According to people who know a lot more than I do, a massive asteroid is going to be close to us next week:   

A "potentially hazardous" asteroid, almost the size of the world's tallest skyscraper, will pass Earth next week.

Live Science reports that the asteroid, called 2022 RM4, has an estimated diameter of 1,083-2,428 feet or 330-740 meters, just under Dubai's 2,716-foot-tall Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. The asteroid will barely pass our planet at around 52,500 mph, roughly 68 times the speed of sound.

The actual distance between Earth and the asteroid is six times the Earth's distance from the moon, Forbes reports, which is very close by cosmic standards. The asteroid will approximately come within 1.43 million miles of Earth when it reaches its closest approach on Nov. 1.

Close by cosmic standards?  Sounds a bit scary, but thankfully the big rock flying in space will miss us.  

Also next week, it looks like another asteroid is going to hit our politics -- something called the red wave.  This is from W. James Antle III:    

Biden pledged to unite the country, being a president for everyone in America, while routinely campaigning against nearly half the electorate as latent fascists. (When called out on this, he retreats to saying the mainstream Republican majority is merely under the control of latent fascists.)

He downplays public anxieties about inflation, gas prices, and the economy, which he describes as “strong as hell.” He says instead that democracy itself is on the ballot, characterizing voting laws compatible with high turnout and black electoral success as “Jim Crow 2.0.”

Democrats and pundits to Biden’s left are worse, to be sure. They find it suspect that parents are interested in what is taught in their childrens' schools or even whether those schools are open in the first place. They mock people who care more about the price of eggs or the availability of baby formula today more than the Capitol riot almost two years ago.

In Washington, Democrats seek to pour more fuel onto the inflationary fire with the claim that the solution is more spending. In blue cities, left-wing district attorneys are being lenient with criminals like the liberal judges who came before them a generation ago.    

Barring a polling failure that would rival 2016 but in the opposite direction, Biden’s party is about to reap the electoral whirlwind largely for repeating past errors with a 2020s twist.

If only the party had an elder statesman who could have warned them.

Yes -- that moderate elder statesman now has independents voting for the GOP.

The big rock known as an asteroid won't hit us. The big wave definitely will hit us and get ready for a lot of Democrats to blame it on Joe the Moderate.

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Image: NASA