Astrologer sues NASA over comet probe

“Nobody has yet proven that this experiment was safe,” says Ms Bay’s lawyer Alexander Molokhov. “This impact could have altered the orbit of the comet, so now there is a chance that the Tempel may well destroy the Earth one day.”

... even if the comet stays at a safe distance from Earth, Ms Bay’s own life, she thinks, will never be the same again. An amateur astrologist, she believes that any variation in the orbit or the composition of the Tempel comet will certainly affect her own fate.

So Ms Marina claims to be experiencing “a moral trauma”—which only a payment of $300m (252m euros; £170m) can put right. [BBC]

Hot

Too hot. Can’t sleep. It was on just such a sleepless, sweltering night three years ago that it began to rain at about four in the morning. I went to close the window and there, on a rug laid out in the nearest garden to me of the houses in the next street, were two of my neighbours having sex. They heard my window go and saw me see them, and started guiltily. That or they’d just felt the rain. I couldn’t identify them—it was 4am, after all, and my window's about 30 feet up (see mice passim). Ever since then I’ve seen people heading home to that street and wondered idly if it was them—and whether they recognise me.


EDIT: I was asked today if this entry was true. I'm aware that, despite featuring two people actually having sex, this anecdote isn't exactly much of a humdinger, and I like to think that if I were actually to make up a story involving people having sex, it would be a damn sight more racy than "I saw them and they stopped".