The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock is now set at Five Minutes to Midnight. These guys, probably the smartest group of affiliated individuals in the world (unless you count the employees at Google), have determined that we’re now almost entirely screwed, completely and utterly screwed. Briefly, they lay out three horror stories, which, for some reason, only get very light coverage on the daily news, the Web, and on the tube. They are:

Nuclear: “Terrorists alter the long-accepted nuclear threat paradigm.”
Environmental: “The future looks even bleaker, as scientists continue to observe cascading effects on Earth’s complex ecosystems.”
Emerging Technologies: “The emergence of nanotechnology–manufacturing at the molecular or atomic level–presents similar concerns, especially if coupled with chemical and biological weapons, explosives, or missiles.”

The Bulletin site (which is quite a work of art in and of itself) goes into lots of nice detail.
Me, I don’t need no smarty-pants professorial types to tell me the world is wacked. I read the weather report. Today’s weather says this:

“WINTER STORM WATCH FOR SOUTHWEST MOUNTAINS / LOWER GILA REGION, SIERRA COUNTY LAKES REGION, TULAROSA BASIN / SOUTHERN DESERT, SOUTHERN SACRAMENTO MOUNTAINS, SOUTHWEST DESERT / BOOTHEEL, SOUTHWEST DESERT / MIMBRES BASIN, SOUTHERN DESERT, NM EL PASO COUNTY, HUDSPETH COUNTY, TX UNTIL THU JAN 18 2007 06:30 AM MST”
“COASTAL FLOOD WARNING FOR SOUTHERN BREVARD COUNTY, INDIAN RIVER COUNTY, ST. LUCIE COUNTY, MARTIN COUNTY, COASTAL VOLUSIA COUNTY, NORTHERN BREVARD COUNTY, FL UNTIL THU JAN 18 2007 04:00 PM EST”
A FREEZE WARNING MEANS SUB-FREEZING TEMPERATURES ARE IMMINENT OR HIGHLY LIKELY. THESE CONDITIONS WILL KILL CROPS AND OTHER SENSITIVE VEGETATION.TO PREVENT FREEZING AND POSSIBLE BURSTING OF OUTDOOR WATER PIPES…PIPES SHOULD BE WRAPPED…DRAINED…OR
ALLOWED TO DRIP SLOWLY. THOSE THAT HAVE IN-GROUND SPRINKLER SYSTEMS SHOULD DRAIN THEIR SYSTEMS…OR COVER ANY ABOVE-GROUND PIPES TO PROTECT THEM FROM FREEZING.”