an author of the two studies in Nature.

- nytimes.com

“Really makes a lot of people uncomfortable”? Yeah, you could say that. You could even go as far as to say “really makes a lot of people want to dig a four foot deep trench around their house, and fill it to the brim with gasoline.”

The article talks about the need for a new asteroid-seeking satellite to get launched into space asap, and I for one am all for it. We don’t need astronauts in space, what we need is as many tools as possible to combat the one threat to humanity that is guaranteed to eventually happen.



Film Review: The Last Stand

As a child of the 80’s I owe a great and sincere debt to Arnold Schwarzenegger, a man who came to personify the films from the era I grew up on. He was the essence of a lot of those great blockbusters, as solid and reassuring as the earth beneath us. Later in his career he may have had a misstep or two before retiring into politics but now the retirement is over, and he’s back. (Sorry.) The Last Stand is his first proper film in his comeback, and you can see just how carefully chosen and crafted this film has been for Arnold. He always had a history of being very careful and cagey in the scripts he would choose based on how they would suit his image. His character, Ray, is an older guy who used to be a cop in Los Angeles before he got tired of all the gunfights and decided to find a quieter life as a small town sheriff in southern California. But the quiet town is about to get rocked to its core, due to a notorious drug kingpin escaping his jailers and taking off on a high speed chase towards the Mexican border.

The only thing standing in his way is Schwarzenegger’s small team of deputies, and they’re first up against a band of mercenaries, hired to construct a temporary bridge for the kingpin that goes over a gorge, and quite happy to kill everyone in the town in order to clear the way. The film finally settles into a major gun battle fought out in the town square as the good guys try to block the road, and the bad guys try to shoot everyone. Once done with that we settle into a mano-e-mano fight between Arnold and the bad guy. Just like old times. Sort of.

There’s no getting around it. Arnold is old. I don’t like that he’s old. He doesn’t seem overly happy about it either. I think we all just have to accept this and make allowances. He can still fire guns and punch people. And he was never the type of guy, even in his prime, who could jump around or do ju-jitsu. But there was a dynamic there, an edge to him that seems to have gone, and maybe cannot realistically come back again. He also seems a bit stiff. Not just stiff in his movements, although that’s understandable, but also a bit stiff in how he sits in the frame, recites his lines, or reacts to other characters. It’s always been a little difficult to appreciate Arnold’s acting, but I believe he’s actually a pretty good character actor when he gets a chance. In this film he just seems a bit rusty. Of course the script carries some responsibility for this, a very simple plot that is carried out in a fairly simple manner. Overall it gives the impression that this film is more a warm up for Arnie rather than a main event. At least I hope so. It’s violent, it’s fun, and there are a couple of characters here that you kind of care about. But it feels thin and a bit creaky.

It’s sad to admit it, even to one’s self, but there are probably only a few more years left to us where Arnold can be an action movie star. It’s a stark truth that shines out from all the new lines and angles on Arnold’s worn face. You know, we need to take advantage of what time we do have left, and use it as well as we can. Thanks Arnie. Three leg wounds out of five.



- Peace out