Long-time readers of this journal know that I'm a fan of The Economist magazine, in large part because of their ability to be both informative and witty at the same time. (Not that I always agree with their editorial positions.) Most weeks, they have two one-page features at the front of the issue - "Politics this week" and "Business this week". But, at the end of the year, they run a double-sized issue with a number of special articles; they also substitute "The world this year" for the two weekly items.

This year, their "The world this year" feature closed with the following gem:

The first protons were circulated around the Large Hadron Collider. Designed to help physicists explain the existence of mass, some feared the experiment would create a gigantic black hole. Wall Street’s collapse just a few days after the LHC was switched on was deemed a coincidence.

(For those who are still concerned that the LHC might destroy the Earth, there is an online monitoring service available.)