Does the news these days make you feel like Winnie the Pooh, stumbling toward the Apocalypse? You are not alone, brother. Which is why tonight's theme episode of The Independents (Fox Business Network, 9 p.m. ET, 6 p.m. PT, with re-airs three and five hours later) dives right into the Fear, interrogates it, embraces it, and fights back with some hard-won rationality.
"Apocalypse How?" stares into the abyss with the following tour guides:
* R. James Woolsey, Jr., the 16th director of the Central Intelligence Agency, former under-secretary of the Navy, 1980s nukes negotiator, and all-purpose alarm-sounder. Woolsey will assess (yet again!) the threat of ballistic nukes from rogue states, and scare the crap out of you about the looming EMP threat (sample mongering: "within 12 months of a nationwide blackout, up to 90% of the U.S. population could possibly perish from starvation, disease and societal breakdown").
* K.T. McFarland, former Reagan-administration deputy defense secretary, who will talk about the nexus between failed states and nuclear weapons (in other words, Pakistan).
* Dr. Manny Alvarez, resident Fox News doctor guy, who will describe how Ebola can and cannot wipe out populations, and whatever nasty viruses we should be skeered of.
* Harvard economist and occasional Reason contributor Jeffrey A. Miron, who will assess the possibilities of a U.S. debt crisis, and the pros and cons of hoarding various metals.
* Ridiculously over-accomplished scientist and backyard tinkerer Travis Taylor, star of Rocket City Rednecks, who will describe the human race's vulnerability to asteroids, super-volcanoes, and alien invasions.
* Beloved New York Times science writer John Tierney, who will coo soothingly and tell us to relax already about looming civilizational collapse.
You'll learn, you'll laugh, you'll get a thousand dollars worth of ones and fives ready, just in case….
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