The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists maintains a "Doomsday Clock" to reflect their uninformed assessment of how close the world is to nuclear war. They started this gimmick in 1947, and over time it became one more tool with which the anti-anti-communist left bludgeoned Ronald Reagan. Yesterday the BAS announced that it was adjusting the clock from nine to seven minutes til midnight (with midnight representing nuclear holocaust, radiation cancer, the defunding of PBS, etc.).

I remember seeing a BAS spokesman on CNN in November; he explained that the clock "measures" (a direct quote -- I wrote it down at the time, I was so incredulous) how close we are to nuclear holocaust. The only thing this clock "measures," of course, is whether a Republican president is conducting foreign policy in a manner that upsets the left-wing BAS Board of Directors.