Mayor? He oughtta run for Captain Planet
New York Daily News: "Mayor of what planet?

By OWEN MORITZ DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Rep. Anthony Weiner is getting spacey.

The Brooklyn congressman, who's mulling a run for mayor next year, apparently is worried that a stray asteroid might doom his chances.

A member of the House Science Committee, Weiner announced yesterday that he's introducing the Studying and Prevention Asteroid Collisions with Earth (SPACE) Act, which would allocate $4million to NASA to track 'near-Earth objects.'

'Earlier this month, an asteroid named 2004FH passed within 25,600 miles of Earth, the closest approach on record,' Weiner notes.

'Had 2004 FH ... struck the Earth, it could have created a crater the size of Central Park,' he said.

In a press release, titled 'New Legislation to stop Armageddon!!! (Well it's a start anyway...),' the Democratic lawmaker said the five U.S. telescopes monitoring the skies for scary space junk 'do a pretty good job.'

The problem, he went on, is that 'smaller but still dangerous' space balls pose a threat and there's no equipment to detect them en route to Earth.

'Anyone who grew up playing [the video game] Asteroids like I did knows that you have to be able to see them before you can shoot them down,' Weiner said.

The congressman's Armageddon anxieties tickled City Hall's current tenant.

'Protection from asteroids is sure to be a cornerstone of his mayoral campaign,' Bloomberg spokesman Ed Skyler commented. 'But New Yorkers are going to want to know what he'll do about those pesky little green men.'

But Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn), an announced mayoral candidate, was less amused.

'Tell Anthony,' Barron said, 'that homelessness, police brutality and unemployment have already struck the Earth and will devastate the Earth long before an asteroid will."

jaynote: Moritz, Barron, and Bloomberg, you're being an idiot about this. When bricks fall off the roofs of tall buildings here, EVEN if they don't hit anyone, we close streets, and put up nets etc. We even have a "falling brick prevention system" in place, that is, yearly building inspections. Five Hundred Million dollars is a good invenstement for a football stadium, but less than one percent of that to give us a warning system is a bad idea?
- posted by Sophont @ Sunday, April 25, 2004