
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">In case you are not familiar with that headline timepiece, it is a symbolic clock that was created in 1947 by the members of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. ; </p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">It is intended to suggest how much time is left before the world is engulfed in a nuclear Armageddon – and the human race is thrust back into the Ice Age if we survive at all. ; Midnight is the moment of the atomic holocaust.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Periodically, the folks at the Bulletin adjust the time to indicate how close the disaster is to reality – in their opinion, of course.  ; The clock has been set – or should I say, re-set – 25 times in the past 76 years. ; The furthest from Midnight was 17 minutes in 1991. ; The Doomsday Clock is not like any other clock, however. ; In the tradition of Einsteinian time warping, the Clock can go backward – and it has done so in 8 of its 25 time changes.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">On January 24<sup>th</sup> of this year, the Scientists put the Clock at 90 seconds to Midnight. ; The bad news is that the reset is the closest to a nuclear disaster that the Clock has ever been in its history.  ; That is closer than all years of the Cold War – when school kids were doing “duck and cover” drills. ; Closer than at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. ; Closer than all those other wars in the Middle East. ; Closer than the war in Afghanistan.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">According to Rachel Bronson, president of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “We are living in a time of unprecedented danger, and the Doomsday Clock time reflects that reality.” ;</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">REALITY?</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I am laughing. ; That “Clock” has been wrong for 76 years no matter how close to Midnight it is arbitrarily set. ; The Clock is a public relations gimmick for the radical left scientists who publish the Bulletin. ; Like a Draconian Brigadoon, they rise from obscurity to reset the Clock and quickly return to the anonymity they so richly deserve.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">There is a bit of nuance in the latest ominous prediction of global catastrophe. ; They apparently have incorporated climate change and international politics as part of their odious brew of pending calamity upon which they base their ominous fortune telling.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I have long given the Doomsday Clock the same level of serious consideration as I do the horoscopes published daily in newspapers and those fortune cookies found in every Chinese restaurant. ; The folks at the Bulletin remind me of the robed preacher on the street corner carrying a sign that the world is coming to an end. ; At least he is right in the long run. ; The Clock has never been right – and may never be right.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Now that the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has placed Armageddon just 90 seconds away – symbolically speaking – I still feel no sense of heightened dread. ; If it was my Clock, I would set it for around six in the morning to start a new day – about the time I set my real clock. ; ;</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Keep in mind that the Doomsday Clock does not represent any REAL peril of pending doom. ; It is just a gimmick. ; I have to admit, however, that the Clock is a great publicity stunt. ; It gets a lot of publicity every time the Scientists move the big hand. ; Other than that, it is a broken Clock.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">So, there ‘tis.</p>

Doomsday Clock Closing in on 12-o’clock Hour of Doom
