As IF Times

Source: The Doomsday Clock just advanced, ‘thanks to Trump’: It’s now just 2½ minutes to ‘midnight.’ – The Washington Post

You know what they say about a broken clock.  In that case, a broken clock would be more accurate than the ‘doomsday clock’ propagated by this cabal of atomic scientists for decades now.

The recent claim from this group is that because of Trump, the clock now figuratively points to a few minutes before kaboom day. Not North Korea’s version of Elmer Fudd playing with matches, not Iran enriching uranium for nuclear weapons, not Pakistan and India whom are already in possession of them and not Russia with their aggressive leader Putin.  Apparently, it’s the election of Donald Trump that pushes the minute hand on the death clock.

This of course is just one of the numerous swords of Damocles looming above the human race if you paid attention to the numerous chicken little industries that always seem to flourish.  The tin foil hat business should be booming.  When not paralyzed by the imminent threat of nuclear annihilation, people are also paying through confiscatory taxes to assuage the effects of hysterical global warming, also incidentally on the verge of irreversible damage.  Or at least, was a while ago.  They’ll have to push the date back a bit to get more money. But we get it; the end of the world isn’t always that easy to pinpoint.

No less than Stephen Hawking has raised the imminent possibility of alien takeover, not to mention the likelihood of a catastrophic asteroid strike. At various points in my lifetime, hysteria has been pushed on imminent human extinction events ranging from: starvation, disease, overpopulation, religious retribution, Y2K, global cooling, now of course, global warming, atomic war, asteroid crashes and alien takeover.  The one that will soon be in vogue will be robot takeover, so we may want to stock up on metal detectors.

Someone can certainly make a lot of money on this.  There’s no point being paralyzed like myotonic goats awaiting death. As mentioned earlier, fashionable tin foil hats can be offered for sale on Amazon.  What about worry beads? They’d have to be sustainable of course…though that shouldn’t really matter.  How about special lotion for all the hand wringing brought on by on-going angst? We hear of billionaires building bunkers in anticipation of the final kabing, so someone’s already taking advantage of the gullible.  Whatever the product, it may as well be shameless because there’s no downside.  If it all ends, well then you’ve done your bit.  If it doesn’t end, you at least get rich. Now that is a good ending.

link Sony Cancels Theatrical Release for ‘The Interview’ on Christmas | Variety.

All I can say is, where were the hackers when they released any movie in the past 10 years starring Will Ferrell or Jim Carey? Or any movie featuring Eddie Murphy, Oprah or Whoopi? How about any of the teen horror flicks featuring chain saws, isolated hotels, talking dummies and supernatural crap. This kind of carnage has been inflicted on the American public for years and until now, no one had the guts to stand up to Hollywood and say, “no more!”

Given the success of the James Bond franchise, with their depictions of evil
Eastern Bloc villains, it’s a wonder no one thought of doing what the North Koreans are allegedly doing today. Obviously the Koreans are a tougher audience. In this particular case, apart from the fact that they have criminally hacked Sony and are using extortionist methods, they are saving us from another Seth Rogan epic, so there is a kernel of redemption there.  But isn’t it a bit galling that the evil mastermind purportedly behind this extortion resembles Elmer Fudd with a bad haircut?

It’s interesting to note that the reason Sony decided to pull the showing of “The Interview” is based not on threats of violence per se.  It is really based on liability.  In effect, the fear of lawsuits by people who may be hurt by going to the theatre is more of an issue than people who may genuinely be harmed.  So the real fear is with the American legal system. It doesn’t take an evil genius to determine that this model can be used to attack all sorts of commercial operations.

What has happened to America in the aftermath of “The Greatest Generation”? Can anyone imagine this scenario being played out in the 1940’s? The entire mindset of American society has devolved from “Bring it!” in the face of adversity to “Bring me a latte” in our neutered times.  Over the generations, people have been lulled into believing that “somebody” has the obligation to make sure people are safe; that some authority is charged with protecting people against all harm.  We’ve seen this stupidity through the grotesque machinations of the TSA at airports.  As a society, collective risk tolerance has fallen to comical levels.  But it’s not because people are less brave, it’s because of legal liability in the event of misfortune.  Lawyers again.

Eventually, people will be allowed to go to the theaters again, but it may be after the implementation of metal and perhaps body scanners and dogs at the ticket windows.  The tickets will be 3 times the size they are now because they will need the room to print all the disclaimers of risk and acceptance of such.   That still doesn’t take away the risk of viewing a crappy movie.