Archived material Access restricted Article
Rantburg

Today's Front Page   View All of Fri 02/11/2005 View Thu 02/10/2005 View Wed 02/09/2005 View Tue 02/08/2005 View Mon 02/07/2005 View Sun 02/06/2005 View Sat 02/05/2005
1
2005-02-11 Fifth Column
Realians bestow honorary priesthood on Ward Churchill
Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.
Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2005-02-11 12:23:29 AM|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 The human brain is incredibly complex and thus subject to an incredible variety of defects. That's the only way I can explain it.
Posted by Tom 2005-02-11 12:29:31 AM||   2005-02-11 12:29:31 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 The really remarkable thing is that nobody is especially surprised by this kind of Moonbat link-up. All the insane power-seeker elements in the world seem to be lining up on the same side of the present conflict.
Who would have thought, for example, that virtually every nazi, communist, and anarchist group on the planet, every conspiracy cult, celebrity/media cult, and weird Hollywood religious cult, every academic con-artist and cultural faddist; would be coalescing into a kind of Grand Unified Moonbat alliance in support of Islamic medievalists?


Just empirical proof God exists.
Posted by badanov  2005-02-11 12:34:45 AM|| [http://www.rkka.org/title-boris.gif]  2005-02-11 12:34:45 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Yet another reason that "the massacre of the Comet Wardens" in Niven and Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer is my favorite scene in all of science fiction.

Lucifer's Hammer, 1977
time: late 70s
place: mostly Southern California

An amateur astronomer named Tim Hamner discovers a new comet on a course that will take it very close to the Earth. The comet nucleus has broken up. It will rain mountain size chunks all over the Earth if it happens to hit, causing earthquakes, tsunamis, drastic weather change, and effects akin to nuclear winter.

In the weeks and months after Hamner's discovery, the chances of a collision go from one in a million to one in a hundred to one in ten.

A new religious cult, the Comet Wardens, forms in Southern California. Playing on the discoverer's name, their leader declares that the comet is the "hammer of God" sent to punish humanity for its wickedness. The Wardens dress in white robes and oppose all rational efforts to prepare for a possible collision, insisting that only prayer and repentance will save humanity.

By the time the comet is due millions have already fled the LA basin for the hills and deserts. With a collision deemed ever more likely, the last hold-outs run for the hills that morning, jamming the freeways.

In a final spectacular demonstration, the white robed Comet Wardens chain themselves across a major traffic artery, snarling traffic for miles and trapping the panic stricken hordes in the city.
Late in the morning, the comet actually hits. A huge asteroid smashes into the ocean just off LA. It is clearly visible from the city, God's own tsunami is headed their way and thousands cannot escape.
The Comet Wardens have thrown away the keys to their chains, there is no time or equipment to cut the chains and open the highway, and the police have fled.
Thousands of would-be refugees realize that they are doomed and that they could have gotten away if not for the Comet Wardens, now helpless in their long chains as the vengeful mob pounces.

They have about half an hour before the tsunami hits.

Go ye to the library or the bookstore and read of it, for it is good.



Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2005-02-11 2:42:28 AM||   2005-02-11 2:42:28 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 AC - Holy shit - I forgot about that story. Brings a tear to mine eye - from laughing my ass off, heh. Most excellent - and a rational extrapolation of our future. We will get hammered, again, someday. I hope I get thirty minutes free 'n clear with the moonbats before I go. Thx, bro. ;-)
Posted by .com 2005-02-11 4:15:51 AM||   2005-02-11 4:15:51 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 ...Lucifer's Hammer is without doubt one of the best SF novels of all time, and a damned sight more impressive than eye candy like Armageddon or Deep Impact .
Have to admit tho that while the comet warden scene is probably the best in the book, the one that has always stayed with me is the surfer who rides the tsunami in...

Mike
Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2005-02-11 7:30:49 AM||   2005-02-11 7:30:49 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 Wait till the Realians clone Ward Churchill.
Posted by ed 2005-02-11 7:51:17 AM||   2005-02-11 7:51:17 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 www.rael.org=moon bats extrodinare.Read it at least twice,home made mustard gas is what sticks in my mind.
Posted by raptor 2005-02-11 7:55:51 AM||   2005-02-11 7:55:51 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 So does he get pair of black Nikes, a purple sweat suit, and a offer for a free castration?
Posted by tu3031 2005-02-11 8:54:20 AM||   2005-02-11 8:54:20 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 Savage said something yesterday about Ward Churchill "needing the white cells of sanity to surround him." It was pretty clever.
Posted by Alaska Paul  2005-02-11 11:18:03 AM||   2005-02-11 11:18:03 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 "Lucifer's Hammer" is actually a rewrite of "Footfall", minus the interesting aliens...
Posted by mojo  2005-02-11 4:47:44 PM||   2005-02-11 4:47:44 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 I thought Lucifer's Hammer was written before Footfall.
Posted by trailing wife 2005-02-11 8:52:21 PM||   2005-02-11 8:52:21 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Was Footfall the one that had alien invaders resembling baby elephants assaulting Earth in paragliders?
Posted by Dave D. 2005-02-11 9:23:39 PM||   2005-02-11 9:23:39 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 That's the one, Dave.
Posted by trailing wife 2005-02-11 10:51:04 PM||   2005-02-11 10:51:04 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 Other way around, Mojo.
Lucifer's Hammer was written in 1976 and published the following year. Footfall, which reused some of the same concepts, was published in 1983.
Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2005-02-11 11:11:22 PM||   2005-02-11 11:11:22 PM|| Front Page Top

23:31 Sherry
23:20 Paul Moloney
23:17 trailing wife
23:14 trailing wife
23:12 trailing wife
23:12 gromky
23:11 Atomic Conspiracy
23:10 Barbara Skolaut
23:09 trailing wife
23:06 gromky
23:02 Bomb-a-rama
23:02 Infidel Bob
23:02 trailing wife
22:58 trailing wife
22:58 gromky
22:51 trailing wife
22:50 JosephMendiola
22:50 trailing wife
22:45 JosephMendiola
22:45 gromky
22:42 Darth VAda
22:42 Alaska Paul
22:28 JosephMendiola
22:28 Robert Crawford









Paypal:
Google
Search WWW Search rantburg.com