ENTER YOUR RHYME OR REASON
Shooting The Bird, Fouling The Nest
The problem is that they now have better tracking and this "Greyhound From Space" is headed for North America with a full hydrazine tank.
The guys at "Danger Room" are calculating the probabilities of success or failure, and the possibility of taking out the Space Station with debris.
It should be fun, because they are going to use the infamous missile defense system to make the attempt.
The apologies are already being typed in Spanish, French, and English because North America is as close as they can predict. They are hoping to break open the hydrazine tank outside the atmosphere, and reduce the debris size to the level that will burn up on re-entry.
I would like to win the Florida lottery - I may have the edge if I actually buy a ticket.
Bryan, thanks for the info and the Wired ref; duly noted in an update to the post.
I'd be willing to, um, to predict that more than a handful of people will place bets on where the thing lands if the shoot-down fails. Maybe it will be here. Whatthehell, this year wasn't going very well for us anyway. 
I'm just concerned that "the shot" may make matters worse. And I still think Bush is choosing this course in a kind of grandstanding.
Damn, do you think Vegas is making book on this? As a former fan of speculative propositions, I find this very enticing.
Of course, I read a lot of Damon Runyon in my 20s.
CG - ROTFL! So did I, a little later in life, but Bush strikes me as the sort of gambler Runyon would love to have depicted. There's even a hardboiled Dick in the story.
If Vegas isn't taking odds on this, it's missing a good... um, I'll say it: a good bet. The only problem is, unlike a wheel or a slot, in the case of the wayward bus, mere physics is unlikely to answer the question of where it will come down... and there's only one event to bet on.
Here's a thought. What if there IS a destruct feature in this thing, and what if there IS a way to access it, but the Bushists see a way to gain political support for their flimsy missile defense system, based as it is on faulty principles? Am I cynical? Am I merely realistic about the Bushists?
Commenting by HaloScan
