Page 4 - 201311 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - November 2012

Doomsday Preppers Herald End of World Doomsday Preppers herald end of the world Canada.com The worst thing about the end of the world on Dec. 21, 2012 — if it does indeed come to pass as the Mayans prophesied — is that we’ll be denied the simple pleasures of another season of The Real Housewives of Vancouver, or Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. On the other hand, if the world does end, at least the fun guys — and (a few) fun gals — in Doomsday Preppers will be prepared. National Geographic Channel’s fly-on- the-wall docu-reality series dedicated to the idea that not all survivalists are as crazy as (outhouse) rats returns Tuesday for a second season, exclusively on the Canadian National Geographic channel. It’s hard to know if the preppers, Canadian hermit Bruce Beach included, are holding out for a third season — those residuals! — or whether in fact they really do believe this is The End. Either way, at least it’s entertaining and stored water in your basement; if you’ve ever forget that last crummy reality show you fun to listen to them ruminate about life and the set aside $1,000 in your chequing account for a watched. possibility of an afterlife, as they stock up on rainy day, that’s a form of prepping. guns, ammo and non-perishable food items. “Obviously these people have taken it to Those weenies in Revolution have nothing on the next level. At the end of the show, though, SOME DOOMSDAY these folks, and that show is fiction. Doomsday it’s not our intention to pass judgment.” Preppers is real, or as real as end-of-the-world There you have it, then. Watch, but don’t PREPPER FACTS conspiracy theorists are likely to get, anyway. judge. Beach aside, Doomsday Preppers’ Doesn’t mean you can’t have a little second season also includes a 14-year-old who’s vicarious fun along the way, though. Just don’t •The United States uses an average of convinced the world is headed for a global let it get out of hand. (Tuesday, National 19,148,000 barrels of oil a day economic collapse — isn’t that Ben Bernanke’s Geographic Channel, 10 ET/7 PT) •While the US Strategic Petroleum job? — and a Brady Bunch-like family equally Reserve houses the largest stockpile of convinced that the world is about to suffer a Three to See government-owned crude oil in the world -- a deadly bioterrorism attack. staggering 727 million barrels -- if the US were Each weekly episode includes testimony • Of course, if the world does end on Dec. 21, as cut off from foreign oil, this reserve would last from a supposed expert, who offers such helpful the Mayans prophesied, at least the world will less than 38 days. pointers as the occasionally murky line between be spared another go-round of The Victoria’s •The Earth’s Magnetic field has plausibility and impossibility, and whether the Secret Fashion Show. This sorry excuse for weakened 10% since the 19th century. preppers are in fact, nuts. entertainment — but a consistent ratings- •There are more than 12,000 Viewers get to make the ultimate grabber — gets a fresh airing, if that’s the right earthquakes recorded each year, varying in decision, though, and one of the first things that word, Tuesday, with a guest appearance by the destructiveness from minor to catastrophic. jumps out is how engaging and entertaining $2.5 million Victoria’s Secret Fantasy Bra and •The most devastating earthquake in Doomsday Preppers is when compared to, say, very special guests Rihanna, Bruno Mars and recorded history occurred in Central China in an average episode of Revolution. Justin Bieber. ‘Nuff said. (Tuesday, Global, the 16th Century. It killed over 800,000 people Each episode features a disclaimer that CBS, 10 ET/PT, 8 MT) and some think it may have even tipped 8.0 on states, plainly and simply, that no matter how the Richter Scale. scary the episode looks, there is no evidence • Then again, if you need a break from •On December 26, 2004 Sumatra this is actually going to happen. conspicuous consumption and somebody else’s experienced an Earthquake so powerful, 9.1 on That’s all very well and good, ideal of fashion, you can always catch the the Richter Scale, that it actually shortened the Doomsday producer Matt Sharp was told by season finale of the Shakespearean biker drama length of the day by 6.8 microseconds and reporters recently, but shouldn’t the preppers in Sons of Anarchy. The fifth-season finale finds changed the rotation of the Earth’s axis by 7 the show be told that, rather than the viewers Gemma (Katey Sagal) making a play to protect centimeters. watching at home? It’s not about getting the last what’s hers, while Jax (Charlie Hunnam) makes •The magnetic north pole was first laugh, after all. a proverbial deal with the devil to secure the located in 1831 by James Ross, the trip took 4 “It’s never been our intention to make club’s future. All that and a Dave Navarro cover full years. In 1904 Roald Amundsen make his anyone in the show look foolish and say none of of the Rolling Stones’ Sympathy for the Devil. own trip to find the pole only to realize that it these things could ever happen. I think it would How can you go wrong? (Tuesday, Super had moved 50KM since Ross’s discovery. be foolish to say that none of these things could Channel, 10 ET/MT, 9 PT) •The Oil Depletion Analysis Center has ever happen. estimated that since commercial drilling began “We feature many possible scenarios on • If Sons of Anarchy is a bit much for you — in the mid 19th century nearly humans have the show, everything from economic collapse to and, really, no one could blame you if it is — used as much as a trillion barrels of crude a polar shift to a bioterrorist attack. These are you could do worse than to treat you and yours oil.from $1.56 to $3.37. things we’ve all read about or heard about. I saw to a little pre-holiday treat, with Jim Carrey’s •In 2001 the price for a gallon of a statistic the other day that said there are three live-action 2000 adaptation of How the Grinch gasoline jumped from $1.56 to $3.37. million preppers (in the U.S.), and many of us Stole Christmas. It won’t make you forget the are a prepper to a certain degree. If you’ve ever original. But with any luck it will make you (Continued on Page 18)