Asteroid set to strike Earth in 2044

'Thanks to the Kennyites -- they've doomed us all!' says WA Secretary-General Catherine Gratwick

PARADISE CITY, Omigodtheykilledkenny --- In the biggest space-based boondoggle since the Kennyites inadvertently nuked the Moon, those braindead losers from the Federal Republic are once again bringing down a torrent of death and destruction that could ultimately seal mankind's fate.

Far outshining the troubled country's past exploits, like hastening global warming by gradually melting a polar icecap for oil, or blowing up the WA Security Council, Omigodtheykilledkenny's space agency has actually set an asteroid on a course to hit Earth in 29 years.

It all started several years ago, when the Kennyite Interplanetary Space Division of the Advanced Science and Kinetics Institute (KIS-DA-SKI) launched a nuclear-armed probe as part of an experiment to see if they could hypothetically prevent an asteroid from hitting the Earth, by knocking it slightly out of its trajectory with a nuclear explosion.

Fast-forward to just last week, when KIS-DA-SKI scientists enthusiastically announced that their craft had successfully intercepted the targeted Near-Earth Object, 1998 NQ₁₇, and were presently studying its apparent motion to discover if its orbital path had been altered.

It had.

Now the object, which previously wasn't thought to pose a danger to Earth for at least the next 100 years, is on course to hit us on October 22, 2044.

"An ironic twist worthy of a Greek tragedy," scoffed television anchor Piers Morgan. "A shame those boneheaded Kennyites never bother to study the classics."

Doomsday cults like the Seventh-day Adventist Church were triumphant. "Remember when we said the world would end in 1844 and it didn't?" quizzed SDA World Church President Ted N. C. Nelson. "Well, who's laughing now, huh?"

1998 NQ₁₇, which is roughly three-quarters of a mile wide (and has been rather appropriately redesignated 187974 Susa), is expected to hit the Earth with the force of 10,000 nuclear bombs, and once the burning debris it sends into the stratosphere starts to rain back down on the planet, well...let's just say that not even 100 SPF sunscreen is going to be of much help.

"Its...it's really not as bad as it sounds," KIS-DA-SKI spokesman Warren Dablinsky nervously told reporters Tuesday. "What you call 'world-ending catastrophe' and 'Armageddon' we'd prefer to call a 'once-in-a-geological-period chance for regrowth and rejuvenation.' Er..."

Even worse, rumors abound that the mission control scientists steering the intercepting spacecraft could have prevented all this from happening had they been paying closer attention to what they were doing. Supposedly they could have shifted the asteroid into a more benign orbit had they detonated the nuke just a few split-seconds earlier.

Unfortunately, the craft intercepted right at the moment that pictures of Justin Bieber's penis hit the Internet.

"Oh no, this is all on them," quickly deflected a spokeswoman for Empress Jhessan of The Palentine, whose space agency usually coordinates with the Kennyites' on such projects. "But I wouldn't count the Kennyites out just yet," she added. "They have a knack for inexplicably coming out on top, despite their bumbling cluelessness. Something will inevitably transpire to lessen this tragedy."

Additionally, the Kennyites assure the world, it's not like there's nothing they can do to stave off catastrophe. "Our friends in Yelda are much better at spacefaring feats than we are, and they're always willing to help us out!" said Dablinsky. "I'm sure they will know a way out of this mess. Push comes to shove, we can always blow up the asteroid with the Death Star!

"And even if not, try to look at the bright side...at least we'll never have to look at Bieber's junk again!"