Clint Eastwood’s ‘Half Time America’ Commercial
The most entertaining part of watching the annual American Football Superbowl was, as usual, the expensively produced commercials, showing off the most creative minds of Madison Avenue. For my money the funniest was not Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno pitching Acura (Honda), but Clint Eastwood in toughest Dirty Harry / Gran Torino mode proclaiming that America is going to mount a comeback in the “second half.”
An honorable mention however to Chevrolet, who capitalized on the Mayan Calendar Apocalypse meme in this spot…
U.S. Scientists Worried About Massive Volcanic Eruptions
Uh-oh, yet another one of those seemingly unlikely Apocalypse 2012 scenarios is gaining credibility now that the much heralded year is upon us. From USA Today:
Scientists have known for decades that hidden under those impressive vistas at sites such as Death Valley and Yellowstone National Park are magma pools that under the right conditions can trigger explosive eruptions.
Now, new research is changing scientists’ understanding of the timing of those eruptions, and prompting them to call for greater monitoring of sites to help save lives when the next big volcano explodes.
Two recent papers highlight the shift. One looked at a Death Valley volcano thought to be 10,000 years old and found it last erupted just 800 years ago, and is still an eruption danger. The other found that large caldera volcanoes, such as the one under Crater Lake in Oregon, can recharge in a matter of decades, rather than the thousands of…
J’Accuse: Where Is MY Rocket-Powered Jet Pack, Mr. Gingrich?!!!
Well, haven’t we all been treated to quite the show lately? Of course I’m talking about the debates for the Republican Party’s primary in Florida, which have degenerated into an unseemly picking over the corpse of Reagan-era optimism, each candidate trying to prize from Zombie Ronnie’s rigor mortised grasp the famed Talisman of Americana. Shameful and disgusting.
The mind readily grasps the allure of laying claim to the mantle of the august Uncle Dutch (i.e., being the only legitimate basis of rule, the “One Meme to Rule Them All”). Therefore it is hardly surprising that its power should attract the devious lust of unsavory creatures from beneath even the dankest rocks in the even the darkest corners of America’s mushroom garden. That is merely natural and expected, actually a necessary function of narrative causality, being all the better to highlight by means of contrast the enlightened munificence and nobility of the True Heir of the king…
Guatemalan Mayans to World: 2012 is Not the End, and We Should Know
President G. W. Bush at a demonstration of a Mayan ritual at Iximche, Guatemala in 2007.
This breezy seemingly fluffy travel article in the Guardian just days before NYE that somehow got overlooked as the apocalyptic hysteria surrounding the Mayan Long Count date of 21 December 2012 reached a pots-New Year crescendo (for now).
In it, author Kevin Rushby reminds us that unlike the Atlanteans, the ‘noble savage’ and other imaginary creatures Mayan culture still exists and continuous with its more grandiose past.
When Rushby asks a local Guatemalan shaman about the end-of-the-world prophecy, he says, “It is the end of a 5,126-year cycle, that’s true, but there is no mention of the end of the world. People seem to have got that from the Dresden Codex (a pre-Columbian volume of Mayan writings now in the State Library of Dresden). But in that record there is no mention of 2012.” According to Rushby, “Some millenarian-minded…
What To Expect In 2012
RAP NEWS episode 10: The year we’ve all been waiting for – 2012AD (or 13.0.0.0.0, if you ask a Mayan) – is finally here. What will happen? Will we see the poles shift or a paradigm shift? Will a rogue Sumerian planet smash into our solar system, plunging us into serfdom under the iron fist of a race of gold-hungry aliens? Or are the aliens already here? Or are all these merely humanity’s collective projections of itself as it careens towards an ever-accelerating super-connected cyber-reality – whatever that means… One thing’s sure, if 2011 was a prelude of things to come, 2012 is going to be one hell of a year. Now that it has arrived, are we ready? Your host Robert Foster and his guests, Terrence Moonseed and General Baxter, conduct an in-depth rap analysis into the future, and humanity’s place in it. (Thanks to Phil.)
World Will End In Exactly One Year
Well … maybe. A couple of years ago I produced a documentary about the now infamous end-date of the Mayan Long Count Calendar, December 21, 2012. Today is the Winter Solstice, and exactly one year remains until the current cycle of the Long Count Calendar expires. What does that mean? We asked many experts and wannabe experts in the film and as a special Winter Solstice offer, we’re pleased to bring you the opportunity to see their answers for just $2.49 (3-Day Rental). Enjoy!
For more information on the film, the experts and the companion book by Alexandra Bruce, visit 2012SOS.com.
Gerald Celente’s Dire Predictions For 2012
Gerald Celente
Gerald Celente of Trends Research International has a habit of predicting nasty events before they happen. He just emailed us his selection of 12 things we’d rather not see in 2012:
One megatrend looms on the near horizon. And we forecast that when it strikes, it will be a shock felt around the world. Hyperbole it’s not! Our research has revealed that at the very highest levels of government this megatrend has been seriously discussed. Read on:
1. Economic Martial Law: Given the current economic and geopolitical conditions, the central banks and world governments already have plans in place to declare economic martial law … with the possibility of military martial law to follow.
2. Battlefield America: With a stroke of the Presidential pen, language was removed from an earlier version of the National Defense Authorization Act, granting the President authority to act as judge, jury and executioner. Citizens, welcome to “Battlefield America.”
3.…
NASA: Solar Flare Can’t Destroy Earth
Feeling the heat from 2012 apocalypticists perhaps, NASA feels the need to reassure people that we won’t be fried in 2012. Mike Wall reports on NASA’s Nov. 10, 2011 statement, for Space.com:
If the world ends in 2012, the sun won’t be to blame, NASA officials say.
Contrary to what some doomsayers would have you believe, our star isn’t capable of blasting out a solar flare powerful enough to burn our planet to a crisp, according to the space agency.
“Most importantly, however, there simply isn’t enough energy in the sun to send a killer fireball 93 million miles to destroy Earth,” NASA officials wrote…
Sarah Palin Explains Why She Won’t Run For President
From my POV it’s one less potential disaster to worry about in 2012. Here’s Palin spinning her decision not to run in 2012, on Fox News Channel, natch:
The GOP And The End Times
Maybe there will be a silver lining to the increasingly apparent 2012 End Times – Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi suggests that apocalyptic madness might well sink the Republican candidates:
I’m submitting a memo to my bosses at Rolling Stone this morning, asking for permission to skip all coverage of the Republican primary season from this point forward. Why? Because Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann have just summed up the entire Republican storyline with perfect precision, through their respective responses to Hurricane Irene. There’s really not much left for any pundit to add, after this weekend’s quips.
Michele Bachmann says Hurricane Irene is God’s way of telling Washington that it is spending too much.
For his part, Ron Paul says hurricane relief isn’t the responsibility of the state and we should stop using tax dollars to rescue people. Apparently we should go back to our year-1900 disaster policies, which included watching 6,000 people die in a hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas.
What else…
Solar Storm Slams Earth
Just when we could really use a break from natural disasters, nuclear disasters, financial disasters, drought, famine, extreme weather, armed conflict and all sort of other afflictions, here comes a solar storm to knock out our communications systems, satellites and god knows what else (anyone thinking 2012?). Cassandra Sweet reports for the Wall Street Journal:
Two blasts of energy from the sun hit the Earth’s magnetic field Friday and could disrupt one or more electrical grids, global-positioning systems or other satellite-communications systems, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Friday.
The blasts touched Earth’s magnetic field in the form of fast-moving “solar wind” and is blowing by the Earth, Joseph Kunches, a space weather scientist with NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, said in an interview.
Mr. Kunches said it is too early to know what the effects of the blasts will be. “If it’s a really big storm, it still could be active…
The Dragon*Con 2012 Panel
Dragon*Con 2010 served as the setting for a panel discussion entitled “2012 Theories and Myth,” featuring bestselling author Graham Hancock, renegade scholar Randall Carlson, disinformation publisher Gary Baddeley, and other special guests. Camron Wilshire of Sacred Geometry International recorded and edited the video – enjoy!
Unprecedented Solar Eruption
According to C. Alex Young, a solar astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, yesterday’s massive Coronal Mass Ejection on the Sun is “nothing we really have to worry about.” Try telling that to Lawrence E. Joseph, who in the disinformation documentary 2012: Science or Superstition, claims that there is a correlation between heightened solar storms and alarming meteorological and atmospheric changes on Earth.
Hmmm. Whatever the case it’s awe inspiring (see Young’s video below). He says that “the sun produced a quite spectacular prominence eruption that had a solar flare and high-energy particles associated with it, but I’ve just never seen material released like this before. It looks like somebody just kicked a giant clod of dirt into the air and then it fell back down.”
Apocalypse Survival Goes Mainstream
In the “first” wave of 2012 apocalypse fears a couple of years ago, the media often paired disinformation (as the producers of the film 2012: Science or Superstition) with Dennis McClung, owner of survival supplies company 2012supplies.com. The 2012 hype faded after Roland Emmerich’s mega-disaster movie exited theaters, but with 2012 approaching interest is building again, as evidenced by the New York Times‘ discovery of Dennis and his survivalist swimming pool:
MESA, Ariz. — Swimming pools are one way of surviving Arizona’s sky-high temperatures, which hit triple digits in a recent uncharacteristically early burst of heat. But Dennis McClung’s pool, in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa, has been redesigned into a survivalist refuge of an entirely different sort.
Mr. McClung has installed a subterranean garden in his pool along with a fish pond and chicken coop. The chicken droppings feed the tilapia, which swim in water that is pumped up through the blackberry, cherry…
Sales of Doomsday Bunkers Up 1,000%
Blake Ellis reports for CNN:
A devastating earthquake strikes Japan. A massive tsunami kills thousands. Fears of a nuclear meltdown run rampant. Bloodshed and violence escalate in Libya.
And U.S. companies selling doomsday bunkers are seeing sales skyrocket anywhere from 20% to 1,000%…
Cracked Mayan Code May Pave Way to ‘Eight Tons of Pure Gold’
Lake Izabal seen from space (NASA)
Mayans, Gold, “666 B.C.” and 2012 just around the corner…Why do I have a bad feeling about this? Fox News Latino reports:
Led by Joachim Rittsteig, an expert in Mayan writing, a group of scientists and journalists left Germany Tuesday, on a mission to Guatemala in search of a lost Maya treasure allegedly submerged under Lake Izabal.
According to the German newspaper Bild, which sponsored the expedition, the expedition includes two reporters from the publication, a photographer, a television camera, and a professional diver who will submerge into Lake Izabal in an attempt to find eight tons of gold said to have been lost there.
The expedition is led by Joachim Rittsteig, an expert in Mayan writing, who claims to have cracked the famous Dresden Codex and discovered specific information in one of its chapters that leads to a treasure in Lake Izabal.
“The Dresden Codex leads to a giant…
Is There A Giant Planet Hidden in the Outer Region of the Solar System?
Seems like even the Solar System has been an unstable place lately: we had Pluto losing its planet status in 2006 and now this. This is really cool even though, some believe the chance for another planet is not very likely. But this will surely give those 2012-crackpots more fuel for their crazy “Nemesis” idea. Paul Rodgers writes in the Independent:
If you grew up thinking there were nine planets and were shocked when Pluto was demoted five years ago, get ready for another surprise. There may be nine after all, and Jupiter may not be the largest.
The hunt is on for a gas giant up to four times the mass of Jupiter thought to be lurking in the outer Oort Cloud, the most remote region of the solar system. The orbit of Tyche (pronounced ty-kee), would be 15,000 times farther from the Sun than the Earth’s, and 375 times farther than…
Warning! Massive Solar Flare About To Impact Earth
Was Larry Joseph right all along? Many people discounted the author of Apocalypse 2012: An Investigation into Civilization’s End and his fears that a massive Coronal Mass Ejection will hit Earth with disastrous consequences in 2012, but now it appears that just such an event might be about to happen for real. Michael Sheridan reports for the Daily News:
A massive solar flare could make for a beautiful night for people in the northern United States – provided it doesn’t knock the lights out.
The blast of charged particles unleashed from the sun earlier this week has been peppering the Earth over the last few days, but it’s biggest punch is expected to hit the Earth’s atmosphere on Thursday.
Monday’s eruption, considered an X-class flare, is the biggest solar flare in four years. It is already being blamed for disrupting radio communication in China, and could potentially affect power grids and satellite communication around…
New York Publishes Official Apocalypse Survival Plan
Do the civil servants who run New York State’s legal and public health bureaucracy know something the rest of us don’t? Just in time for the next popular end times date in 2012, the state has published a doomsday book of sorts. William Glaberson analyzes its contents for the New York Times:
Major disasters like terrorist attacks and mass epidemics raise confounding issues for rescuers, doctors and government officials. They also pose bewildering legal questions, including some that may be painful to consider, like how the courts would decide who gets life-saving medicine if there are more victims than supplies.
But courts, like fire departments and homicide detectives, exist in part for gruesome what-ifs. So this month, an official state legal manual was published in New York to serve as a guide for judges and lawyers who could face grim questions in another terrorist attack, a major radiological or chemical contamination or a…
