the end of the world - 21 January 2012

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

                              - Revelations 21:1

Saturday, the 21st of January - 21/01/2012 - is very likely to be the end of the world.

No, it's not because Saturday is the sabbath of the chosen people. And it's not because Jon Huntsman dropped out of the Republican Presidential race.

It's because of Rick Santorum.

Now, before anyone gets any crazy ideas about Santorum, his sanctity, or his electability (especially not his electability, cuz, you know, Santorum). In fact, it's not really because of anything Rick Santorum has done or failed to do. It's not because of his pandering to the bigot vote, and it's not because of his adherence to a very weird theology. And I am not saying that Rick Santorum is the antichrist.

To understand the truth, sometimes you have to look beyond the facts. This is one of those times. Facts cannot help us to understand or to know how and why it is that, of all people, Newt Gingrich has discovered the truth.

This will be difficult to comprehend, so let me take it a little slow.

Cosmologists have speculated about the origin and the state of the universe as we presently experience it. Current thinking seems to coalesce around the notion that the reason this universe is here is that, of all possible universes, no incompossible universes can co-exist in the same space-time. That is, this is the universe we live in, because this is the universe that makes it possible for us to live in it. We can't know of the existence of other universes, which are equally possible to our own, if not compossible with it, because to know of their possibility, we'd have to leave this one, and when we did, we'd stop existing, too.

The gist is, there cannot be two co-existing incompossible universes.

So, let's distinguish two different universes. We'll call the first universe Our Universe, and we'll call the second universe Shit-Crazy Universe, just to keep them distinct.

In Our Universe, there is a guy named Newt Gingrich. Newt Gingrich is a politician in the worst possible sense of the term. I mean to say, it is not possible for Newt Gingrich to utter the truth. When I say it's not possible, I mean, Newt Gingrich and anything approaching the truth cannot co-exist in Our Universe. It is a fundamental law of nature.

Yet, Newt Gingrich has told the truth about the Saturday primary, to wit, that it will be armageddon for Rick Santorum. Despite this, Newt Gingrich apparently continues to exist.

Now, once Saturday's primary concludes, once Rick Santorum is soundly defeated, should Newt Gingrich continue to exist, it must be the case, following this fundamental law of nature, that Our Universe will be destroyed, and the Shit-Crazy Universe will replace it. Armageddon for Rick Santorum will thus be armageddon for us all ... except for Newt Gingrich.

Newt Gingrich: destroyer of universes.

Book it. Just before the drop of the puck in the NY Islanders - Carolina Hurricanes NHL game at 7:08 EST.