Apocalypse Lame?

Dan over at A Blog Named Sue complains about his disappointment over the current economic crisis.You know, in every movie I've seen about the end of the world, civilization collapses because of something wicked cool happening - an asteroid hits, nuclear war, a supervirus, an ape revolution, whatever. If civilization collapses over credit default swaps I an going to be ...

Large Hadron Collider Will Switch On Tomorrow; World Will Be Fine

Amidst a bunch of conspiracy theorist nonsense, CERN will be switching on the Large Hadron Collider to begin the process of experimentation tomorrow (it's already been switched on twice before for testing).At roughly 3:30 a.m. Eastern time, scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, say they will try to send the first beam of protons around a 17-mile-long ...

Left Behind Authors Say Obama Is Not the Antichrist

The authors of the best-selling Left Behind authors have done their research and are now positive that Barack Obama is not the Antichrist.But even the series authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins don't think Obama is the antichrist. What may have been created as a farce has generated a firestorm of controversy on the internet. LaHaye and Jenkins take a ...

Obama the Antichrist?

Here's one of John McCain's recent ads: You would think that the rational response to this ad would be to chuckle to yourself, as it does do a nice job of making fun of some of the messianic fervor that some of Obama's fans have. (Yeah, I'm voting for him, but I've no illusions that Obama is anything more than ...

With the Furies Breathing Down Your Neck

NASA is indicating that the asteroid 99942 Apophis, which had previously been deemed to not be an impact risk, might pose a bigger risk than originally thought: It turns out that there are a few things we still don't know about the orbit of Apophis, which could change its projected course by millions of miles, according to an article yesterday in ...

Not With a Bang But a Whimper (In the Press)

Writing for Slate, Tim Noah nails exactly why the possible destruction of the Earth later this year when the Large Hadron Collider is switched on isn't getting much attention in the press: I can well understand why the Times doesn't want to give sustained big play to the possibility that the world will end on or around Labor Day. In addition ...

Hillary Clinton Fighting On

As predicted, we'll continue to have Hillary Clinton to kick around: Hillary Rodham Clinton says she will remain in the presidential race "until there's a nominee." The former first lady declined to say whether that meant through the roll call of the states at the Democratic National Convention this summer. I'm not convinced she'll drop out then, either. UPDATE (Alex Knapp): For ...

How Clinton Could Win

Adam Nagourney offers a "bruising scenario" by which Hillary Clinton could still pull out the Democratic nomination. It's not a particularly novel one; indeed, it's the one that Clinton has been banking on for weeks: the superdelegates put her over the top. There are about 800 of them, and they are going be weighing two main arguments: Mr. Obama’s contention ...

McCain’s “Spiritual Guide” Wants a War With Islam

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about John McCain being "honored" to receive the endorsement of the pro-Apocalypse, pro-destruction-of-Israel preacher John Hagee, an endorsement which John McCain has refused to repudiate, even after the revelation of Hagee's bigoted and outright nutjob ideas. Now it turns out that Hagee isn't the only crazy religious bigot with whom John McCain ...

John McCain ‘Honored’ To Receive Endorsement From Bigot

Yesterday, John McCain announced that he was "honored" to receive the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee, a Texas-based preacher who can probably be most charitably described as "pro-Apocalypse". McCain lavished praise on him for being "pro-Israel", but as Sarah Posner (via Matthew Yglesias) points out, what he actually stands for is the destruction of Israel in order to facilitate ...

Beltway Blizzard Bumper Cars

On a day when DC area schools are shut down for miles in each direction because of something on the order of one inch of snow, Stacy McCain reflects on the phenomenon of "Beltway blizzard bumper cars." Ignoring common cautions most Americans learned as 15-year-olds — e.g., always check your blind spot before changing lanes to your right — D.C. drivers ...

Bush and Ahmadenijad

Matthew Yglesias notes that we should keep Islamist nuts in perspective, since our own president is pretty religious: [N]oting that millenarian Islam is an important strain in Iranian politics ought to be put in the context of a United States of America that features millenarian Christianity as an important political strain. I don’t see any reason to believe that George W. ...

Having Children And Other “Profoundly Immoral” Things

There's an interesting conversation going on over at VC about the ethics of having children, but one comment in particular caught my attention: I'm pretty skeptical of the "children are good for the future" argument. Erlich's "population bomb" may not have been wrong so much as delayed; the Green Revolution pulled a rabbit out of the hat when it comes to ...

6-6-06 Devil’s Date Creates Jitters

Today is the 6th day of the 6th month of the year ought-six. Is this the 666 of Revelations yore? Some seem to think so. THE calendar has clicked over to the sixth day of the sixth month, 2006 and hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia – the fear of the number 666 – is taking hold. Will the world end? Will someone ...

Iraq War Movies Coming Soon

It looks like movies about the Iraq War will be coming out before the shooting stops. Moviemakers aren't waiting for the Iraq war to finish before they put their Hollywood ending on it. Francis Ford Coppola made "Apocalypse Now" six years after the Vietnam War ended in 1973, and it wasn't until the '80s that Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" and ...