Meteorites, Asteroids, Vatican Lightning...and President Obama

Mother Nature has been flexing her muscles this week. A 7,000 ton meteor streaked across the Russian sky and exploded over the Ural Mountains with the power of an atomic bomb Friday, its sonic blasts shattering 100,000 sq. m. (1 million sq. ft.) of glass, mostly windows, and injuring nearly 1,000 people, many cut by flying glass as they ran to windows to see the intense flash of light. The meteor weighing about 10 tons after atmosphere entry burnoff, with a diameter of 49 ft., streaked across the sky just after sunrise, leaving a thick white contrail and an intense flash. It entered the atmosphere at 54,000 kph (33,000 mph) and shattered while 30-50 km (18-32 miles) above the earth in a region 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) east of Moscow. Just hours afterward, a 150-foot asteroid visible with telescopes in Asia, Australia and Eastern Europe hurtled through Earth's near space at 17,400 mph, coming within 17,150 miles of the Earth's surface, the closest known flyby for an asteroid of its size. It was a disconcerting coincidence, coming so close upon the heels of the Russian meteor. NASA insisted the meteor had nothing to do with the asteroid since they appeared to be traveling in opposite directions. But, even though small as asteroids go, Asteroid 2012 DA14 could have done immense damage if it had struck, given its 143,000-ton weight and energy equivalent of 2.4 million tons of TNT. It would have wiped out 750 square miles. By comparison, NASA estimated that the meteor that exploded over Russia was one-third the size of the passing asteroid. BUT, perhaps the week's most startling act of nature came at the Vatican. On February 11th, Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation, effective February 28. It was the first time in more than 700 years that a Pope willingly chose to step down, and even the heavens seemed to react with shock. A photographer captured a lightning strike on the Dome of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican hours after the pope’s announcement. Some faithful were asking whether the lightning was coincidental or a sign from God, although no one has explained what such a sign would have meant. ~~~~ But, dear readers, we can be almost certain of one thing -- in a week in which President Obama and the Republican House of Representatives clashed over every point of the wish list that the President laid out in his State of the Union Address, even President Obama has not been able to find a way to blame the Republican Party for the meteorite, the asteroid or the Vatican lightning strike. Is this progress toward the bipartisanship sorely needed in Washington? Probably not. But it might mean that Obama is running out of ways to foist everything that happens anywhere in the world onto the weary shoulders of House Speaker John Boehner and his beleaguered but unbowed House majority - which, after all is said and done, is the only thing standing between fiscal sanity and Obama's wildly dangerous spend-and-tax policies.