SWITZERLAND

After two electrical failures, the Hadron Particle Accelerator in Geneva is up and running again. Which is good news for physicists looking to recreate conditions last seen one trillionth of a second after the Big Bang and bad news for the small camp who share the fears of Nobel prizing winning (for peace, not science) physicist Francesco Calogero who, authored the paper timidly titled, “Might a Laboratory Experiment Destroy Planet Earth?” Some scientists filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights, concerned the collider could create a tiny black hole to either obliterate the earth, or else reduce it to a tiny strangelet (this is actually a word) — a dense, lumpy version of the Earth. Dr. Arkani-Hamed, a snarky particle theorist at Princeton, responded by saying there is also a small probability that the collider “might make dragons that might eat us up.”

WATER! WATER! EVERYWHERE…

PEOPLE WHO STRUGGLE TO EMBRACE A PERSPECTIVE THAT LOOKS BEYOND THE CENTRAL EVENTS OF THEIR OWN LIVES

On May 14, 2004 the Worldwide Church of God sold part of its west campus in Pasadena, Calif. Thinking this is the action referred to by the lines “the abomination that maketh desolate” (Daniel 12:11-12), after which the world has 2,300 days (Daniel again), the church marked terra firma’s end date as Aug. 31, 2010. When Camp Yale ends, so does the world.

THE NAZCA, CARRIBEAN, AND SOUTH AMERICAN PLATES

On Jan. 12, plates shifted below Haiti, resulting in a magnitude 7.0 earthquake. More than 200,000 deaths, more than a million homeless. A month later by more quake, less casualty followed in Chile: 8.8 on the Richter scale, about 500 reported deaths.

THE PRIESTLY CLASS

For all the Irish lads who suffered from what Pope Benedict called (EUPHEMISM ALERT) “failures of leadership” by their local clergy it might feel like the end of the world. Nothing an eight-page pastoral letter can’t fix.

MOUNT EYJAFJALLAJOKULL

On March 20, 2010, the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull (pronounced, AYA-feeyapla-yurkel, duh) decided to take matters into its own sulphuric hands.

Iceland was so over. Three major banks had collapsed and external debt had risen to nearly six times the gross domestic product, straining once-chummy relations with big-time the Isle of Man. Even Jón Ásgeir, Iceland’s top businessman beloved for his shaggy golden mullet, fell from grace, his people pelting him with snowballs. One Icelandic blogger described the experience as “afar frelsandi tilfinning,” (“very redemptive sensation”) and suggested that fellow countrymen do the same.

And so, after staying dormant for 189 years, the volcano erupted, splitting the earth open along a fissure more than half a mile long. Five hundred Icelanders (i.e., the people who don’t live in Reykjavik) were evacuated.

Next up: Iceland’s Mount Katla, which apparently is bigger, badder, and according to geophysicists, calls Polo to Eyjafjallajokull’s Marco… if that makes sense.

IGOR PANARIN

In 1998, Igor Panarin gave a talk to 400 delegates at an information warfare conference in Linz, Austria.

“When I pushed the button on my computer and the map of the United States disintegrated, hundreds of people cried out in surprise,” he recalled.

Panarin is the Dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s diplomatic academy and a former analyst for the KGB. He’s still standing by his prediction that America will split into six pieces in late June of 2010 — with China taking the California Republic (“most Californians’ laptops are made in China,” he explained), Texas going to Mexico, and the DC to NYC corridor joining the EU. Panarin conceded that Russia laying claim to Alaska would be “reasonable.”

In Russia, Panarin’s book “US Dollar Crash and US breakup” debuted as a top-10 seller in political literature. Last year, he was doing about two interviews a day, and the state television station ran a Panarin talk spliced with footage of Americans lining up at soup kitchens.

With the deadline fast approaching, he’s hedged his bets on “55-45 percent chance … of disintegration” and started a Twitter account to keep us all posted (@Two_Toes_Tony, “I think that American economy is going to face the new wave of crissi, [sic] presumable in November?”)

By any means, we’ll find out soon: “By spring,” he said, “it will be clear that there are no miracles.”

This week, New England was hit with the worst flooding in more than 100 years, causing Obama to send the National Guard to Rhode Island to evacuate people from their homes. Amtrak services were also suspended to New Haven and top it all off, the Bass basement flooded with sewage. Smart thinking, FES students who for some protest thing this winter, built themselves an ark.