Of Shoes & Ships & Killer Plummeting Satellites

The Killer Plummeting Satellite has reportedly been successfully shot down. That's good, just for the record.

According to the RCMP by way of CTV News, apparently it had a 25% chance of coming down on Canadian soil. This did not upset me as much as it did some of my social circle. (The wag in the back who said "A point is not a circle" - yes, you in the Che Guevera t-shirt - you can leave now. Thank you.)

A one-in-four chance of something happening that may or may not have negative effects, and that the U.S. Navy was hoping to put a stop to anyway, just doesn't ring that many alarm bells for me.

Plus, Canada is a big country with a small population. Taking a cold, objective look at the matter, Canadian lives aren't intrinisically worth more than anyone else's. If a large object has to fall from the sky and crash somewhere, it'll probably take fewer people with it by hitting the Yukon than say, Albuquerque or Tokyo. Sorry, Yukonians. (Yukonites? Yukonners? Ukranians? No, I'm pretty sure that's not it.)

I'm not sure what people thought they could do about it on an individual basis anyway. Stock up on Pop-Tarts? Buy umbrellas?


There's a bigger issue here, though. By focussing on the Killer Plummeting Satellite, people were overlooking the real threat: the inevitable aftermath of zombie hordes.

Trust me. I've seen every movie ever made whose title ends with the words "of the Dead", and they all start with a satellite crashing.

Now, fortunately I suppose, it's not going to happen. I must admit it's a bit disappointing to have all the training, preparation and stockpiling I've done go to waste. Ah, well, maybe next time.


While we're talking about the shambling undead, check this out:

But friends, your dead will live, your corpses will get to their feet. All you dead and buried, wake up! ... Come, my people, go home and shut yourselves in. Go into seclusion for a while until the punishing wrath is past.

Sounds positively Romeroesque, doesn't it? (Romeranian? Romeroish? Ukrainians? No, I'm pretty sure that's not it.)

So, you may be wondering, from whence does that passage come? (OK, you probably didn't think "whence", but I'l give you the benefit of grammatical doubt.) Skipp & Spector? John Russo? A little Stephen King, perhaps?

Nope. The Bible - Isaiah 26, to be precise. I bet your Sunday School teacher never covered that one.

Unless you were in a Sunday School class where I was the teacher, in which case I hope you've made a full recovery.


Enough rambling. Here's a picture of my son, when he was much younger than he is now, peeking out from his crate. (They're much easier to housebreak later if you start with crate training.)