The end is near: It's just nine days until the rigorously factual disaster movie "2012" arrives in theaters, and many head-in-the-sand types continue to insist that no one should be alarmed because of a silly movie.

Roland Emmerich wrote and directed "2012," and since he was dead right when he wrote and directed that one movie about how hostile aliens would blow up the White House, we can hardly afford to start ignoring him now.

Besides which, consider the movie's release date: Friday, Nov. 13. I mean, at some point don't you have to stop mindlessly repeating the word "coincidence" and start saving up to build a rocket that can blast off on Dec. 20, 2012, and orbit the Earth until it's safe to land?

Maybe not: According to the Diebold Foundation, a "non-profit science foundation" that I am not making up, the real danger is from 12,068. The Diebolders have had it with all of the hue and cry about 2012, and the press release that they sent me Oct. 26 says that "2012" is a lot of Hollywood hot air.

Not like 12,068, which is the number of years that go by between recurring novae emitted by our neighbor, Mr. Sun. In terms of cause and effect, the Sun's nova domino knocks over the Earth's geomagnetic reversal domino, which knocks over the dawn of a new ice age domino, which knocks over that pesky doom of all humanity domino.

This should concern you, the release states, because it has been more than 12,000 years since the last local nova occurred. Not only that, but "NASA knows that our Sun novas and they have known it since 1984." Those unfeeling scoundrels!

The nova won't happen until 2046, so there's still plenty of time to stock up on hot chocolate and thermal underwear. Meanwhile, does anyone know Roland Emmerich's e-mail address? I have a press release that might interest him.