FOCUS ON THE FAMILY DOOMSDAY

Here’s a first for a non-religious person like me (by non-religious, I do not mean atheist, just non-religious). I visited Focus on the Family’s website. I have a friend who has research Focus on the Family extensively. Allegedly, she discovered financial links between the organization and militia radio as well as private militia.

Anyway, for me, Focus on the Family is scary.

However, I was attracted to their Website by an online discussion entitled “Raising Kids in the End Times.” Here was one post:

“We love our 2 sons (14 and 16 yrs old) and enjoy frank conversations with them...on many topics. We listen to teachings on and study eschatology (I looked this up, it is a theological ‘science’ concerning ‘the four last things: death, judgment, heaven and hell’) and regularly; our pastor frequently mentions his belief that we are living in the end times. While we agree and are impatient for The Lord's return, I sometimes wonder how all this talk may be affecting our teens. They talk with optimism about growing up and raising their own family and living many exciting, thrilling experiences.”

Wow, pretty creepy in my view.

It seems to me some people spend too much time worrying about the end of time and not enough, you know, smelling the roses. If the world is going to end – KA-POW! – what are you going to do about it? For my money, it’s better to be happy and let what comes come rather than be miserable worrying about what may or may not come that you can do absolutely nothing about.

Besides, kids should be filled with hope and optimism and excited about their future and the opportunities. What kind of parent instill fear and insecurity in their children?  

So, call me crazy, call me doomed, but do not call me late for supper when I’m smelling the roses.

HOLLYWOOD ADAPTS TO DOOMSDAY

“World War Z,” a film produced by and starring Brad Pitt, was slated to open on Doomsday…Not!, December 21, 2012. “World War Z” is a – yes, that’s right! – zombie movie. In fact, it is described as a “dark zombie movie” – I’m not sure what a “light” zombie movie would look like “Shawn of the Dead,” maybe? “Bridget Jones’ Diary,” perhaps? – and undoubtedly someone at Paramount said, “Hey, wait, a zombie movie isn’t exactly cheery holiday fare.” Thus, World War Z has been moved to June 21, 2013 where it will go head-to-head against Pixar’s “Monsters University.”

Also, consider that “World War Z” would have been up against "The Hobbit," "Les Miserables," "Life Of Pi," "This Is Forty," as well as the Bin Laden movie, "Django Unchained" and "The Great Gatsby" that are all slated to open the week before or the week after "World War Z’s" original date.

Of course, if “World War Z” is not holiday fare, neither is “Les Miserables,” “Django Unchained” and, for my money, “The Great Gatsby.”

Paramount is moving Tom Cruise’s film “One Shot” to the December 21 slot. “One Shot” is based on Lee Child’s novel and stars Cruise as Child’s recurring hero Jack Reacher. The movie also stars Rosamund Pike, Robert Duvall, David Oyewolo, Richard Jenkins, Jai Courtney, Michael Raymond-James and Werner Herzog.

See, Doomsday…NOT! news and movie news. This blog aims to cover the bases!

PREPPING FOR EVERYTHING AND A BOAT, TOO

Okay, today, March 29, 2012, marks the 100^th entry in this blog! A hundred! Who knew I was so full of…well, whatever.

Now, let’s talk some more about preppers! He’s a prepper, she’s a prepper, but I’m not a prepper! And, of course, when Doomsday comes along and I’m not sufficiently prepped, won’t my face be red?

A CNN article discusses a man who’s face won’t be red, although the same can’t be said for his bank account. This fellow guesstimates the expenses necessary to prepare for the Apocalpyse/Doomsday/Armageddon/End of Days or whatever doom-and-gloom scenario may be in excess of $130,000.

According to CNN, this gentleman, a writer of survival manuals, “believes that a shift in the Earth's poles is going to result in solar flares, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes that will throw the world into a nuclear meltdown. The dreaded event will occur on Dec. 21, when the Mayan calendar allegedly ends, he said.”

Okay, first of all, he’s tossed in everything but the kitchen sink. Holy crap, his delusion is so all-encompassing it appears he is trying to cover every possible base to justify spending $130,000. Also, and again, just in my opinion, his entire fantasy scenario is bullshit.

His plan is to hole up in a small bunker in South Africa – some distance from radiation and fallout – and then reemerge to build a new community with other survivors. I’d be willing to bet he envisions himself as a leader of that new community. In my experience – limited, yes, but still… -- preppers who envision building new communities invariably envision themselves as the leaders of that same new community.

He has stockpiled guns and ammo, of course, plus “water purification tablets, a drafting table for charting stars in the sky” survival books and – wait for this one – “condoms to use for carrying water.”

Right. And who knows, after Armageddon, he might encounter a horny female prepper just looking to get lucky. Although, if that is the case, why use condoms? Don’t the preppers plan to repopulate the world with progeny espousing their particular lifestyle?

Also, he wants to buy an “unsinkable” yacht to sail to his South African shelter. The problem is, the unsinkable yacht with its “double walls (that) are insulated with foam so that they are supposedly unable to capsize” is $100,000 and he can’t afford it.

Really? A measly $100,000 yacht? Yacht may be an exaggeration. I’m thinking enlarged dingy. Although it sounds better to say, “Hey, look at my unsinkable yacht” than “Hey, look at my unsinkable dingy.” (And I believe saying the latter can get you arrested in Alabama, Mississippi and Arizona, because the word “dingy” gets confused with obscenities.)

END OF DAYS FOR YOU; HAPPY DAYS FOR YOUR PET…NOT

Based on an article by Adella M. Banks, of the Religious News Service, published in The Washington Post, I wrote a piece for today on Bart Centre and his Eternal Earth-Bound Pets, “a business that promises to care for the pets of Christians who are swept up in the Rapture.”

It struck me as just the right amount of quirky to be a scheme hatched by an Apocalypse entrepreneur. However, the article prompted the New Hampshire Insurance Department to subpoena Bart since he appeared to be operating an “unauthorized business in insurance.”

OOPS! Time for ol’ Bart to come clean.

"Eternal Earth-Bound Pets employs no paid rescuers," Bart wrote in a blog. "It has no clients. It has never issued a service certificate. It has accepted no service contract applications nor received any payments — not a single dollar — in the almost three years of its existence."

Bart claimed that the whole thing was a “social experiment.”

The original idea he presented was pretty simple. Rapture-ready Christians go to Bart to make arrangements for Spot and Tabby in anticipation of the coming glory.

He said that Harold Camping’s prediction of the end of the world last year resulted in an uptick in business and a subsequent uptick in the rates at Eternal Earth-Bound Pets. A 10-year coverage plan supposedly ran $135 per pet.

It was all stuff and nonsense.

Bart also claimed that he and his partner share the income with 48 other animal “rescuers,” which he describes as “atheists who are happy to give people peace of mind.”

The social experiment was to find out "how much do believers really buy into this? How committed are they to their pets? How much do they trust atheists?"

And what he learned was that state regulators care little about such “social experiments” and the Rapture and care more about fraud and deceit.

Fortunately, I learned of the deceit before I published it on my blog. Wouldn’t I be red-faced? Naw.

GIRL SEES END OF DAYS; IGOR PURLANTOV PROCLAIMS OUR DOOM

I find some of the End of the World nonsense a bit more than nonsensical. For example, the teenager in Japan was on a talk show earlier this month. When the host asked her about preparing for school, she responded:

“There won’t be a time when I enter middle school, so I don’t have to prepare for it. If you look at the Mayan calendar, the changes in the U.S. stock market, and the natural disasters, it all comes to a conclusion that the world will end on December 21st.”

Apparently, the girl and her sister watched online video about Nostradamus three years ago. Since then the sister has been obsessed with the world’s end and has convinced her sister everything will be over on December 21, 2012.

The sister explained: “She always says ‘either way, we’re all gonna die anyway’ and has been living without any thoughts about her future.”

This is exactly the kind of hoo-ha that we have to contend with when True Believers (morons/idiots) run around pronouncing all of their dire doomsday bullshit.

At the same time the young Japanese girls was spilling her guts on national TV about Doomsday, a press release came out from one Igor Purlantov proclaiming that the solar storms that are expected to increase in later this year and into 2013 pose a “threat of global economic harm.”

The release also says: “The potential devastation to the world economy and more importantly the well being of billions of people potentially at risk is something that should not be taken lightly. It is imperative that scientists around the world continue trying to understand and predict space weather events and solar storms with a shared global commitment to improve response and preparedness efforts…This preparedness and reaction time could possibly mean the difference between a few hours of inconvenient power outages and global economic catastrophe, says Igor Purlantov.”

Well, okay, if Igor Purlantov says its so, then it must be true, right? Well, the release calls him an “expert.” In what? I dunno. A Web search revealed that Igor is an “animal advocate.” That’s right, Igor, writes about the calming effects cats and dogs have on people. So, yeah, of course he’s on expert of solar flares and storms and economic doomsday. NOT!!!!!!!

CAMPING REVISITED….ONE MORE TIME

You recall one Harold Camping, the radio pulpit pounder who last year predicted the Second Coming of Christ for May 21, 2011. He was wrong, of course and admitted as much a while back. Now, however, he’s called his prediction “sinful.”

In his original sinful prediction, Camping said that the “Bible guarantees it.” Apparently Camping conveniently forget the cautions in Matthew 24:36 and Mark 13:32 that “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven.” 

Not that I knew those scriptures either.

Camping’s admission that he was not only wrong, but sinfully wrong included assurances that while he erred, all is well. “We are so thankful that God is so loving that He will forgive even this sin.”

That always bothers me. People do and say the darnest things in the name of God or Jesus or Allah or whomever and then, when, oops!, they are wrong, they know, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are forgiven.

Isn’t it possible for God/Jesus/Allah to be a little annoyed at such audacity and arrogance? Isn’t it possible that while the offender isn’t necessarily going to get hit with a lightning bolt, he may become suspect in the deity’s eyes? No offense, just wondering…

The tragedy in all this is not simply needlessly panicking people, but, according to Denny Burk, associate professor of New Testament at Boyce College in Louisville, Ky., “a false teacher like Camping…gives the scoffers (like moi) a reason for feeling vindicated in their scoffing.”

I don’t feel particularly vindicated in my scoffing, I just dislike anyone manipulating others with predictions of doom and gloom and other hysteria. It’s cheap and theatrical and does needless harm.

CANADIANS PREPARE FOR THE APOCALYPSE

Once again all of the Apocalypse/End-of-Days/Armageddon/End Times nonsense is being turned into an educational opportunity – and, let’s face it, a chance for some entrepreneurs to make a buck.

In Winnipeg, Manitoba, a couple of enterprising outdoorsmen – billed as “wilderness educators” – are teaching urban dwellers how to prepare for disastrous events and survive in their aftermath.

Dwayne Logan, a farmer and survivalist, and Laura Reeves, a “wild-edibles specialist,” teach the eight-hour course on Saturdays, imparting such essential knowledge as “how to create makeshift sleeping bags out of scraps of plastic and newspaper, turn old tuna cans into oil lamps, and build a water purifier out of an empty soda-pop bottle.”

Frankly, it sounds fascinating and, as I’ve often said, knowing how to take care of yourself in the wake of a natural disaster is a good thing.

The pair also teaching things the squeamish might not appreciate. For example, they show participants “the best way to improvise weapons capable of gouging the eyes and ears of a would-be attacker, the most efficient way to trap neighborhood rodents and house pets for their meat, and how to blend into the background of a devastated city to avoid being robbed by looters.”

Okay, no one wants to eat Rex the Wonder Dog if it can be avoided. However, if it’s a matter of you or Rex, I say choose you. After all, if Rex is truly man’s best friend, then Rex won’t mind (too much) being dinner.

Of course that’s the extreme end of things. Actually, Logan and Reeves are helping city folk understand their vulnerability should a natural disaster arise. As many others do, they preach that everyone should be prepared with enough food, water, and other essentials to survive for 72-hours after a catastrophe.

Besides, none of us know when the zombie apocalypse will come, but being ready for it is essential, because to the zombies, you are Rex the Wonder Dog.

THE LORDS OF TIME AND DOOMSDAY…NOT

Here’s proof that if you make something up and repeat it often enough, people will begin to believe and, sooner or later, other people will have to address the lie.

The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology is presenting an exhibition entitled "Maya 2012: Lords of Time" to “explain the Mayan civilization's complex interlocking calendar systems through interactive displays and a rich collection of art and artifacts.” It will run May 5, 2012 to January 13, 2013.

Now, on the one hand, the university is taking the opportunity to explain and educate people about the Maya civilization while explaining that the whole Mayan calendar End-of-Day nonsense is, well, nonsense. On the other hand, whole Mayan calendar End-of-Day nonsense has to be explained as a hoax.

The Mayan “Long Count” Calendar starts a new cycle every 1,872,000 days, or about 5,125 solar years. The current calendar ends December 21 (or, according to some experts, December 23) 2012. Other calendars in the Maya system continue on, but leave it to the True Believers (morons/idiots) to focus on the idea that when the calendar ends, so do they. In truth, the Mayan text mentions NOTHING about 2012, let along the end of days.

Besides, as previously mentioned, the current Maya “daykeepers” or shaman have said, repeatedly, that the Mayan calendar does not predict the end of the world. Of course, True Believers (idiots/morons) don’t want to hear any of that hoo-ha!

YA WANT DOOMSDAY? THESE GUYS HAVE IT!

"Megacatastrophes!: Nine Strange Ways the World Could End,” a new book written by Dirk Schulze-Makuch, an astro-biologist at Washington State University, and David Darling, a British astronomer and science writer, offers end of the world scenarios that could actually happen. Well, maybe.

Schulze-Makuch and Darling explore somewhat obscure as well as more common doomsday scenarios. Such horrors as an antibiotic-resistant virus, voracious “nano replicators,” technology spinning out of control al la The Terminator’s Sky Net and other man-made disasters.

One reviewer said that they authors  “separate fact from pseudo-science and popular hysteria to offer a reasoned and oddly reassuring view of a variety of both common and relatively obscure doomsday scenarios.”

In the book, the authors write: "Space rocks as big as houses zip by us, closer than the moon, every few months or so; some the size of large mountains have smashed into the Earth in the past causing serious mayhem. Giant stars explode, supervolcanoes erupt, ice ages come and go. The very fabric of space and time might rip apart at any moment if some theories are to be believed.”

But it’s not asteroids or rogue planets or Godzilla that Schulze-Makuch and Darling point to as the problem:

"The biggest threat to life on Earth comes, oddly enough, from the only creatures who spend a lot of time worrying about their well-being and also think of themselves as being the most intelligent species in town,” the pair wrote. "The fact is, we’re busily engaged in destroying the very support system upon which we and all other animals and plants depend, while simultaneously finding ever more ingenious ways to kill each other. In many ways the universe would be a safer place without us.”

On the other hand, they point out that the world will not end this week or even in “our children’s children’s lifetimes.”

NASA’S JPL DEBUNKS DOOMSDAY

Just in case you missed it, scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory released a video addressing the nonsensical “Mayan Apocalypse.”

I can only image how the scientists felt having to waste their valuable time dealing with such utter stupidity that only a True Believer (idiot/moron) could conjure. In fact, the scientist who actually addressed the non-issue was Don Yeomans, overseer of the Near-Earth Objects Program Office at NASA/JPL.

No matter how many times it gets said, this is worth repeating:

"Their calendar does not end on December 21, 2012,” Yeomans explained, “it's just the end of the cycle and the beginning of a new one. It's just like on December 31, our calendar comes to an end, but a new calendar begins on January 1."

Yes! Yes! And yes!

But isn’t it sad that a man like Yeomans, with years and years of study and research behind him, a sharp, inquisitive mind guiding him and a truly important project under his control has to stop to address the asinine nonsense conjured up by a swarm of hysterical idiots?

He had a few other observations worth revisiting:

Regarding Nibiru, the fantasy planet that supposedly will collide with Earth:

"This enormous planet is supposed to be coming toward Earth, but if it were, we would have seen it long ago. And if it were invisible somehow, we would have seen the [gravitational] effects of this planet on neighboring planets. Thousands of astronomers who scan the sky on a daily basis have not seen this.”

The alignment of planets that will spell our doom:

"Well, first of all, there are no planetary alignments in December of 2012, and even if there were, there are no tidal effects on the Earth as a result. The only two bodies in the solar system that can affect the Earth's tides are the moon, which is very close, and the sun, which is massive and also fairly close. But the other planets have a negligible effect on the Earth."

How about a shift in the Earth’s axis? Yeomans’ response:

"The rotation axis can't shift because the orbit of the moon around the Earth stabilizes it and doesn't allow it to shift."

And, finally, the dreaded shift in the Magnetic field:

"There's no evidence it's going to happen in December, and even if it were to be shifting, it takes thousands of years to do so. And even if it did shift, it's not going to cause a problem on the Earth apart from the fact that we're going to have to recalibrate our compasses."

MOUTHS AGAPE AT ROCCO’S DOOMSDAY SCAM

Down Under, in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, a doomsday cult leader and one of his True Believers came to an undisclosed settlement agreement.

Martin Penney was suing Rocco Leo, formerly a fugitive and leader to the Agape Ministries, a “doomsday cult,” claiming that while a member of the cult, he bought into Rocco’s stories of “poisoned microchips, government beheadings and South Pacific island refuges duped him into parting with $876,000.” Additionally, Penney claimed that he forked over $250,000 to cover “daily incidentals,” such a toilet paper, a $42,000 Ford Fairlane as well as donating $217,000 cash.

Okay, let’s catch our breath here. First of all, Rocco Leo! Ew! Seriously? So gross. You’re going to hand over $876,000 to a guy named Rocco Leo who’s telling you that the world is coming to an end? Also, has there ever been a Ford Fairlane built – ever! – that’s worth $42,000? And then there’s the cult name, Agape Ministries! The only thing agape was my mouth when I read this story.
 

So, anyway Rocco Leo of Agape Ministries agreed to settle out-of-court with Penney for an undisclosed amount. You think?

Not that it ends Rocco Leo’s troubles. You see, last June, when he was a fugitive, he was located by Fijian authorities holed up in a former resort on the island. When found, he was hanging with his brother Joseph and his sister Mari Antoinette Veneziano. What a family!

Thus, brought back to Australia, Rocco faces another trial in June in which yet another disgruntled one-time True Believer wanting $420,000. On top of that, the Australian Taxation Office is seeking $4.1 million “after stripping the cult of its tax-exempt status as a religion.” And if that isn’t enough, the Holden Hill Magistrates Court has an active warrant for Rocco that requires “his arrest for assault charges dating back to April 2010.”

On the plus side for Rocco, the government has decided not to pursue criminal charges against him for the guns and 35,000 rounds of ammunition discovered on cult properties.

DRAT! NEW CALCULATIONS SHOW THE WORLD HAS ALREADY ENDED

By golly, there’s a new hypothesis swirling around the Internet – and we all know how reliable Internet information is – that is flustering some True Believers (idiots/morons) about the not impending end of the world.

As reported in the International Business Times the doomsters may have miscalculated the End of Days. Here’s how it is reported: "There have been about 514 Leap Years since Caesar created (the current calendar) in 45BC.” 

Hence, today’s date, March 20, 2012, should actually be August 12, 2013. Since the Mayan calendar did not include a calculation for leap year, in actuality, the world came to an end about seven months ago!

Egad! We’re all dead and we didn’t know it.

Again!

TORAH CODE 2012……YET ANOTHER APOCALYPSE

A new documentary, “Torah Code 2012,” recycling the “Bible Code” material, claims that hidden words and some phrases in the Hebrew text “are directly related to the year 2012 in the first five books of the Torah and although they are not as popular as the alleged Mayan 2012 end-of-the-world prophecy, the newly-discovered codes portray ‘a scenario virtually ripped from today's headlines.’"

Of course they do! Good heavens, how can you get people panicky about End of Days and Doomsday and all that guff without at least a nod to a “ripped from the headlines” grabber? There’s just too much competing media to present something written by a stoner: “Hey, dudes and dudettes, like there’s this, ya know, code in the, ah, you know, Bible and it like…oh, man could I go for a brownie…what was I saying?...oh, yeah, this code it’s like all about the end of like…I don’t know…something…”

“You’re going to die horribly at the End of Days, the Bible says so!” See? Much more effective.

Anyway, this new documentary is from Pinlight Productions and Pinlight’s Richard Shaw explains: "There's a number of 2012 tables that talk about redemption, and they're usually connected a lot with the return of the Messiah." 

Apparently, the event the secret code Pinlight pinpoints will occur during this year’s Passover, April 6 through 14, 2012. Thus far, the Jewish community has been unimpressed.

However, some True Believers (idiots/morons/pinheads) are peeing their pants in anticipation.

Well, here’s my prediction: Nothing’s going to happen!

FIVE “TERRIFYING” REASONS THE WORLD WILL END …NOT!

Perusing YouTube the other day, I happened upon video offering “evidence” that the world will come to an end on December 21, 2012.

The five “terrifying” signs of the end included:

The Mayan Calendar

I’ve discussed this nonsense here Ad nauseam.

Ancient Chinese I Ching Predictions

According to a website on Chinese prophesy, in China “there is no doomsday prediction for 2012…On the contrary; China has one prophecy regarding to 2012 from Ching Dynasty. It said that a wise man will appear to make the world prosperous and peaceful in the year of Black Dragon.”

Geomagnetic Reversal

A common event that won’t do much of anything.

Black Hole Alignment

Utter nonsense.

The Web Bot

The Web Bot searches the Internet for keywords. The Internet is buzzing right now with thousands of sites discussing 12-21-12/End of the World/End of Days/Armageddon/the Apocalypse. Therefore it is only logical that the Web Bot would find heavy references to 12-21-12 as Doomsday.

Reading some of the posts following all of this nonsense again confirmed my concerns about the hysteria and paranoia concerning 2012 and the end of the world. A few selected comments following the video predictions:

“Well I believe that the world will not "end", perhaps, but something will happen. YellowStone for example is going to do something fairly soon and it will not be the end of the Earth, but it will whipe out a very large portion of the U.S. But if it was going to be a Super Volcano that is going to do us in, it will be the one in Antarctica. If it does erupt for some reason, the melted ice will flood 99.9% of the Earth, leaving only the peaks of Mount Everest dry.”

“Look i used to believe this 2012 shit. I still do. Its not natural events. or whatever. Its illuminati, Freemasons, all of them... They have been warning us for many years. and that time will come.”

MORE SNIPPETS FROM EVERYWHERE

Dean Johnson
Spring Grove Herald (Minnesota)

“As the time for this prediction gets closer, I have been asked about this more and more frequently. The only reason I am writing this article is that I was asked by two different well-educated people at two different businesses within half an hour about the Mayan prediction of the ‘End of the World.’

“Each conversation started in almost exactly the same way... ‘Dean, you know a bit about astronomy, what do you think about the Mayan 2012 Doomsday Prediction?’

“I replied, ‘All those guys on TV who talk about the 2012 end of the world have bad haircuts, talk in funny accents, go by names like Cedric, Rupert and Percival, and are masters of the words 'could, if, maybe, might, perhaps, possibly, potentially and what.'

"’Then they quote some obscure ancient documents made by the astronomer-priests who practiced human sacrifice and present that as ironclad proof that the 'End of the World' is imminent.

"’To further cement the current hoax, they mention that the winter solstice will coincide with the rising of the sun with the galactic core, which is a mere 28,000 light years distant.’"

John concludes: “In the meantime, one word of advice, BE SURE TO GET YOUR CHRISTMAS SHOPPING DONE EARLY! Because when the poor saps who have bought into this farce wake up on Dec. 22 to find that they are still here and the world hasn't come to an end, the malls are going to be packed!”

Love, Joy, Feminism blog

By Libby Anne

“Searching for and expecting the signs of the end times means Premillennialists end up being short term thinkers, and completely eliminates the idea of searching for global solutions to the problems facing the world today. Famines are expected; wars are expected; global agreements are seen as potentially evil; and young leaders speaking of peace are automatically suspect. And then there’s the whole “persecution complex” thing.”

Fair Observer

Ivo Oliveira

“So, should we worry? Is the world really going to end? We don’t know. But if one takes a closer look at what the majority of these prophecies and predictions postulate, it is most probable that on 22nd December 2012 we will still be here. Moreover, the end of the world as we know it will likely have more to do with our own actions rather than with a supernova that exploded 30,000 light years away.”

Guatemala News

Cirilo Pérez Oxlaj, Principal Elder of the National Council of Mayan Elders Spiritual Guides of Guatemala

Regarding December 21, 2012:

“This is the end of the fifth cycle of the sun, hoping to receive the Sixth Period of the Sun; it is a new dawn that Mayan astronomers announced. They are also called “The Bearers of Time” and are the authorities in the spiritual and material life, as the ancestors told thousands of years ago, passing the knowledge from generation to generation. This is why the National Council of Mayan Elders Spiritual Guides of Guatemala extends an invitation to all cultures, religions and spiritual practices by men, women, youth and children, as good children of the sun, children of time. To come together in a global meditation, each from our own ways to connect with the Creator of our people, communities, organizations and families, to achieve peace and a change of consciousness, and thus improve our actions and avoid unfortunate consequences of self-destruction that human action has been causing for quite some time.”

WHAT ARE THE DOOMSDAY “PREPPERS” PREPPING FOR?

Doomsday Preppers. For what do they prep?

Well, that’s a darned good question and the answers are as varied as the preppers.

For instance, there is a retired police officer who traded the rocking chair for an 18-wheeler and is now a long-haul trucker fervently preparing for total worldwide economic collapse.

Then there is the woman who spends all – and I mean all – of her time trying to disinfect her home of “deadly viruses.”

Another gentleman living in Florida is convinced his home will be flooded after the world shifts on its axis.

And then there is this:

A laboratory worker for an oil company walked away from his job in anticipation of December 21, 2012, you know, the End of Days. A true believer (idiot/moron) in the supposed apocalypse predicted (not!) by the Maya, he searched out other (wrong) sources, such as ancient Egyptian predictions that allegedly cited 2012 as the end of all of us. The former oil workers doom du jour is the complete reversal of Earth’s magnetic field leading to devastating earthquakes and tidal waves and End of Days.

I say this: When 2013 rolls around and this mook is out of work and everyone is laughing and pointing at him for being a complete and utter ass, he will NOT admit he was wrong. Instead, he’ll make up some gobbledygook about an error in calculations and find a new date for Doomsday.

All in the family:

A family in Augusta, Georgia, is preparing for bad times. While the family has no television (“kids are hooked into electronics and don't know how to socialize, let alone the difference between a white pine and a white oak,” explained the father), they do have a Wii game system for educational games and a DVD player for movies. 

The father proudly “describes his children as ‘feral,’ as they spend a lot of time in the woods, though they each have mastered different skills.

“Today's world is based on fear and disconnect,” the father pointed out. “Real learning involves your whole being. It's not something you can get from YouTube or TV or a book.”

Feral kids might become feral adults, or maybe not. 

MORE OBSERVATIONS FROM EVERYWHERE

Marlene Speck

Policy Mic

(The) trend towards negative news coverage – combined with the fact that people gain the vast majority of their information from the media – can create fear-driven behaviors that seem to fly in the face of reason or at least lack any scientific evidence. In the case of doomsday 2012, the message led to public worries causing a couple of people to even spend large amounts of money in search of an effective remedy against the world’s end. Reinforced through updates permanently spread by the media and also movies like “2012 Doomsday” by Nick Everhart, the apocalyptic panic gains currency and nurtures an industry of people trying to exploit this by offering products said to ensure your survival.

Staff Report

International Business Times
Rumors are flying that Snooki's due date is Dec. 21, 2012, the day Mayans predicted the world will end. Is it true?

The rumor that the "Jersey Shore" star (real name Nicole Polizzi)'s baby is due on 12/21/12 have set the Internet abuzz with speculation about the meaning of what would be quite the cosmic coincidence.

(Just as an aside, the human gestation takes nine months, give or take a day or two. This article appeared on March 1, 2012. Now, perhaps Snooki is an alien – something I personally suspect – if so, then a 10-month gestation period might be possible. However, if she’s human, then her due date is not 12/21/12 unless she plans to get pregnant around March 21, give or take a day or two.)

Anonymous
Scholars & Rogues
(Baby Boomers) have decided that if our time is finite, that must mean that civilization itself is finite, too. The end of the world and our end are contemporaneous. And who can blame us? We are so very wonderful that it’s hard to imagine the world without us. Or even why anyone might possibly want to live in a world without us. Nope, if we are leaving, might as well shut this whole thing down and start over.

Editorial, The Scotsman
Most respected, conventional scholars, both Christians and Muslims, usually refrain from making fantastical links between current affairs and religious prophecy. Some may even consider such commentaries heretical, as they can cheapen the faith. After all, history is full of men who predicted the end of the world, only to be left disappointed.

Stephanie Thompson
The Brooklyn Paper

I believe wholeheartedly in the power of stories. I have to in order to be a writer. But I don’t think Doomsday stories do anyone any favors. Just like any other dire prediction, they mostly cause more harm than good. There is a certain necessity to caution warnings, but the truth is that we mostly don’t know things for sure, so why not look on the bright side? Why spend the whole year worrying about The End when you could be more productively figuring how to enjoy it?

STIRRING THE PARANOIA POT

This is just shoddy, stir-the-pot reporting that feeds the True Believers’ (idiots/morons) paranoia.

The RT.com website reported on February 29 “Scientists have detected a comet 140 meters in diameter that is due for a fly-by in 2040. There is an outside chance that it could collide with Earth.”

“An outside chance that it could collide with Earth.”

End of Days! End of Days! Bring out your dead!

The comet, designated AG5, is in an elliptical orbit that will bring it near Earth in 23 years. RT.com words: “within striking distance.”

“Although the chances are slim,” RT.com admits, “the possibility of impact is a little too close for comfort.”

 Detlef Koschny of the European Space Agency’s Solar System Missions Division had this to say:

“In 2012, AG5 is the object which currently has the highest chance of impacting the Earth in 2040. However, we have only observed it for about half an orbit, thus the confidence in these calculations is still not very high."

In fact, NASA says AG5’s chances of hitting Earth in 2040 are 1:625, that is one chance in 625.

On the plus side, the 49th session of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, meeting in Vienna, are using AG5 as an exercise to consider approaches and technologies to deflect meteorites and asteroids that approach to closely to Earth.

The problem, I believe are the True Believers (idiots/morons) who will tuck this 2040 date away and drag it out in 20 years to whip up a little unnecessary hysteria and frenzy and figure out a way to bilk people out of money for bullshit “comet survival” crap.

MATH, SCIENCE AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

Yesterday, I blogged about a coming zombie apocalypse at Michigan State University as a means to teach human behavior in a crisis. Today, we’ll head west to Utah where James Powell teaches math and biology at Utah State University.

According to an article in the Standard-Examiner in Logan, Utah, “If a zombie apocalypse hit Cache County, 70 percent of the population would be devoured or infected within seven to 10 days. The contamination and death toll would climb much faster in Weber County, and faster still in Davis. In the more rural counties of Morgan and Box Elder, the end would come much more slowly, because of the increased distances ‘the walkers’ would have to walk.”

For years, Powell has used real diseases and their spread to help his math and biology students learn to “chart the pace at which real epidemics spread.”

"I think it's nice to be topical," Powell explained as he prepared to teach his workshop, "Mathematics and the Life-Impaired: How the Theory of Disease Predicts the Zombie Apocalypse."

Powell adds that "over the years, I have had my students chart H1N1, and before that there was a rabies outbreak, and years before that we talked about the number of new AIDS cases worldwide. We've charted other diseases and the maximum growth rate, and how much death we should expect."

A science fiction fans since childhood, Powell began using the zombie pandemic after finding that USU student were playing Humans vs. Zombies, a live-action game created in 2005 Maryland's Goucher College. The game starts with a few zombies and many humans. Zombie and humans wear armbands to designate their roles. “Zombies multiply by ‘tagging’ humans, and humans can fend off zombies with Nerf guns, marshmallow guns, rolled up socks, or whatever non-harmful weapon is agreed upon.”

Using data from the game’s website, Powell worked out his criteria, factored in zombie behavior, the “USU Human vs. Zombie mortality rate, and the number of humans in Cache County.” His analysis determined that 70 percent of humans would be dead in seven to 10 days. However, more zombies would starve because the food supply was waning rapidly.

"The humans who were left would be the ones better at defending themselves," he said. "The humans would still be in danger, but the epidemic would have peaked."

Think of it as applied apocalypse theory, a much better application of Doomsday claptrap than the stuff coming from the True Believers (idiots/morons).

ZOMBIES INVADE UNIVERSITY CAMPUS

Zombies, the Doomsday monstres du jour, brainless creatures operating on bloodlust and a feral appetite for human flesh, have made their way into the Ivory Tower.

Okay, okay, a little melodramatic. But, hey, fun.

The School of Social Work at Michigan State University in East Lansing is introducing a new course, “Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse – Catastrophes and Human Behavior.”

The seven-week course starts in May when the university’s summer session begins and provides an opportunity to study “human behavior and nature change after catastrophic incidents.”

“The course begins and ends with a ‘Catastrophic Event Simulation’ (a Coronal Mass Ejection Incident has caused a Zombie pandemic),” the course description explains. “Students are assigned into Survivor Groups located throughout the United States and must face the challenges of living and surviving together during a catastrophic event.”

(By the way, a Coronal Mass Ejection is supposedly the result of a “change or shift in the magnetic flux on the sun’s surface.”)

"We are using the idea of a zombie apocalypse to attract attention to the important research and science on the topic of 'Catastrophes and Human Behavior,'" explained Glenn Stutzky, social work instructor and course creator. "Students will learn about the nature, scope and impact of catastrophic events on individuals, families, societies, civilizations and the Earth itself."

During the course, students be placed in teams in which individuals must work together to survive the “zombie pandemic.” Along the way, students will study such catastrophic events as the Black Death, meteor strikes and other major happenings. “During the final days of the course, students in their survivor groups will use what they learned and will face the conclusion of the simulation event.”

“Though the topic is serious and worthy of academic study, the challenges presented in surviving a hypothetical zombie pandemic have real-world applications," Stutzky explained. "After all, zombies make everything more interesting."

As a writer of the horrific, I whole-heartedly agree!

IF YOU’RE WAITING FOR DOOMSDAY, HERE’S SOME LIGHT READING

I think waiting for Doomsday is like Waiting for Godot; you can wait, if you want to, but there’s really no Godot.

On the other hand, if Doomsday does appear imminent, here are some books for suggested reading to get ready for the worst.

SAS Survival Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Surviving Anywhere. Written by John “Lofty” Wiseman, a 26-year veteran of the British Army’s elite (and scary) Special Air Service. The book covers all of the survival basics and takes into account surviving in the face of other disasters besides Doomsday such as “avalanches, tornados, earthquakes, even the aftermath of a nuclear disaster.” Some fun, eh?

US Army Field Survival. Not to be outdone, the US Army’s survival guide covers various situations and circumstances and “explains the psychology of survival and preparation procedures, in addition to maintaining hygiene, crafting a makeshift shelter, and making water potable. Like the SAS Handbook, this version is edited for civilian use.” If you want it, you can get a PDF download for free.

There are other general survival books available including Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills by Abigail R. Gehring, The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery, and Foxfire Books of collected articles from Foxfire Magazine (about which I know nothing).

How about books on survival medicine? Many of the prepper/survivalists recommend the Merck Manual and others suggest simply having a good, full-illustrated medical dictionary. These sorts of books have been around forever. I have my Grandmother’s copy of Dr. Chase’s Receipt Book and Household Physician, published in 1908. Most of it’s out of date, but it has color plates on bandaging wounds and recipes for making bread or baking a cake. Who doesn’t like cake?

Where There is No Doctor is a reference from the Hesperian Foundation that is distributed by the Peace Corps. It covers such necessary things as setting broken bones and delivering a baby. (And, yes, even after Armageddon, it’s a sure bet people will continue to have sex and, thus, have babies). Ditch Medicine: Advanced Field Procedures for Emergencies by Hugh L. Coffee is full of procedures for someone with EMT or basic nursing training. There is also A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants and Herbs from the Peterson Field Guide people.

How about food? That’s a human’s number uno biological imperative – if I remember anything from Mr. Spencer’s science class, that it!

Again, look to Peterson for their Field Guides to Edible Wild Plants that come in various edition for various regions of North America. Tony Nester, Outside Magazine's survival expert recommends that you find guides that list edible plants that taste good. Sage advice. Then there are the old standbys from the late Euell Gibbons such as Stalking the Wild Asparagus, Stalking the Healthful Herbs and Stalking the Blue-Eyed Scallop. There are numerous other food books covering everything from being a self-sufficient gardener to trapping (which I do not recommend since it is inhumane and cruel) and guides to canning, freezing, curing and smoking meats, fish and, of course vegetables.

As I recall, Mr. Spencer said that the second human biological imperative was shelter (and the third is sex, which I believe I've already mentioned). You get your belly full and then you need a safe place to sleep. D.C Beard wrote Shelters, Shacks, and Shanties: The Classic Guide to Building Wilderness Shelters. A co-founder of the Boy Scouts of America, the late Mr. Beard explains ways to build serviceable shelters with basic materials. Here’s one more specifically designed for End of Days, etc. The Building Blocks to Rebuild Civilization. Not only does this four-DVD package cover shelter, it also gets into water filtration, metal work, electrical, biodiesel and other areas. Just one cautionary note: If civilization goes KA-POW you may not have the electrical power to fire up the DVD player and then the DVDs will be worthless. Survivalists everywhere recommend hard copies.