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…
Atomic Doomsday Clock Moves Closer To Midnight
Citing danger of nuclear proliferation and climate change, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hand of it’s ‘Doomsday Clock’ to five minutes to midnight.
Is 11.11.11 On 11.11.11 Doomsday?
Surely a rhetorical question if ever there was one, but the Times of India takes it seriously:
At 11.11.11 on 11.11.11, the time and date will be a perfect same-numbered palindrome, reading the same backwards as forwards, an event which can only happen on one day every 100 years, the Daily Mail reported.
While some consider it as the perfect day for a wedding, some “prophecy” web forums claimed it could also be the end of the world.
The reason the date is so unusual is that 11.11.11 is the only double-figure palindromic date, since there is no 22nd month.
And the last time it happened, on November 11 1911, an almost supernatural event saw temperatures drop by more than 60F in a single day.
This was the Great Blue Norther, a cold snap which hit the U.S. causing blizzards and tornadoes as well as record falls in temperature.
In Kansas City, it was as warm as 76F…
Atheists Plan May 21 No Rapture Parties
Only in America folks. Not satisfied with having a good laugh at the believers who spent all their savings in advance of Judgment Day (May 21, 2011), atheists are planning their own celebrations. From BBC News:
US atheists are to hold parties in response to an evangelical broadcaster’s prediction that Saturday will be “judgement day”.
The Rapture After Party in North Carolina – “the best damned party in NC” – is among the planned events.
Harold Camping, 89, predicts that Jesus Christ will return to earth on Saturday and true believers will be swept up, or “raptured”, to heaven.
He has used broadcasts and billboards to publicise his ideas. He says biblical texts indicate that a giant earthquake on Saturday will mark the start of the world’s destruction, and that by 21 October all non-believers will be dead.
Mr Camping has predicted an apocalypse once before, in 1994, though followers now say that only referred to an…
New York Man Spends Life Savings Ahead of May 21 Doomsday
[disinfo ed.'s note: just as a reminder, the world may end on Saturday. Have a great week!]
A video report from CNN, and below a write up from Fox News:
A New York man spent his entire $140,000 life savings advertising his prediction that the world will end May 21, the New York Post reported Friday.
Robert Fitzpatrick, a 60-year-old Staten Island resident, said he spent at least that sum on 1,000 subway-car placards and ads on bus kiosks and subway cars…
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%…
Genpatsu-Shinsai: The Language of Disaster That Stalked Japan
Interesting article from Leo Lewis in the Times from 2007, about how Japan nearly avoided a “nuclear power-quake disaster” back then. It always seems when these great disasters happen there was the one lone expert who no one took seriously. Leo Lewis writes”
Japan’s turbulent history of war and natural catastrophe has already given the world a terrifying vocabulary of death: tsunami, kamikaze, Hiroshima.
But the country now stands on the brink of unleashing its most chilling phrase yet: genpatsu-shinsai — the combination of an earthquake and nuclear meltdown capable of destroying millions of lives and bringing a nation to its knees.
The phrase, derived from the Japanese words for “nuclear power” and “quake disaster”, is the creation of Katsuhiko Ishibashi, Japan’s leading seismologist and one of the Government’s top advisers on nuclear-quake safety. He said that the world may never know how close it came to its first genpatsu-shinsai this week. Luck, as much an anything else, helped to avert it.
2012: Science or Superstition
NASA has named 2012 the ‘most absurd science fiction film of all time,’ but what would you expect from the Hollywood director known as “the master of disaster”? For a ‘definitive guide to the doomsday phenomenon,’ Disinformation’s 2012: Science or Superstition, by Alexandra Bruce, presents a connection between religious, cultural and scientific research which explains the end result of how these ideas create the apocalyptic theory of 2012. An excerpt of Alexandra Bruce’s book on the correlation to Mayan myth and scientific reasoning:
The Last Apocalypse: Correlating Myth With Earth Science
“Among the Maya groups that left behind written testimonies … we find different accounts that revolve around the existence of a flood that wiped out the previous world and allowed for the creation of a new cosmological order.”
Given these Maya accounts, it is only natural to suspect that the early days of the current 13-b ’ak ’tun cycle might recall an actual, historical period of…
This Is The End: Podcast Episode 1
Via Diatribe Media:
We’re very excited to finally release our first episode of a new podcast series called “This Is The End!” Though the series will probably branch out to many different topics in the future, right now, much like the zine “This Is The End,” will center around an apocalyptic theme.
Listen • Direct Download • RSS Feed
The inaugural episode features two readings from our “Liquid Burning of Apocalyptic Bard Letters” reading series – one from Ian Randall, a Chicago slam poet and singer of the band Farmer’s Tan Market and one from Brandon Weatherbee, host of the You Me Them Everybody podcast series. You will be able to subscribe on iTunes very soon, but for now either click the link directly or use the player built in on this page.
Incoming! The Sun Unleashes A Massive CME at Earth (Video)
The most awesome part of this story from Ian O’Neill on Discovery News is the technology that even recognized this event in the first place, but there are some out there who fear-monger about it (needless to say the title of this story is in jest). I try to keep in mind that the universe is more a wondrous place, than one intent on destroying human life (I’m looking at you, Larry Joseph). Ian O’Neill writes on Discovery News:
Earlier this morning, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) witnessed a complex magnetic eruption on the sun. The joint NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) — a mission sitting at the L1 point between the Earth and the sun — also spotted a large coronal mass ejection (CME) blasting in the direction of Earth.
It is thought that the SDO and SOHO observations are connected, making this a global magnetic disturbance affecting the whole of the Earth-facing side of the sun.
Very Early Warning: 1-in-1,000 Chance of Asteroid Impact in 2182
Ian O’Neill writes on Discovery News:
This isn’t an urgent call to arms, but it’s certainly a future date to consider. In the year 2182 — 172 years time — there’s the possibility that we might be hit by an asteroid with potential to cause some significant global turmoil.
This long-distance forecast could help mankind determine whether asteroid deflection techniques are warranted, especially when given nearly two centuries of lead time.
The not-so-romantically named (101955) 1999 RQ36 — discovered in 1999 — measures approximately 510 meters in diameter and is classified as an Apollo asteroid. Apollo asteroids pose a threat to our planet as they routinely cross Earth’s orbit.
With a one-in-a-thousand chance of 1999 RQ36 hitting Earth — with half of this probability indicating a 2182 impact — the threat might not sound too acute.
But compare this with the panic that ensued with the discovery of 99942 Apophis in 2004. Initially, it was…
Hubble Finds Star Eating a Planet
Reads like an extreme case of global warming … unlike what’s going to happen to Earth is around 5 billion years when the Sun expands enough to consume most of the inner Solar System (one theory), this planet is moving towards its star. The poor thing only has around 10 million years left.
Man, the Hubble keeps finding cool stuff.
So the clock’s ticking (in astronomical terms), it’s time for the one scientist over there who no one is listening to about this planet’s impending destruction to rocket his infant son off into the universe … not too far from Earth. Reports the Hubble Site News Center…
NASA Close to (Dis)Proving the Existence of a ‘Death Star’ in our Solar System
Charlie Jane Anders has a fun post on io9.com about the Nemesis theory, which the WISE telescope will prove or disprove, hopefully, soon.
The reason I say “fun” post is it’s very unlikely a Nemesis star does exist, as we have been able to figure out masses and orbits in the solar system with a high degree of accuracy for quite some time. Meaning if an object this massive was this close — Nemesis is thought to be a red dwarf star or brown dwarf — we’d have to account for it in the astronomy.
In any event, I do expect Nibiru devotees to disagree with this opinion, or if/when WISE doesn’t find it.
Charlie’s post refers to an article in Astrobiology Magazine, which is sponsored by NASA. Check out what they have to say, Leslie Mullen writes:
Is our Sun part of a binary star system? An unseen companion star, nicknamed “Nemesis,” may be sending comets…
Americans Stock Up To Be Ready for End of the World
Paul Harris writes in the Guardian:
Tess Pennington, 33, is a mother of three children, and lives in the sprawling outskirts of Houston, Texas. But she is not taking the happy safety of her suburban existence lightly.
Like a growing army of fellow Americans, Pennington is learning how to grow her own food, has stored emergency rations in her home and is taking courses on treating sickness with medicinal herbs.
“I feel safe and more secure. I have taken personal responsibility for the safety of myself and of my family,” Pennington said. “We have decided to be prepared. There all kinds of disasters that can happen, natural and man-made.”
Pennington is a “prepper”, a growing social movement that has been dubbed Survivalism Lite. Preppers believe that it is better to be safe than sorry and that preparing for disaster — be it a hurricane or the end of civilisation – makes sense.
Unlike the 1990s…
Virginia Delegates Pass Bill That Bans Chip Implants as ‘Mark of the Beast’
Daniel Tencer reports in the always interesting RAW Story:
Concerns over privacy have aligned with apocalyptic Biblical prophecy in a proposed Virginia law that limits the use of microchip implants on humans because of a lawmaker’s concern that the chips will prove to be the Antichrist’s “mark of the beast.”
On Wednesday, Virginia’s House of Delegates passed a bill that forbids companies from forcing their employees to be implanted with tracking devices, a move likely to be applauded by civil libertarians. But Virginia state Delegate Mark Cole’s reasons for proposing the law have as much to do with the Book of Revelation as they do with concerns over privacy in the digital age.
Cole says he is concerned that the implants will turn out to be the “mark of the beast” worn by Satan’s minions. “My understanding — I’m not a theologian — but there’s a prophecy in the Bible that says you’ll have…
‘Object X’ Likely Related to Prehistoric Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid
David Perlman writes in the SF Chronicle:
A puzzling object that seemed to be a comet flying inside the solar system’s asteroid belt is no comet at all, but the remains of a violent collision between two fossil rocks that populate the belt, astronomers say.
Captured in images by the Hubble Space Telescope, the crash of the asteroids provides scientists with their first opportunity to see clear evidence of the violent activity that has constantly churned the asteroid belt since its formation, probably when the planets themselves were forming about 4.5 billion years ago.
The object was first sighted in early January by astronomers at the Air Force LINEAR project telescope in New Mexico, who reported it as a comet that must have flown into the asteroid belt from the solar system’s outer reaches, as all comets do. It was the fifth presumed comet to be reported in the unlikely region, they said,…
The ‘Doomsday Clock’ Goes Back To 6 Minutes To Midnight
Citing a more “hopeful state of world affairs” in relation to the twin threats posed by nuclear weapons and climate change, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) is moving the minute hand of its famous Doomsday Clock one minute away from midnight. It is now 6 minutes to midnight. The decision by the BAS Science and Security Board was made in consultation with the Bulletin’s Board of Sponsors, which includes 19 Nobel Laureates
BAS announced the Clock change today at a news conference in New York City broadcast live at Turn Back The Clock for viewing around the globe. The new BAS Web platform allows people in all nations to monitor and get involved in efforts to move the Doomsday Clock farther away from midnight.
In a statement supporting the decision to move the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock, the BAS Board said: “It is 6 minutes to midnight. We are…
Nearby Nova Could Spell Doom For Far Future Earth
Alasdair Wilkins writes on io9.com:
A white dwarf 3,260 light-years from Earth — mere walking distance in cosmic terms — looks like it could go supernova. And that stellar explosion would have dire consequences for our planet, not to mention our possible descendants.
Located in the binary system T Pyxidis, the white dwarf in question was originally thought to be far more distant from our solar system. Although three thousand light-years might sound like a fairly safe distance away from a potential supernova, it really is quite close by astronomical standards. To put it in some perspective, the diameter of the Milky Way, at roughly 100,000 light-years wide, is multiple orders of magnitude greater than what we’re talking about here.
The huge white dwarf in the T Pyxidis system is known as a recurrent nova because it undergoes relatively minor eruptions at regular intervals. Small nova explosions have been observed every twenty years for over a century, although the last recorded nova burst was in 1967. Astronomers are unsure why the star is overdue.
