After the bell on Friday, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange issued an announcement about margin requirements. It was pretty vague. Nobody could decipher it. And then a great man came forward. Wielding space-alien-like intellectual powers, he read the announcement and issued a proclamation.

That man was “Tyler Durden” of Zero Edge.

What did he proclaim? That the mysterious message from the CME was a dramatic margin call on all futures contracts: stock futures, bond futures, currency futures, gold futures, pork bellies, number six heating oil, Bulgarian goat cheese, you name it.

In all, a $100 trillion global market meltdown would commence when the CME opened for business Sunday night.

As you can imagine, the Great Man’s people were baffled and confused. But “Durden” strode among them, reassuring one and all, that yes, the end was indeed near. No plaintive cry in the comments section was too insignificant for the great leader’s magnanimous attention.

And then the CME clarified the announcement. Turns out, it was no big deal. The futures opened on Sunday night flat as pancake.

“Tyler Durden” acts like he is privy to esoteric financial knowledge beyond the reach of mortal men. But this episode shows that he is just a loud-mouth knucklehead writing a glorified tabloid. And his readers are even dumber. Just about all of the idiots commenting on that post believed it! They believed that the CME had pulled the pin of a nuclear hand-grenade and then swallowed it!

What a spectacle of stupidity! Keep them coming “Durden”!

P.S. If the world does end today, it will only be a coincidence, and “Tyler Durden” will deserve no credit. When he was born, the doctor slapped his ass, and baby “Durden” shrieked “Armageddon!!!” And he’s been at it every since. Sort of a nuclear-powered “boy who cried wolf”.

The Russians are planning to build a tunnel under the Bearing Straight to connect Siberia to Alaska. But what will the bullet trains that run through the tunnel bring us?

Super-intelligent mutant dogs. That’s what.

Dogs that know how to ride a train into the city because there is more food there. Look, there’s pictures of them right here. Monsters! The dogs even know how to wait for traffic lights before crossing the street.

Since when are dogs smart enough to commute back and forth to the city just like humans? Answer: they aren’t. These dogs obviously got loose from some demonic Soviet genetic engineering lab.

Planet of Apes? Guess again. Here comes Planet of the Dogs!

Moammar Kadafi’s career has stagnated badly. He has been a colonel in the Libyan armed forces for decades. If he polishes off the rebels, he’s got to make general, right?

One day, while “Tyler Durden” was pulling the splinters out of his hands after carrying around his “The End is Near” sign, he had a flash of insight. And Zero Hedge was conceived:

Click to hear the historic moment of inspiration

Why did every crazy guy in history carry around an end-is-near sign? Because when people are ignoring you, forecasting doom is one way to finally get some attention. Sort of like getting a loud motorcycle and riding around, gunning the engine, until people finally look at you.

The blog-o-sphere’s prophets of doom are the direct descendants of those crazy guys who used to march around with signs.

In other news, the SPX dropped 25 points today. Only another 629 to go before the Zero Hedgers can get out even on their short trades.

Before blogs were invented, “Tyler Durden” was doing his work the old-fashioned way. Click here to see this rare photo.

In other news, Zero Hedge “reported” on the mutual-fund flow data today. Two days ago, I predicted:

“I’m sure they will get back to “reporting” on this data just as soon as it turns bearish again.”

The report released today showed an outflow, and after ignoring it for five weeks, here is Zero Credibility resuming its “coverage”.

What did I tell you?