Doom and rumours of Doom

Is it just me or is there a lot of Doom about?
First the Californian earthquake prediction, then I notice the May 21 Rapture prediction. Now the people of Rome are staying off work, and staying out of the city.

The mass Italian skive has been sparked by rumours that a man who died in 1979 predicted a quake that would destroy Rome today. That there is no evidence that he ever predicted this, and that his theory was total eyewash, don't seem to have stopped anybody taking the day off to be in the safe side. That this guy actually did successfully predict one earthquake once, doesn't; look like a long run of success to me.

Still, the latest Internet scare does at least give an insight into the modern view on life and scares: Tania Cotorobai, planning to spend Wednesday in the countryside, said "I don't know if I really believe it but if you look at the internet you see everything and the opposite of everything, and it ends up making you nervous."
So Tania - bad news. Having waved some seaweed round my head, and stuck a pin in a copy of Martin Amis's "London Fields", I've discovered that the Italian countryside is going to be hoovered up by a giant alien robotic housekeeper. If you see the opposite of this anywhere else on the Internet - be nervous. I should say that I used this method to predict that two days after Good Friday it would be Easter Sunday, and I have  a 100% success rate.

While Fabio Mengarelli told Reuters he'd informed his boss he had a doctor's appointment. He added "If I have to die, I want to die with my wife and kids, and masses of people will do the same as me.
Fabio, they might. But you're the one who's informed an international press agency that you're bunking off work on an invented doctor's appointment. Good luck with the job hunting!

Which really tells us the way we shouldn't think. If the Government tells you a tsunami is coming, head for high ground. If unsubstantiated rumours on the Internet tell you of disasters, and you  act on them just in case, you're behaving like an idiot. If you announce your plan to skive off to the worldwide media, doubly so.


[Late update - there has in fact been an earthquake, in Spain. It's 5.3 on the Richter scale and 10 people have  died. It's a tragedy for those involved, of course. But it is only four years since a much bigger one hit Portugal - and 2 years since a bigger one hit Italy. Neither was forecast by Internet rumour based on a dead scientist]