In 1947, the board of directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago first published the Doomsday Clock.  It reflected the potential for catastrophic destruction of human kind (initially from nuclear annihilation and eventually from Daily Discord articles).

Currently, this doomsday clock includes such things as global climate change.  Initially the thing was set at seven minutes to midnight, where midnight signified doomsday, but Dr. Sterling Hogbein, of the Hogbein Institute and Lube, has a different idea.  He believes this may well represent bar time, thus we may have an extra 10-15 minutes. This subjective and meaningless clock has been changed 18 times since 1947 and now rests at five minutes to midnight.  When it reached 10 to midnight, it apparently spawned a Charles Bronson movie of the same name. 

I don’t know what the big deal is, who picked seven minutes anyway?  Why not set the damned thing to 59 minutes to midnight for starters.  Then we’d still have 57 minutes with or without Hogbein’s bar time hypothesis).  Consider it Doomlight savings—unless you’re in Arizona (weirdos).

We here at the Discord have created our own “doomsday” clock, this one we call Seven Minutes to Last Call.  Unlike its predecessor, this clock is all-inclusive.  It covers threats to all sorts of mind-altering recreational pastimes.  This will solve many of the current problems with the doomsday clock, and accounts for Hogbein’s lost bar time minutes. 

Our resident expert on mind-bending, The Ghetto Shaman, has been instrumental in assisting us in establishing this clock.  We initially set our clock at seven minutes to midnight but quickly realized that, at least in the U.S., we were actually closer to midnight than we originally opined.  Therefore, we have advanced the clock to seven seconds to midnight.  Unless some sort of Real Change We Can Count On, You Betcha actually occurs, which coincidentally may be Sarah Palin’s campaign slogan.  We propose a couple of immediate steps to retard the clock:

1. Legalize marijuana for Pete’s sake.  Do you know how many harmless non-violent people we arrest every year on pot charges?  We could save hundreds of thousands of dollars in the state of Pennsylvania just on the Ghetto Shaman alone. Meanwhile, California is already well on its way to achieving legalization.  Once the tax benefit is realized, we predict this trend will expand more rapidly across the U.S. than the West Nile Virus.
2. Build a bunch of nice bridges over the dried up Rio Grande and charge $2 per vehicle to enter the U.S. from Mexico.  This way we actually generate some decent revenue from the drug trade rather than it bleeding us dry, too.  Second, when returning people to Mexico take their cash and sell all their belongings on EBay.  It will also help cut down on illegal aliens.  I mean, who would try again after being dropped off in Tijuana, in the middle of the night, naked?
3. Send the Mafia to Afghanistan. We would protect the poppies and siphon a couple dozen percent right off the top like the Taliban have been doing for years.  Why burn these fields to deny funding to the Taliban and other War Lord types?  Seems to me, it’s damn good money.  How about us getting a piece of the poppy, peeps?  And what could benefit the poor Afghani farmers and their emerald-eyed daughters more than Mafia control of their poppy crop?  We’d steal less of their profits than the Taliban or War Lords, and we’d provide them better protection with Benny the Hump and Izzy the Nose. 
4. Make peyote a national treasure and establish “Mile High Peyote National Park” in Southwestern Texas and offer visitors an out of body experience.  The Ghetto Shaman would be an excellent Park Ranger and spiritual guide for such an endeavor.  I hear he has some free time these days and some extra Bellagio Casino chips on his hands.
5. Kennett Square, PA is touted as the “Mushroom Capital of the World” and they only grow the mushrooms mother gives you, which don’t do anything at all.  Let them start growing some of those fancy little psilocybin babies and you’ll really see a boom in the mushroom industry.  Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase Cap and Trade. 
6. Write your congressman, congresswoman, or congress-creep and let’s get some real change we can count on by legalizing mind altering substances.  We can push back that Doomsday Clock for at least 10 hours, or at least until we stop tripping.