The Dunceday Clock

It is five minutes to midnight -- do you know where your planet is tonight?

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which 60 years ago began keeping tabs on humanity's temporal distance from self-annihilation with the concept of a “Doomsday Clock,” apparently found things sufficiently dire to nudge the minute hand forward two clicks, indicating that we are now “five minutes to midnight” — or Doomsday.

The clock had last been adjusted in 2002, when it was moved from 9 minutes off to 7 minutes. The current position is the closest the group has put the planet to Doomsday since 1953, when the Soviets and the United States were first playing with their newfangled thermonuclear weaponry, and things looked mighty bleak indeed.

Even if this group didn't put global warming on a par with a nuclear North Korea, the Doomsday Clock would be a silly exercise, akin to Mr. Blackwell's 10 Worst-Dressed List.