Hypothetical: You're the President of the U.S.

[Rain Man]

A giant asteroid is on its way to earth, and it's definitely going to hit.

The near-sighted, geeky, but thoughtful scientists have given you their best estimates of where on earth it will hit, but they can't be sure due to the vagaries of asteroid track-plotting. There's a chance that it'll hit the Middle East and wipe out large segments of that population. There's also a chance that it'll hit some innocent segment of the U.S. (Pick any state that you have no huge vendetta against.) The asteroid will cause huge local damage where it hits, but won't have cataclysmic global consequences.

You can fire up some nuclear missiles and have a chance to knock the asteroid out of its path, thus saving the earth from the impact.

From the poll above, in what circumstances do you fire the nukes, and in what circumstances do you just whistle and go to an undisclosed location to watch football and prepare a sympathetic speech?

[ChiefsFire]

the first thing id do is give angelina joile a call and invite her over for one last romp under the whitehouse sheets.....then id shoot off all my missiles

[Slayer Diablo]

I would nuke any astroid that even had a .00000001% chance of hitting the United States.

[Valiant]

wheres the ****ing option to nuke the ME while the asteroid hits it also..

[Rausch]

I would nuke any astroid that even had a .00000001% chance of hitting the United States.

Ditto.

Plus, we really have no info on nation/small state destroying space rocks. There was that one in Siberia, but I don't know that I trust our info enough at this point to risk anything that could end up even having side effects that hit us (change in weather, smoke/dust, etc...)

Nuke the Rock. We can always nuke the mid-east later if we have to...

[Dave Lane]

Just shoot the misles we need the ME oil.

Dave

[PastorMikH]

Where's the "Send up Bruce Willis with a Nuke" option?

[penguinz]

Nuking it would kill more people than letting it hit. If you nuke it the asteroied will break up into many pieces and able to impact an even larger area than before. Not to mention the nuclear fallout that would enter the atmosphere after doing so.

[Calcountry]

the first thing id do is give angelina joile a call and invite her over for one last romp under the whitehouse sheets.....then id shoot off all my missiles
That would have been funnier if it would have said, "shoot off MY missile".

[Calcountry]

wheres the ****ing option to nuke the ME while the asteroid hits it also..
Yep, then we would have plausible deniability.

[Calcountry]

Just shoot the misles we need the ME oil.

Dave
The oil would still be pumpable after the dust settled.

[Calcountry]

Where's the "Send up Bruce Willis with a Nuke" option?
Yes, he needs to land that craft on the Asteroid, so his oil drillers can drill a hole in it.

[Ultra Peanut]

Nuke the Rock.Then find out what the hell it's cookin'.

After that, take (well-deserved) credit for a job well done and tell the ME that, "you guys SO owe us."

[Thig Lyfe]

So this asteroid in 2029 really has you thinkin, huh Rainman?

Let's hope the Chiefs win a SB by then.

[Iowanian]

Iowanian is President?

The World Gets A quick call to see what its going to do about the Invoices they've recieved for Services Rendered by my country...........Those that don't act properly, are going to need some really, really good SPF 200,000,000