Did you know that it is five minutes to midnight?
Not for long, mind you, since tomorrow, January 14, 2010, that changes.
I had read of the Doomsday clock years ago, and had, to my delight, forgotten it. While it makes for a great reference device in film and novel, the ridiculousness of a man-made clock that moves both clockwise and counterclockwise as determined by self-appointed guardians of the world depending upon their opinion on whether or not we are about to annihilate ourselves is beyond the scope of seriousness.
Also, because we need yet another DotOrg web site of concerned people, you can visit TurnBackTheClock.org, which is a ”global community of citizens and scientists making the world safer for future generations”. On this site, we can watch — LIVE! — as the clock’s hand is moved.
While it fills newspaper headlines and makes for photo opportunities, I can’t say that a huge, generally sedate clock with an exceedingly thick and inaccurate minute hand that moves only when a human moves it should have any say in whether or not tomorrow comes.
Looks like the graphic designer will be busy changing the logo, now that the time has changed.
Whatever the case, I’m too busy following the Mayan calendar. I just don’t have the resources to follow yet another time-keeping device predicting the end of the world.
So, if the safest we have ever been was 8 minutes till midnight (back when the first Nuclear war was just ending and there were only a couple nukes in existence) and the worst we have been was 11:58 when thousands of nukes were the touch of a button away, what on earth does it take to get to 3 in the afternoon?
“If a train A leaves the station at 2:15 heading east at 45 mph, and train B…”
Hey, you should make a Mayan calendar cake.
I’m partial to Douglas Adam’s statement from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.”