This week's Mercury comment of the week goes to commenter skylermoon, for a comment on this week's rather terrifying feature about how when an earthquake makes the bridges collapse we're all going to have to poop in buckets.

I didn't know about the Portland Preparedness Center—for those of us who manage our anxiety by making endless to-do lists, it looks like a great place to go stock up on an illusory sense of control over the devastating forces of our utterly indifferent universe. And if I'd known about their ham radio class sooner, I would've signed up. (I will bet all of you—ALL OF YOU—$5 that ham radio is about to become the Next Hipster Thing. Which wouldn't be so bad, really—my dad is a ham and loves to remind people of how useful amateur radio communications were during 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. It's better than beard wax or whatever.) So: