CERN: The end is nigh

Two days....

CERN's 17-Mile-Long Atom Smasher To Re-Enact 'Big Bang'

It has been called an Alice in Wonderland investigation into the makeup of the universe _ or dangerous tampering with nature that could spell doomsday.

Whatever the case, the most powerful atom-smasher ever built comes online Wednesday, eagerly anticipated by scientists worldwide who have awaited this moment for two decades.

The multibillion-dollar Large Hadron Collider will explore the tiniest particles and come ever closer to re-enacting the big bang, the theory that a colossal explosion created the universe.

There's your fair warning. Two days until the end of the world and/or God is murdered. Two days to get your affairs in order, start worshiping the right God (the snake handling God), and wondering if being collapsed into a black hole is painful (it is). On the bright side: short work week and everybody loves handling dangerous vipers to ingratiate yourself to a bearded man in a cloudy throne.

Though it's hard not to be a tad unnerved by the scientist's protestations that we will not be all compressed into a singularity, around say noon EST. "What the naysayers say has almost no chance of happening and even if it does happen it won't do what they say." So isn't that just admitting there is some validity to doomsday scenarios? In any event you probably regret not buying that black hole proof bomb shelter or buying your way into rich man's heaven.

See you Wednesday! I'll be the guy hurtling across the Atlantic on his way to be crushed into nothingness in a black hole on the French border with a smug look of "See, I told you".

You may watch the end of your existence in a convenient webcast.