FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2002 — The world is coming to an end.

No, we’re not referring to the latest antics of Osama bin Laden’s network of misanthropic thugs. The world is coming to an end because humanity is fast-forwarding history — or, to mix our metaphors: as a species, we’re doing 120 in a 24-hour-a-day speed zone, and, sooner or later, we will run smack head-on into a utility pole. Mark our words.

For instance, reports this week that the Brits are gung-ho for human cloning was quickly followed by an item in today’s Boston Globe reporting that "cloned mice are prone to striking cases of obesity." Can we assume, then, that any future race of super-humans will have to spend half its time at the gym? How will they get anything done? What about progress? Ah, progress. Far more troubling than the scientific community’s cloning woes was a piece in Thursday’s New York Post.

"The makers of Guinness stout have created a new, faster-pouring brew to attract younger — apparently more impatient — consumers," the Post revealed. It seems the youth of today are not content to sit around growing increasingly sober while their Guinness settles in the glass — a process that generally takes a full two minutes. And so the company (whose motto used to be "Good Things Come to Those Who Wait") has speeded up the process by pioneering a "Quick Pour" method.

It’s tough to get a handle on how exactly this post-human brand of beverage works, but there’s something to do with its being "zapped by an ultra-sonic pulse that releases bubbles in the beer, instantly producing a white, foamy head." The new technique is said to produce a pint of Black Gold in 15 to 25 seconds. "A two-minute pour," intoned a company flack in best company-flack style, "is not relevant to our customers today."

We prefer the following evaluation, posted online by a certain Brian Caffrey: "You order your fucking Guinness before you order the quick pour stuff you stupid bastard."

And while we’re on the subject of the Irish and their drinking habits, Wednesday’s Irish Voice had a story about Japan’s preparations for the upcoming World Cup soccer tournament, which the country will co-host (along with South Korea) this summer. "Police in Japan are being taught to distinguish between Irish soccer fans and British soccer hooligans," the paper reported. So what’s the difference? The Irish, according to an official guide distributed to Japanese officers, "can be talked to" and are "approachable and friendly." Sorry?

We don’t want to offer up any apologies for British — that is, English — soccer louts. We have spent too much time on the English terraces, rubbing shoulders with these no-browed sociopaths, for that. They are horrible. They are violent. And very often they are horribly, violently drunk. The point is, any drunk person is a potential troublemaker — be that person English, Finnish, Brazilian, Nigerian, German, Icelandic, or — yes — Irish.

Anyone who has skidded across the spit-slick floors of the Irish dives of North London or South Boston knows that alcohol-fuelled violence is not an exclusively British export. Again, we’re not disparaging the Irish here — there are boozy brutes in German beer halls and in Argentinean cafés. And it’s true, English soccer fans, as a group, are far more troublesome than many of their counterparts. But this should not divert us from a very important point: a beer-swilling thug is a beer-swilling thug is a beer-swilling thug. So we offer up the following advice for Japan’s National Police Agency: if you see something waddling down the road with what looks a bathtub stuffed up the front of its shirt, arrest it. Or, better yet, run.

A bit early for St. Patrick’s Day, perhaps, but we’ve one more Irish-related thought: will someone tell Bono to put a bloody sock in it? The U2 singer, following in the footsteps of Sting and Bob Geldof, has been branching out of rock stardom into the arena of geopolitical commentary lately, and — as with Sting and Bob Geldof — it’s becoming annoying.

What place, for God’s sake, do a pair of wraparound shades have at the World Economic Forum? What is an immaculately tailored leather jacket doing at a meeting of US congressmen? Okay, okay, it’s not so much the shades or the jacket that are annoying as the pompous ass who’s wearing them. And any doubt that Bono is a pompous ass were swiftly swept aside at this week’s Grammy Awards, when the Irish singer hogged the limelight to an excruciating degree — at one point snatching the mike out of a bandmate’s hand and declaring, "He’s a guitar player. I do the talking."

Well, he’s got that right. So long-winded were Bono’s acceptance speeches at the event (four awards, four speeches) that organizers attempted to get him off stage by playing music over his words. It didn’t work. Instead, Bono waffled on and on about how these are "very testing times for America" and how "the Declaration of Independence is incredible" and how, of course, U2 are "the greatest rock band in the world."

A recent Time magazine piece on the "egomaniac" Irish rock singer posed the following question on the cover: "Can Bono Save the World?" Well, maybe. For starters, he can refrain from playing buddy-buddy with Bill Gates and help stop that bunch of idiotic wonks from messing with our damn Guinness.