we all have our problems, and I often listen to America Coast to Coast while falling asleep. I particularly like shows that feature UFos or bigfeet, or some such, as they have no relation to anything -

Last night they had another crank talking about immenent impact - this is almost a continuous theme with them - hell, there is no "almost" about it, it is a continuous theme. No sooner does one crank fold than another one comes along...

Two major components of this phenomenon seem to be relevant. First, impact may serve as a displacement mechanism. The audience is gut worried about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its economic and security threat to them, but they are unable to talk about it - thus the displacement to impact -

Since America Coast to Coast has open telephones, moving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict head on presents no difficulty...

The other component of the phenomenon is the lack of reliable estimates of the impact hazard, due in large part to some of the really bad science that NASA has been doing in this field for quite some time -using lunar crater counts to deteremine the impact rate is known to be faulty, and since the historical accounts have never been checked by field work, you end up with this residue -

As for dealing with this component, I have my ideas, but...

These cranks are going to reduce the respectability of dealing with the impact hazard - since real scientists are reluctant (afraid) to use this media to communicate to the public, the cranks are going to have it to themselves to misinform people...

ep

c