Armageddon, Or Just A Slow News Day?

The news recently has a lot of people down. There's Israel's invasion of Lebanon, the disintegration of Iraq, North Korea's missile launches, Pakistan's recent decision to build a plutonium reactor, tsunamis in Indonesia, floods in New England, global climate change, and Katie Couric's upcoming move to a major evening news broadcast. Is it any wonder that some people are saying we're in the midst of World War III, or already living in the final days as foretold in the Bible?

Is it true? Is it really only a matter of days till we see the Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse (the fourth one recently lost his job to illegal immigrants) riding across the sky?

No, of course not. The truth of the matter is that there has always been conflict in the Middle East, and people have always died in natural disasters. That's just reality as it has always been since time immemorial.

The REAL problem is that the press has no big celebrity trials to concentrate on, and is thus wasting its time reporting on how the world is turning to shit. That leaves us with the false impression that things are somehow worse than they usually are.

But sooner or later something wonderful will happen, like maybe Angelina Jolie chopping off Brad Pitt's penis during an argument, and we won't hear another peep about sectarian strife in Iraq.