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So the world, it was supposed to end yesterday. But, it didn't.

This is common. The world, it is, forever, recurrently, rhythmically, ending. Or so, some, always, are saying. But, it never seems to actually, happen.

For instance, on February 19 of this year, as we discussed here, the world was destined to end, due to "CIA Headquarters beneath Lake Geneva plotting a man-made Doomsday asteroid attack." Then, on April 19, all was to be over, again, because Arches of Baal, they were to be erected, in both London and New Ork, through which then would stride The Kenyan, a.k.a., the Antichrist.

But those endings, they failed to arrive. So then came May 9, yesterday, when Mercury, passing before the Sun, this was supposed to rain down Armageddon—at least according to some wild-eyed scripture-gibberers. A taste:

The number three is significant here, as according to BibleStudy.org, it is related to sex sins in the Bible.

Furthermore, if one were viewing the event from Jerusalem, the Holy Land and birthplace of Christianity, then the positioning of the crescent moon in alignment with the Orion star constellation "turns Orion's club into a mace," the narrator claims.

The Prophetico goes on to say: "The moon itself has been turned into a sickle, so literally turning Orion's club into a mace as he strikes the lion's whelp along the cheek, during the transit [of Mercury]."

The Prophetico warns that this could be a sign that this could be interpreted as the end times for humanity.

I looked all over, yesterday, for some Armageddon. But, it never showed.

Which is just as it should be. For, I know, that someone, somewhere, will be coming up with some new end-time, and soon. Maybe, even, today.

One thing I did not do yesterday, was look at the sun. Which the idjits at the Washington Post, they suggested I do.

"Mercury Is About To Pass In Front Of The Sun, And It Should Be Incredible To Watch," insanely urged that paper. No. I am not going to watch Mercury, pass in front of the Sun. Thank you very much. Because, I just do not feel like it—spending the rest of my life, shuffling about, with a stick, and a dog.

These cats, they might, maybe, under certain conditions, put up with the stick. But never the dog. Also, they expect me to know where they are, when I am mobile. It us up to me to avoid them: they are not going to move. I can sometimes barely maneuver around them now, without tripping and needing a hip replacement, even with a couple of more or less functional eyes. Orb-impaired, I would have to determine where they were by tapping around with a stick. And, if these cats were to be poked with a stick, I know they would immediately complain to the United Nations, and have me brought up on charges. So: no. I am not going to be looking into the sun.

Many questions, they roam into my head, that are just too Wrong, to out-loud ask. Like, here's one. If you are a blind person, with a blind-person dog, and you are condemned to life in a city, and you are trapped in one of those horrific B.F. Skinner buildings, that are all crammed together, and have no yards, and so, you have to take the blind-person dog, down to the street, in order to defecate, are you then expected to pick up the poop, like a sighted person? Or, do you get a Pass?

When you go to the google news, you have to be Careful. This is because: there, be dragons. The Post people, for instance, and as related above, they may be there, blithely encouraging you to go look at the sun and thereby burn out your retinas. Or, you may be presented with some truly horrifying conglomeration of words, like: "Blac Chyna Steps Out For The First Time Following Pregnancy Reveal At Burger King."

No. I am not clicking on that. I do not know what is a "Blac Chyna." And I for sure don't want to know, why he, she, or it, would reveal a pregnancy, at a Burger King. Because there are just some things, that no amount of Medicine, it can overcome.

In contrast, this is the sort of headline, that will draw me in, every time: "Ancient Reptile Ate Like An Underwater Lawnmower."

There is therein an amusing lesson on the propensity of Science Men for confidently asserting that they Know, when really they Don't.

Because, back in 2014, when they found the first fossilized head of this Atopodentatus unicus person, they turned it round and round, there in their Science Men hands, and then Decreed that, back there some 240 million years or so ago, it "used its snout to dig into the ocean floor for crustaceans and other small prey, then filter them out using its thin teeth, like a baleen whale collecting krill."

But, it is now admitted, all this Knowing, it was "based on one specimen," where "the skull was a bit mashed up, particularly on the front end, and it was difficult to see how it all went together."

Yes, now, having unearthed a second Atopodentatus uncius, one with more of an intact head, the Science Men, they have Concluded it was not a meat-eater, but an herbivore, "using its large front teeth and wide mouth to loosen algae from the ocean floor"; it "then vacuumed up plant-laden water and filtered it through its densely packed teeth, trapping the vegetation in the process."

"This is just such a bizarre [animal], eating something that we really didn't think about [as a food source] before this fossil," says Sterling Nesbitt, a paleontologist version of a Science Man. "It's basically an underwater lawnmower. There is absolutely nothing like it alive today."

Stay tuned. Because, when they find a third fossil, the Science Men, they will no doubt then Decide, that not only was ol' Atopodentatus uncius there an underwater lawnmower, but it also did The Hokey Pokey, even as it mowed, while, meanwhile, and effortlessly, conjugating French verbs.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Gj5VZXvb0]

Maybe because they are peckish, that all the world-endings, they just aren't a-happening, some different-one Science Men, they have started in, now, to fretting about what will happen when the world really does end: that is, when the sun goes nova. Which will be in about, oh, 500 million years.

These people. They are such Eeyores:

Assuming that humanity can avoid a self-inflicted nuclear apocalypse or a deadly asteroid strike, our species has less than 500 million years left on the planet.

But, they have the Answers, to this great bummeration, do these Science Men. The humans, the Science Men say, they could attach a giant solar sail to the planet, so it could stream away from the Bad sun. Or, they suggest, the humans could upload themselves into machines. They do not explain precisely how these machines would themselves avoid the crisping. But, shoving humans into machines, this is all the rage now, in Science Men circles, so probably they felt compelled to include it. Finally, they advise knocking the planet into a different orbit.

We of the Tummler, we have already explored, this last option. And we know how to accomplish it, too. And that is by moving all the obese humans, to one small region of the planet. This would knock the planet off-balance. And, so, it would, the planet, then, attain a new orbit.

Then, just today, came a new Science Man study, on how to achieve more obese people: consume artificial sweeteners while pregnant. These will produce bloat-babies, which will then become Michelin Man (and Woman) adults.

So, if the sun looks like it is starting to go nova, the pregnant people, they can just start really guzzling the artificial sweeteners; the resultant Michelin People, they can then all be herded into, like, Utah, or somewhere; and then, a new orbit, it will be Reached.

Problem: solved.

This is kind of a fun Fringe event. The house where Norman Bates, he lives with his dear, departed mother, it has appeared on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum Of Art in New Ork.

No, I am not going in there. But it's interesting, to think about.

Not a fun Fringe event: that would be the giant chunks of the planet's mantle that are falling off, causing many quakes, to all a-tremble, in the southeastern United States.

Researchers have been baffled, believing the areas should be relatively quiet in terms of seismic activity, as it is located in the interior of the North American Plate, far away from plate boundaries where earthquakes usually occur.

Now, they believe the quakes could be caused by pieces of the Earth's mantle breaking off and sinking into the planet.

A new study found pieces of the mantle under this region have been periodically breaking off and sinking down into the Earth. This thins and weakens the remaining plate, making it more prone to slipping that causes earthquakes.

This is what happens. When universes start seeping into one another.

All of the archived copies of the emails sent to and from the bumbler who set up and maintained The Mad Bomber's private email server, they have been lost, by the Department of State. "Fringe event," asserted a terse statement, issued by the Bomber campaign, late Monday night.

They are also Fringeing again, up in the airplanes.

Terrified passengers said they feared the worst when an Allegiant Air flight hit severe turbulence over the Atlantic Ocean, throwing some travelers out of their seats.

[Heather Osborne] said: "We were flying normal, I was actually sleeping, and all of a sudden I heard a little jolt and then all of a sudden a big jolt and I looked over and my mom was flying up in the air."

Passenger Amanda Kuhn, who suffered bruises, added: "I have people's blood on my feet. The flight attendants were injured and nobody could help them so I just ran up and got ice and paper towels."

Meanwhile:

Earlier this week, passengers on board an Etihad Airways flight from Abu Dhabi to Jakarta prayed aloud and screamed in horror as it was rocked by extreme turbulence.

Video captured by a passenger shows travelers praying, hugging, throwing their arms in the air and wailing as the plane violently shakes in the air.

More than 30 people were injured and, of those, at least 10 were transported to hospital to be treated for injuries including broken bones.

Photos showed food strewn across the floor, cracks in the ceiling and panels that came loose.

As elsewhere people's mothers, there in the airplanes, were flying into the air, and travelers, they were praying aloud, and screaming in horror, an Italian mathematician, he was hauled off an American Airlines flight, because a nosy and moronic dingleberry, she believed his notebook scrawlings, to be some sort of terrorist hieroglyphics.

An Italian maths professor was escorted off an American Airlines flight after a fellow passenger feared his mysterious scribbling on a notepad was evidence that he was a terrorist.

In fact Guido Menzio was working on an equation connected with a presentation on price-setting he was due to present.

But the sight of a slightly swarthy curly-haired individual scrawling odd symbols on a notepad was enough to alarm the woman who was sitting next to him on the flight from Philadelphia to Syracuse.

She thought the mysterious writing was evidence that he had nefarious intent. The woman decided to feign illness and passed a note to a member of the cabin crew.

The note contained detail of her suspicions and the plane sat on the tarmac.

Mr Menzio, an economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania was asked to come to the front of the aircraft where he was spoken to first by the pilot and then an official.

"I thought they were trying to get clues about her illness," he told Associated Press in an email.

"Instead, they tell me that the woman was concerned that I was a terrorist because I was writing strange things on a pad of paper."

Speaking of scawlers in the airplanes, remember when I mentioned that if you are on the airplane, and you overhear a sweaty, nervous man, with the beginning of a nosebleed, say to a flight attendant: "I'm in trouble. There's something happening to me that I don't have the time or the permission to explain to you. You need to listen to me, very carefully. I need you to go to the passengers, I need you to collect as many sedatives or tranquilizers as you can. I need you to get those drugs for me." You will Know, then, you are in real Danger, because that is a Fringe person, and unless he receives the requisite drugs, post-haste, and in mass quantities, he will go into the lavatory, and there transform into a huge spiny minotaur, and then he will crash the airplane?

Well. That doesn't always happen. Not, always.

Because, sometimes, in the same universe, but, maybe, in a different timeline, the Fringe person, he will not transform into the huge spiny minotaur, until after the plane lands. As set forth here:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4rLFl-vg98]

So. See. You never know.

Filmmaker Tom Twyker, he recently flew on the airplane, from Germany to New Ork, just for one day, to premiere his new film, and also roam round the Whitney Museum Of American Art. ("Stunning! There was a later self-portrait by Cindy Sherman, where she explores her aging by photographing herself as a celebrity who's trying to represent what she used to—only you can see in her eyes she knows it's gone.") Then he flew back.

I have not seen the new Twyker film. But I know it is not good. I know this because it features Tom Hanks. Who has never been good. In anything. Who began, on the television, in Bosom Buddies. Where he portrayed an ad-man who pretended to be a woman so he could secure cheap rent. Many people, they were hospitalized, after viewing that show; it has since been placed in quarantine.

Anyway. Twyker, he knew he was Wrong, to fly from Germany to New Ork, and back again, over just one day, and just to organ-grind a Tom Hanks film. And so, of this, he said:

"Our son will look at us in twenty-five years, when we're all sitting in holes together because the system crashed, and he'll say, 'didn't you know you shouldn't fly?' I'll tell him, 'I know. It was really bad, it was naive and stupid. But I got to see some great art.'"

The Kenyan, who is the president, and the Confederates, who run Congress, they have finally agreed on something. Together, they have designated, the bison, as the national mammal.

Of course, this designation, it shall be short-lived. Because, when The Hairball, he becomes the president, he shall designate himself, the national mammal.

Jesus of Nazareth, he rode around on bison, when he visited North America, after that unpleasantness there on Golgotha.

Like Albert Brooks, in the true-life documentary film Lost In America, Jesus, he touched Indians, and he ate beef jerky.

This is all set forth in the Mormon Book Of Underpants, which was vouchsafed unto Joseph Smith, in letters scrawled upon golden plates, delivered up by the angel Boni Maroni.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5725Xf1F090]

The Americans, they are not the only ones voting in droves for utterly unfit ur-humans. For the people of the Philippines, they seem to have chosen as their president, a man who can fairly be described thusly:

This man jokes about wanting to gang-rape a woman. He vows to kill all drug addicts within six months of his election. If Congress opposes him, he will abolish it. He says he's a scourge of the elite, and excuses his crass humor because he is "not the son of a konyo"—a colloquial Filipino term for the upper classes (in fact, he's the son of a governor). When asked about actual policies, he says they are "secret, secret." His funders remain veiled in gossip: jailed oligarchs are rumored to have him in their pockets. He gleefully announces he'd like to burn the flag of Singapore, expel the Australian Embassy, and show people his penis.

He has openly acknowledged running death squads, and boasted of personally killing people. He has said that, as president, he will execute 100,000 people, and dump their bodies into Manila Bay. He says he used to be a Catholic, but he has had to give that up, in order to carry out his duties: "If I obey the Ten Commandments or listen to priests, I would not be able to do anything." He wants the Human Rights Watch people to come to his country, so he can kill them.

The international NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has chronicled the rise of "death squads" in Davao City: groups of men on the government payroll who kill petty criminals, street children, and drug dealers. For Duterte, HRW writes, "The brutal death squads that have claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people during his tenure as mayor of Davao City are not a problem. They're a political platform." (How does Duterte respond to HRW's claims? "All the bleeding hearts of U.S.-based crime watch: You want a taste of justice, my style?," he asked. "Come to Davao City, Philippines, and do drugs in my city. I will execute you in public.")

No doubt, and soon, this man will endorse The Hairball. As has the Serbian war criminal Vojislav Seselj. The convicted Holocaust-denier Jean-Marie Le Pen, who personally tortured brown people, as The Hairball himself, is so avid to do. As has the Dutch fascist Geert Wilders. And the Ku Klux Klan. And all the many other huge spiny minotaurs, Thanatos soul brothers, of The Hairball, from round and round this world.

There is no ending. For this piece. I had one. But then I decided that some people might think it Mean. Even though it is True. So, I am eschewing it. For the nonce. And I have no backup. Ending.

Well. Sometimes the magic works. Sometimes it doesn't.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwgnDn8ez9g]