Man, I Love Stupid Rumors!

It says here that a rumor is circulating, and it's one I HAVE TO LIKE. Word on the street is that when the Mayan calendar ends, in December of 2012, the rogue planet Eris is supposed to crash into the Earth and destroy us all.

Um, OK -- but isn't Eris waaaaaaaaaaaaaay out past Pluto? If she were streaking toward us on a collision course, at a speed that would get her here by December, WOULDN'T SOMEONE HAVE NOTICED BY NOW? Half the telescopes in the sky are pointed in that direction because of the ongoing hostilities that began when Eris demoted Pluto from a planet to a fellow undistinguished iceball in the Kuiper Belt.

What the rumor-mongers may not realize is that -- as Kevin McCarthy would not doubt put it if this were a B-movie -- SHE'S ALREADY HERE. Maybe these people aren't reading the papers? Since Eris showed up, not only are the astronomers raking their leaves onto each other's lawns by moonlight out of spite, but Middle Eastern potentates are dropping like flies. Angry mobs are demonstrating in the streets. Baby Doc has returned to Haiti in the wake of a devastating earthquake and a cholera epidemic that -- you have to like this, too -- was apparently imported by aid workers. Countries are splitting up so they can form new governments and be enemies on a more official level. The European Union is teetering dangerously. The American government has just taken out one of its own citizens by drone attack. Every Republican bulwark of conservative American values is apparently standing in line to get a turn at being arrested for soliciting an undercover cop in a highway rest area. There's a nationwide lobby out there trying to keep the schools from teaching evolution. Killer Carp have invaded the Midwest.

Guys, SHE'S ALREADY HERE.