Gossip columnist Liz Smith devoted half of her column today to the coming of the end of the world. Not the financial crisis or the release if Sex and the City: The Movie but the actual end of the world. "Scientific experts from around the world are genuinely predicting that less than five years from now, all life on Earth could well finish," she begins, and then goes on a longish tear about the I-Ching and Nostradamus and natural disasters "such as the volcano under Yellowstone Park that seems ready to erupt again and produce thousands of deaths and affiliated deaths the world over from a volcanic winter. No sun, no crops, starvation." Well, shit. What really kills us is that we only just noticed that Liz had put this important information out there. If we had read it earlier, we might have spent the past few hours differently. We might have, for instance, gone out for real coffee instead of drinking the gross kind from the machine, or not watched that random TMZ video with Tyson Beckford falling over, or not spent all that time comparing our nipples to those of Lindsay Lohan. But according to Lizstradamus, you can't change all your behavior just because the end of the world is nigh! "You might as well relax. You can't do a damned thing about this in any case," she admonishes kindly. Great! We're going to read all about how Donnie Deutsch thinks positive is the new black now.

No Room For Doom [NYP]