DARK MATTER

CERN's Large Hadron Collider is working its way back to life, following several years of repairs and upgrades. There are thousands of tests to get through, but the machine is scheduled to be ready to begin science in early July of this year (if we're still around).

More powerful than ever, the device will look into finding out what Dark Matter might be. All we know now is that it's the mysterious stuff that comprises 95% of all gravitational matter in the universe.

(Dark Energy, the force accelerating the expansion of the universe will have to wait a bit to get our attention. High energy colliders tend to reveal new particles, not new forces.)

In other news, Russian strongman Vladimir Putin is threatening nuclear war to punish the world for interfering with his perfectly reasonable blueprint for a new and improved Ukraine.

Dude, sounds like a plan!

Locally, Republicans are preparing to win/steal power in the 2022 mid-term elections. And looking forward to moving Donald Trump back into the White House in January, 2025. They know it's only right, what with the outrageous way the Democrats treated them in 2020.

In Florida, Governor Ron Desantis is suing Disney to get to the bottom of the age old question: Is Mickey a very big mouse, or is Pluto a very small dog?

Elsewhere, a woman is suing the manufacturer of an amusement park ride because her super-heavy son fell to his death. As I understand it, the kid was one hundred pounds above the ride's limit. The woman says she wants "justice" for her boy. Does she think the operators allowed him on the ride in order to kill him? Or were they just trying to be nice and accommodate a fellow who really, really shouldn't have been permitted on that machine?

Human beings know the answer to questions like these, and we can't be wrong.

Because it turns out everything is a trap. Everything is rigged. The world is not just hideously dangerous, it's been designed by villains to destroy us.

And even though a powerful and benevolent God is working overtime to protect us from evil-doers, it's not helping.

(But for god's sake, don't blame the guy for his failure to perform. He is one touchy SOB, and will eff you up plenty for complaining.)

The problem is, human beings praise the light, but look to the dark side for explanations.

QAnon, Stop the Steal, Covid Anti-vaxers, Climate Change Deniers, Flat-Earthers, Moon-Landing Deniers: We cry out for truth, and find it in the shadows.

Some of us may build astonishing machines to probe the universe for actual answers to questions posed by physics and cosmology.

Most of us, though, are content to scrutinize the darkness, seeking monsters to annihilate for making our lives impossible.

It is our deepest, most reliable nature.