Another Dead Canary

My friend and I have a standing zombie plan, which includes a predetermined rendezvous point at the end of the Metro system’s red line. That’s where, according to our plan, we’ll recover our cache of weapons, food and other survival supplies. We drew up an “end of the world” zombie plan over beers and herbal refreshments but never got into the fine details because the discussion broke down into an argument over whether we would be better off heading into the mountains or out to sea.

So I called him the other day and asked if the plan was still on in the event of a financial apocalypse. “Hells bells,” he said. “I’m off to the store to get some guns and canned goods right now.” He was joking. I think.

Is it the end of the world? Or does it just feel like it?

It certainly seems that way on the blogosphere.

A Google blog search turned up nearly 8,000 entries with the phrase “end of the world” in the last week. I think at least half of them quoted the R.E.M lyrics of the song with the same name. Of course, a lot of the posts had nothing to do with the national and global events of this past week, but many of them did.

Some bloggers, like Jeff B at JB on the Rocks, were looking for signs of the apocalypse:

So I’m thinking:

Wall Street is in shambles.

The US economy is in trouble.

The Cubs AND the White Sox are both in post-season play, while the Yankees are not.

I suppose it could be the end of the world as we know it.

Some of the writers, like this guy on PoliticalForum.com, had a serious case of the blues:

I think I’m just crazy but I’ve had this feeling of despair over the last week. I feel like it’s all coming to an end. This next presidency no matter who wins, Mccain or Obama, is going to bring about the end of the world. It’s not just me predicting it either. The Incan’s said it 4,000 years ago. The world ends at the end of the next presidency. But this is all besides the point that i set out to make in this post.

Los Angelista countered with a heavy dose of pragmatism, wondering if some of his friends had gone off the deep end:

A few folks I know are seriously freaking out.

They’re sending me messages, emails, or are posting on their Facebook statuses that they think it’s the end of the world. As in we’re about to experience Armageddon. And if that’s not enough, there are a few “Obama’s the antichrist” emails circulating these days as well. Gosh, not only is Obama black but he’s gotta be the Antichrist too! Dang, can a brother catch a break?

Dark Defender at The Cockpit had a similar take, though his came from the other side of the political spectrum:

The point is life goes on, this is not the end of the world. Take a deep breath and get some perspective America. We The People are right here and our elites are wrong and failing us. We are in a real and true crisis created by our elites, and things are going to be ugly. There just isn’t any getting around that. But we need to hang tough and reject panicky injections of socialism, in the long run sticking to our free market principles which have built America is the best medicine. It wont be easy, its going to hurt, its going to be hard, but we need to keep America, America.

Me? I’m with Brad at Sadly, No! who gives us a choice of post-apocalyptic video clips to choose from (via Big Action):

Seriously. At this point, you might as well just let the economy collapse so we can start hoarding all our worldly possessions in tiny shacks while using large quantities of firearms to protect them from roving bandits. To do anything else would only be delaying the inevitable, since President Sarah Palin will surely finish us off if Bush doesn’t get around to it.

flickr photo / Felix42 contra la censura’s photostream