A good example is this recent article from the New York Post is about a small asteroid that was just discovered on Friday and passed within 65,000 kilometers (40,000 miles) of the Earth today at about 9 AM (EST)-about twice as far as most communications satellites.

2009 DD45 is about 30 meters across and (I assume) silicate-based like most asteroids, so it would hit the Earth with about as much energy as a relatively large atom bomb. If it were iron, of course, this force would quite a bit larger. The article above says that it would have hit somewhere around Tahiti, but I’m not sure if this is entirely correct-that was the point of closest approach. If it had hit, it probably would have hit beyond that point (as the closest approach would have been at distance=0 and it would have moved over Tahiti by then).

Also, it irks me that the article says:

Astronomers said the asteroid is likely to return for another series of near misses since it’s somehow drawn in by our planet’s gravity.

“Somehow drawn in?” What exactly are they saying here? Bah.

Anyway, what peeved me most about this article was the opening line:

Talk about a near miss!

Not so. As my personal hero and general go-to guy, George Carlin said: It’s not a near miss, a collision is a near miss. “‘*Crunch* Look! They nearly missed!’ ‘Yes, but not quite!’” It was really a near hit-it nearly hit us. Ah, well, maybe I’m too much of a stickler for correct language use. This is probably why I only have friends as weird as I am.

You’ll understand, then, why I’m happy when I relate this next story. I was surfing the web looking for a poster of George Carlin (such as the “Incomplete List of Impolite Words” at the bottom of this post) and I found a comedy store website that sells not only albums, but also other paraphernalia. I immediately went to their “Legendary Comedians” category and started searching for George.

And I didn’t find him.

Needless to say, I was a little taken aback by this. He may not have been everybody’s favorite comedian, but he was certainly a pioneer in the field. I almost began searching through their entire index, when I saw at the top of the topics list: “Carlin Stuff. He has his own category! Seeing my favorite artists being recognized for their talent is always a good thing.

Oh, and if you know somewhere that I can get a Carlin poster on a student’s budget, please let me know.

The Incomplete List of Impolite Words