Exceptions Going Up in Smoke

In my continuing quest to post some stuff that I wrote at the Writing Project, I now provide you with a sample of an editorial that I wrote when the op-ed editor from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette came to visit our group. He raved about my piece when I shared it with the class, so I hope you all like it too.

I offer one caveat though. Writers often take liberties with the facts even when writing what most would consider "nonfiction." Stories have to be compressed, situations must be simplified, and specifics might be overlooked for the sake of a coherent and persuasive essay.

Second caveat for stupid people: Editorials, by their very nature, are try to convince readers of the author's point of view. If you think this is biased... well no shit. It's supposed to be.

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Let the Exception Go Up in Smoke

An Op-Ed Article for a Pittsburgh Newspaper

Last Saturday, I journeyed back hometown, a little riverside town that’s neither a cultural center nor a social hub in the area. It certainly lacks the diverse options for entertainment that cities like Pittsburgh have. On that typical Saturday night, seeking to drown my sorrows in alcohol with a few friends, I traveled to the town’s primary watering hole, aptly named “The Saloon.” The air in the bar was thick with friendly banter, music, and of course, clouds of cigarette smoke. By the end of the night, even though I never touched a cigarette, I smelled like my grandma’s ashtray after a Matlock marathon. My eyes were watering, and my throat was dry and imbued with a rich smoky flavor.

Of course, in 2008, Pennsylvania passed a state-wide restriction on smoking in public places—including restaurants and bars. However, unlike many other states like New York or Maryland, our law came with a caveat: any bar, lounge, or restaurant that made more than 80% of its sales from alcohol would be exempt. This exception, of course, meant that most bars could still allow smoking. The underlying reason for this exception was that bars would suffer financially if smokers were denied their vice.

Pennsylvania’s exception to the smoking ban is patently absurd, and it should be eliminated. Proponents of the exception point to bars with thriving food sales whose sales of beer and liquor have plummeted since the ban, and they argue that the ban should be lifted entirely. In fact, I would argue that a universal ban could actually help the bottom line. I spent the better part of my college summers helping my father remodel a local restaurant chain. I lost count of how many repairs and replacements were related to smoking in some way. Ceiling tiles had faded. Wallpaper was stained yellow. Air filtration units had been overpowered and destroyed. One of the managers told us that the smoking ban actually improved profits overall and led to more positive customer feedback.

I understand the owners’ position. I wouldn’t want anyone telling me how to run my business either, but the environment in these establishments has become unbearable. When I’m in one of my crankier moods and complaining about the smoke in the bars, my friend will insist, “If you don’t like it here, you can always go somewhere else.” Well, yes I can, but the smoke-free bars are smoke-free for a reason… not enough people drink there! Is it so wrong to want to drink in a real bar without developing lung cancer?

Smokers may love cigarettes, but they’re not going to love smoking and drinking alone if the ban were made universal. Their black lungs may keep them away for a few days, but their black livers will bring them crawling back.

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"Our numbers are down all across the board. Teen smoking, our bread and butter, is falling like a shit from heaven! We don't sell Tic Tacs for Christ's sake. We sell cigarettes. And they're cool and available and *addictive*. The job is almost done for us!"

Planeteer Alert!

Despite what my brother would consider to be my touchy-feely liberal tendencies, I really don't care about the environment. Academically speaking, I understand the impact of pollution and the importance of maintaining a stable ecosystem; however, emotionally I typically can't muster the wherewithal to be truly upset by environmental issues. Perhaps it comes from too many years of watching Captain Planet; now I expect serious environmental violators to be malevolent and dastardly mutants who pollute just for the fun of it. Hell, one of the villains was named Looten Plunder. How do you beat a name like that? Answer: you can't.

My environmental apathy typically continues unchecked until, every once in awhile, I stumble across some information regarding the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. No, this is not the mythical home of the Garbage Pail and Cabbage Patch Kids. In fact, it's a giant island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that's twice the size of Texas... and it's made up entirely of garbage. It's also colloquially known as the Pacific Trash Vortex, which is a way cooler name.

Simply put, the currents in the North Pacific Ocean (the North Pacific Gyre) gather all the garbage in the ocean and bring it into a swirling but stable area where it can fester forever. Said garbage kills fish and other marine life. Have you ever let a bag of trash sit outside for too long? Well multiply that by about one trillion and then let is stew in water. It's not hard to see why this sucker would be problematic.

In any case, this is an environmental tidbit that people can wrap their heads around. "Floating garbage island twice the size of Texas" stays with a person far better than "Global warming will make the Earth's temperature rise a few degrees in a hundred years." While the latter is serious, it doesn't sound serious to a lot of folks. A new continent made of garbage really sounds like a big problem.

The beautiful thing is that this trash vortex is getting larger. More and more garbage keeps accumulating. There's something sadistically fascinating about the whole thing. Part of me wants to see this eco-disaster get worse and worse. At the moment, the vortex isn't visible by satellite (so no chance of finding it on Google Maps, I'm afraid) because it all floats on the water's surface, but maybe if we let the sumbitch accumulate into a super-sized mass of used tires, discarded diapers, and old Filet o' Fish wrappers, we can have ourselves a new garbage continent called Trashica.

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"By your powers combined, I am Captain Planet!"

We Few, We Happy Few

As I've mentioned many times before on this blog, I don't believe in God, an afterlife, or any sort of ethereal realm containing spirits and the ascended form of Zombie Jesus. Most of the time, I'm content to simply ignore questions of life-after-death since I'm not confronted with it on a daily basis, but since today is Memorial Day, I figured the topic might be worth a few imaginary beard scratchings.

Memorial Day is a tricky thing. The idea behind it is that we honor the soldiers who have given their lives in service of their country. But what does it even mean to "honor" them? Today I marched with the Firemen's Band in the Memorial Day parade. I love those old Sousa marches, and I always get a thrill out of playing "The Stars and Stripes Forever" (even though the trombone part is out of my range and surprisingly complex). The crowds really seem to love them too. We always get big cheers wherever we play.

But you know who I don't see anywhere along the parade route? Dead soldiers.

For all the talk we have about Memorial Day being for the dead, it's really about people who are still alive. The dead don't care. Even supposing that there is some spirit realm where they're deading it up with Jesus, Budda, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I would think that the soldiers would have a lot more interesting things to do with their disembodied selves than to watch a parade down in the asscrack of the Allegheny Valley.

I don't even think Memorial Day is really for Veterans even though they always seem to be very emotionally invested in the festivities. They don't need a day to remember the military. Getting your ass shot at by hoardes of Nazis is probably something you can remember without my ass tooting "Semper Fidelis" on my horn. In fact, I think Memorial Day is ideally directed toward we cowardly folk who never had any desire to serve in the armed forces. Willingly choosing to be shot after enduring basic training at the mercy of a drill instructor whose force of will could probably shatter my spine is no small sacrifice.

I'm a cowardly sort of fellow, and I know I would have crumbled immediately under fire. I imagine myself curling into the fetal position, sobbing loudly, and giving up valuable American secrets to any inquisitive interrogator who threatened to tickle my feet. I also don't think that those aforementioned drill instructors respond well to snarky backtalk or childish giggling in the ranks. Back in days of yore, they'd round up all the peasant folk and force them into battle against whatever nearby fiefdom the king had managed to piss off that week. As a penniless peon who happens to be the size of a small moose, I know I'd be drafted under that system in no time. Thank you soldiers for ensuring that my laissez-faire lifestyle can continue uninterrupted.

I do get annoyed when remembering fallen soldiers is conflated with celebrating America. That's what the Fourth of July is for. Stay in your own damn month, America. Sometimes soldiers do die during noble American missions, but oftentimes, soldiers die because America fucks up. Should we remember the soldiers who liberated concentration camps more fondly than those who got us cheaper gas prices? Not at all. In fact, that's why I respect those in the armed forces. You've signed up to follow the orders of someone you'd never met beforehand, and you may end up dead for a completely worthless cause. People line up in droves to volunteer for military service when they believe in the cause (WWII being a prime example), but how many of us would sign up for ANYTHING we were asked to die for. Theoretically, you could die because some general sent you into battle because his cousin, who happens to command the opposing army, slept with his wife last week (I think that may have been the plot of a Shakespeare play or two).

Sometimes young men and women sign up for the military for stupid reasons. They may not care a whit about protecting anybody. They might be in it for the benefits, to escape a bad home life, or because they need a job. In which case, their deaths should weigh even more heavily on us. There are probably a great many soldiers overseas who hate being there, but even if they would have preferred not to sacrifice, they still do. Some poor guy might have signed up for the Army Reserve, confident that he'd remain stateside, but then he stepped on a landmine on his first trip abroad. Memorial Day is exactly the time to think about the complexities of military service - the pros, cons, and TV shows - that are typically ignored.

Even if a soldier dies for a lousy reason, that has value to we breathing humans. We can think back on it and realize that maybe we don't want to go to war for just any old reason. Save our soldiers for raiding chocolate and cheeses from Switzerland. In fact, I think I'm going to write a very strongly worded letter to the Pentagon asking for exactly that.

Don't just remember the dead, today. The dead are dead. Think about their history and how that affects you. And support your local tromboners who play at Memorial Day parades. We're a charming and dashing bunch!

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"Never worry about the bullet with your name on it. Instead, worry about shrapnel addressed to 'occupant.'"

Rule Britannia!

I was watching The Daily Show last night, and as anyone might expect, they took great pleasure in mocking the slipshod "Tea Parties" that cropped up around the country on April 15 to protest taxes. Admittedly, referring to these wingdings as "teabaggers" was a joke so obvious that I think every eighth grader in the country could have thought it up. Nevertheless, there was one brilliant segment where John Oliver, The Daily Show's lanky and snarky British correspondent, went to one of the Tea Parties to essentially berate them for failing to understand just how truly awesome the British were at oppression. He chided them for comparing their perceived injustices to those of the colonists under British rule, and he was offended as an Englishman that they think present-day America even comes close.

Instead of pondering the historical and social implications of English and American tax systems, my infantile and wayward mind starting thinking about other things that the British have that Americans don't that we really should (because the king of England really needs to start housing troops in my lodgings). Here's the list I came up with:

Fish and Chips: I really don't much like seafood, but the British cook it just the way I like it - batter-dipped and deep fried until the only thing you can taste is sweet delicious cholesterol! It's the one British foodstuff that I heartily support.

Cutesy Swear Words: In England, calling some random stranger a "bloody wanker" is way worse than referring to your dear old granny as a "fucking cunt." Lines like "Don't get your knickers in a twist" sound a lot more civilized than "Don't lose your shit, dude!" And there's nothing better than British people always referring to their ass as their bum. A very proper English gentleman could be walking down the street earning all sorts of respect, but then he falls on the ground and declares, "Blimey, I fell on me bum!" Suddenly he's got all the class of a four year old.

Welsh Jokes: The Welsh are like the English hillbillies. They're the butt of the joke that always works.
"I say my good fellow, what do you call a bloke who rapes his mum, falls on his bum, and is always a dum dum?"
"I haven't the slightest, sir!"
"A Welshman! Har har har!"
As a man who's part Welsh, I find such jokes to be crass and tasteless... which is why we need to bring them to America!

Royal Titles: This is the famous thing where the king or queen puts the sword on your shoulder and lets you put "Sir" or "Dame" before your name. It's a great concept, but let's take that tired old idea and do it America-style! We could have a reality show called "Who Wants to be in the Order of Chivalry?" It could be hosted by Sir Mix-a-Lot (he's not doing much these days) and feature all sorts of random trials like eating a goat's placenta and running through a tepid pool of vomit. We're going to bring some class to that old tradition.

Parliament: They get to wear wigs, and most of the time the House of Lords and the House of Commons just stand there literally screaming and shouting at each other for no good reason. Essentially, they're just like Congress only a lot more entertaining.

Villainous but Sophisticated Accents: Do you need to sound incredibly evil while still giving off an aura of intelligence and wit? Then you need a proper British accent. Your average cockney accent is nice if your goal in life is to be an award-winning soccer hooligan, but if you watch Die Hard and fantasize about one day being Alan Rickman or you wonder why every Imperial officer in Star Wars sounds inherently vile but cunningly calculating, then start doing your best Patrick Stewart imitation this instant. You could have the IQ of a cantaloupe, but with your sporty new British accent, you'll be a Mensa member in no time.

Bathroom Language: Which sounds better: "I'm in line for the shitter," or "I'm in the queue for the loo"? I thought so!

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Mind your bloody manners in the comments section you silly sots, or the constabulary and fire brigade will spank you in the bum with their torches.

And That's the Way It Isn't

"The truth is just an excuse for a lack of imagination."

For years, I've been putting that quote on my AIM profile, Facebook page, and perhaps several official government documents. You might think that it's some kind of profound sentiment from a distinguished philosopher or a clever witticism from Twain or something. You would be wrong. It's from that most profound of shows, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Suck on that! Star Trek once again serves as a parable for life.

We rely on news outlets for our understanding of what happens in our communities and the world. Unless I start doing some serious traveling or develop some sort of extra-sensory perception (all the more reason to hang around gamma radiation and toxic spills), this will remain true for the foreseeable future. When it comes to the economy, those of us without our MBA have to rely on analysts to make sense of seemingly indecipherable stock values, though I have no objections to this if the networks follow NBC's lead and find extremely hot financial analysts for me to leer at. Once I accept that every news network, newspaper, magazine, and professional website is dedicated first and foremost to making money, I can sift through the information at my leisure.

What bothers me is that people don't understand that the news isn't "just the facts." Every once in awhile, I tear myself away from VoyeurCzechGirls.com and visit some legitimate message boards where people discuss current events, politics, and everyday news items. It kills me that a lot of people uncritically accept anything they read on the internet or see on television. Maybe it's just the latent bug up my ass about rhetoric that's reasserting itself, but I'm endlessly annoyed by the inability of the public at large to understand how the media works.

Let's take a look at today's CNN website. The headline reads, "Clinton: U.S. Shares Blame for Mexico Violence." The article addresses Hillary Clinton's perspective on the recent problems in Mexico. The informed reader should say, "Oh, this is what Hillary Clinton thinks of what's happening in Mexico." The undisputable "fact" of the story is that Hillary Clinton has shared her viewpoint. But the way that the headline is worded, many uncritical readers may assume the fact to be "The United States shares the blame for the violence in Mexico." The story's only source for anything cited in the article is, of course, Hillary Clinton. Granted, she's the Secretary of State and should probably know a thing or two about it, but many people will accept what she says as undisputed fact even though this is the perspective of a single person.

Now I use this example because it's actually, in my opinion, a legitimate news story. If the Secretary of State has something to say about contemporary foreign affairs, it's probably newsworthy. My objection is that too many people seem to read stories like that without considering how to read them. If there's video on the internet, very few people seem to consider that there might be a context for what's happening or that the cameraman only recorded what would sell. If there's a damning quote about a famous person, let's not consider that the quote may have been taken out of context.

Before I seem too comfortable sitting atop my high horse, let me hasten to add that I fall for the same stuff, but I like to think that I catch myself more often than not. For instance, I really don't understand what Bernie Madoff did, and I have only a vague understanding of what a ponzi scheme is, but I neatly filed the note "Bernie Madoff, maker of money-dollars, gets convicted for doing bad guy stuff" away in my brain under "Economic Stuff that I Don't Understand." Now I have to make sure that there's an asterisk next to that note that means, "This tidbit may have been deduced from incomplete information."

Slightly off tangent but still within the scope of this topic... when will Mr. Employer learn that forwarded emails can be completely fabricated? It was bad enough when he gave me a long lists of "truths" about Barack Obama shortly before the election and told me to "think long and hard about them" before voting. Oh I definitely thought long and hard after I found on Snopes.com that most of them were complete bullshit. Even after bringing this to his attention, I had to read his new one about Barack Obama having Narcissistic Personality Disorder because some doctor DIAGNOSED him by watching his television appearances. Never mind that the article lacked any citations or that the doctor doesn't exist. He still thinks the internet would never lie to him.

I won't even get into those occassional days when Mr. Employer decides to turn on Rush Limbaugh while we're eating lunch. If restating an oversimplified version of your opponent's viewpoint in a funny voice and then adding "Are you kidding me?" is your idea of a convincing argument, then you enjoy yourself. Hey Rush, check out the definitions for "ad hominem" and "slippery slope" and then ask yourself why they're both called "fallacies."

So to sum up: Don't trust anybody. They're all out to get you.

Especially me.

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JP: May only be bitter because news sites make more money than his website does.

It Doesn't Make Cents to Me, Part 2

As I indicated in a previous post, when it comes to matters involving anything vaguely economical, my intelligence drops to the level of a starfish. Back in October, I expressed my frustration over not understanding how the economic collapse happened. Now I'm equally befuddled by the prospective solutions, so I will make yet another desperate plea:

Would somebody please explain the economic stimulus debate to me in 500 words or less?

As my befuddled economically-challenged brain understands it, the premise behind the stimulus bill makes sense. During times of high unemployment, people don't spend anything because they want to hoard what they have. This is not good for the economy because people have to spend money in order to make the economy go. With people saving their money because they think they're going to die, the economy starts to go down the shitter even further resulting in even higher unemployment. In order to alleviate these concerns, the government is going to spend a shitload of money at once to kind of jump-start the economy so that it doesn't stagnate.

If a gold star is warranted for being somewhere in the ball park on this summary, I'd appreciate being given that little reward. If I'm way off base, I'll take a very sensual spanking.

More conservative advocates want the government stimulus to instead come in the form of tax breaks for individuals. I do not understand this plan. Wouldn't the amount that each person receives be relatively small? Given such a small tax break, doesn't it seem more likely that individual taxpayers will simply put that money into savings (given the dire economic situation) instead of spending it? All that people hear right now is that they need to SAVE SAVE SAVE their money! If they get a tax break, isn't that exactly what they'll do?

I really enjoy telling people that I think they're stupid even when I don't understand their argument (makes me feel good about myself), but in this case I'm not going to do that. I truly don't believe that those people who support the tax breaks are incompetent, so I want to know what the reasoning is behind that notion. I'm looking to you, brave and discerning FoxNews viewers. What's the reasoning behind the conservative plan?

I rather like the people on TV who claim that a depression is necessary and that we shouldn't do anything. First, apathy comes naturally to me, so I'm totally on board. Second, the vast majority of people don't want to listen to these negative Nancies, so I root for the underdog. And third, there's a certain poetry to two decades of prosperity being rewarded with a giant economic comeuppance. With my twenty years spent in school receiving excellent grades and being told that I'd be going places in my life and then languishing in unemployment forever, I see my life as a microcosm for American society as a whole. Misery loves company.

So let's play a little game we're going to call: EDUCATE THE ECONOMIC SIMPLETON. The winner will get to have Carl Kasell record the greeting on his or her home answering machine.
(If you get that obscure reference, you're probably an economically-challenged humanities major like me.)

My brain is like an open vessel awaiting your soluble and quenching truth.

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The Economy: Once you understand it, you've probably overdosed on LSD.

Today is a Good Day to Steal

Denver robber with bat'leth (left) not nearly as menacing as Worf with bat'leth (right)

A thief in Denver made my day. While most armed robbers are maddeningly dull in their choice of weaponry, one man decided to stand out from the crowd in a glorious fashion. This man held up a few 7-11 convenience stores with a Klingon bat'leth.

According to an article from the website of local Denver TV station (the local news delivers the goods for once), "The clerk told police a white man in his 20s, wearing a black mask, black jacket, and blue jeans, entered the store with a weapon the clerk recognized from the Star Trek TV series."

What I love about this story is that everyone involved must be an avid Star Trek fan. Not only did the fanboy thief pick his warrior blade from the Star Trek mythos, but the clerk recognized it as such. Not only that, but the Klingon pillager went on to rob ANOTHER 7-11 in the area:
"A half hour later, police received a call from a 7-Eleven at 2407 N. Union Blvd., where a man matching the previous description entered the store with a similar weapon. He also demanded money from the store clerk. The clerk refused and the robber 'transported' himself out of the store on foot. Both clerks described the weapon as a Star Trek Klingon-type sword, called a 'bat'leth.'"

So two 7-11 clerks recognized the weapon as being a Klingon bat'leth. I have to admit that I'm thoroughly impressed but a bit disturbed. I don't like the idea of the most notorious Trekkies in the media right now being an armed robber and two 7-11 employees. This is not good press coverage for we who fanatically follow the goings-on of the fearless crew of the starship Enterprise. On the other hand, I absolutely adore this robber for his Trek-inspired brand of larceny. It was not a wise choice to make to avoid detection. While this elusive robber hasn't been apprehended yet, it shouldn't be hard to track him down. There are very few stores that manufacture Klingon bat'leths. I once saw one being sold at a specialty weapons store in Erie, PA, and I was tempted for a moment before noticing the extravagant price. Apparently Klingon honor doesn't come cheap anymore. Kahless would not be pleased.

Of all the geek-related weaponry that this man could have used, I'm proud that he went with a Klingon sword. There's a certain practicality in his choice. A plastic lightsaber doesn't actually cause much physical harm beyond some minor bruising, and most laser guns don't, to my knowledge, actually fire lasers. A bat'leth, assuming it was actually made of metal (the police apparently don't know yet), could do some legitimate damage if weilded properly. Nevertheless, he could have made some other stylish choices. He could have gone with a replica Blade Runner gun; it's not real but it looks intimidating as hell. And if he was dead set on using a Star Trek themed weapon (and who wouldn't be), then he could have used to the Vulcan "lirpa" that Kirk and Spock used to do battle in that one episode where Spock got horny. As it stands, though, he went for the elegant "bat'leth," the weapon of choice for all Klingons looking to efficiently gut a Romulan.

While I've never decked myself out in Klingon garb or learned any parts of the Klingon language, I can understand the allure for Kling-o-philes. Klingons are, to coin an outdated '90s phrase, totally boss, and they're usually played by actors who are experts at chewing scenery at an alarming rate. Christopher Lloyd, John Larroquette, and the guy who played Uncle Phil on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air have all been Klingons in the movies or series. My personal favorite (and Batmite agrees) is probably the Shakespeare-quoting bald Klingon from Star Trek VI who has an eyepatch BOLTED to his skull:
He marginally beats out this guy:
So my nerd hat is off to this Klingon bandit. He probably purchased that bat'leth and proudly showed it off to his family and friends... who mercilessly mocked him for his foolhardy purchase. But he showed them all what he could do with the blade of a warrior!!

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9 out of 10 readers are sick of JP's seemingly endless Star Trek references. The tenth reader is the Klingon bandit who graciously decides to give JP a substantial cut of the loot... since that's the Klingon way.

The Doomsday Machine

Feeling far too well-informed and thoughtful, I decided to kill a few brain cells on the FoxNews website (JP ducks after deliberately provoking Dave). I couldn't pass up the line, "Doomsday Machine Might Destroy World." (Here's the link) I know that FoxNews has a flair for excessive hyperbole, but I was far too intrigued to pass that up. As I suspected, the "Doomsday Machine" in question is the much ballyhooed Large Hadron Collider, a high-energy particle accellerator that looks like it could power the starship Enterprise.
But what does the Large Hadron Collider do? This is what Wikipedia has to say on the subject:
It is theorized that the collider will produce the elusive Higgs boson, the last unobserved particle among those predicted by the Standard Model. The verification of the existence of the Higgs boson would shed light on the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking, through which the particles of the Standard Model are thought to acquire their mass.
Exactly!! What could be clearer than that!?

As you may have heard, some people are concerned about the minute possibility of the Hadron Collider inadvertently creating an artificial black hole. According to FoxNews and the babbling hobo that verified the information, miniature black holes could be created by the machine. According to three scientists who are actually intelligent enough to understand how the damn thing works,
"We conclude that ... the growth of black holes to catastrophic size does not seem possible. Nonetheless, it remains true that the expected decay times are much longer (and possibly >> 1 second) than is typically predicted by other models."
As seemingly reassuring as this statement might sound, leave it to FoxNews to bring on the fear. The reporter, and I use the term loosely simply to agitate Dave, had to add this at the end of the article:
"FoxNews.com can think of a few other things that didn't seem possible once — the theory of continental drift, the fact that rocks fall from the sky, the notion that the Earth revolves around the sun, the idea that scientists could be horribly wrong. We're also wondering how often the LHC might create individual black holes, since longer-lived ones have a greater chance of merging with each other, and, um, well, see ya."
Is it too much to ask that I be allowed to go to bed at night without the existential fear of being sucked into another dimension by a minature black hole? I imagine that this Large Hadron Collider isn't exactly easy to understand. I'm sure you have to have the combined I.Q. of Doc Brown, Stephen Hawking, the old man from Fringe, and Scotty from Star Trek just to turn the damn thing on. How does the argument "Well, scientists have been wrong before!" possibly stand up to the reassurances of three world-renowned physicists who could probably melt metal with their minds?

Besides, FoxNews is being such a downer in this case. FoxNews is in the business of predicting worldwide armageddon (Hell, most Christians are looking forward to it), and compared to their usual harbingers of global destruction (democrats, universal health care, gay marriage, abortion, and just plain old wacky hippies), I think "black hole sucks us all into oblivion" has a certain flair that their other panic-inducing stories have been lacking. If I could choose a way for the world to end, black hole is up near the top of the list (right behind "Klingons arrive in orbit to enslave us all but not before proving that Star Trek is real). Think about the benefits of a black-hole-induced armageddon. Not only are you killed in less than a millisecond, but the entire world is vaporized leaving no evidence of our brilliantly stupid world wide suicide.

FoxNews is always saying that our world is becoming a moral vacuum. We might as well become a literal one.

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FoxNews.com: Existing solely so that JP can push Dave's buttons by mocking it mercilessly.