This may well become the feared pandemic Jimmy Carter warned us about thirty years ago. I pray it does not. My guess is that the swine flu will be this year's equivalent of the bird flu, that is, something the prophets of doom in the sensationalist news media tell us will be a dire threat to the survival of the species that turns out to be nothing of the sort. Therefore, in honor of the well coifed doomsday prophets of cable news, I now present my five favorite ways in which life on earth will be wiped out.
5. The Atlantic Ocean current will stop flowing due to the influx of too much fresh water into the ocean, therefore triggering a new ice age in which we all die.
4. An unknown comet comes hurtling toward earth, and our best efforts to stop it only split it in half. When it hits, we all die.
3. An asteroid the size of Texas comes hurtling toward earth, and since we do not have a team of Texas oil drillers to send up to stop it, it hits the earth, and we all die.
2. The core of the earth stops spinning, thus causing the earth's electromagnetic field to fail. Without this field, solar radiation cooks the earth, and we all die.
1. Grave robbers from outer space invade the earth two at a time. The bring an army of the recent dead back to life, and when the leaders of the earth refuse to listen to their warnings, we go ahead and develop solaranite, which, when ignited, blows up the earth and the sun and we all die.