Toward the end of last year I made a joke about the millenium: that people had gotten it wrong, that the real millenial chaos would happen on or around 2001 (because 2001 was the “real” first year of the new millenium). I propped this argument up with all sorts of convenient current events (economy collapsing, Sharon getting elected, the Florida election fiasco, etc.). Today, with India, Japan, Pakistan, North Korea, the U.S., Israel, Saudi dissidents and virtually everyone with a gun in occupied Palestine preparing to start the killing, the joke does not seem as funny. When life immitates art, that’s one thing. When life rips off my jokes, I demand front points.