In the Name of Balance...

You are currently watching a news program.  The anchor is talking to a scientist about how positively absurd the whole end-of-the-world bullcrap.  The scientist's counterpart in the discussion is one of the Doomsday believers who argues that the Mayan long count calendar ends on December 21, 2012.  Did you also know that the Gregorian calendar comes to an "end" on December 31, 2012?  Of course, there's also the talk about how the sun, the Earth, and the center of the Milky Way all come into alignment on December 21, 2012.  Of course, the scientist points out that also happened on Dec. 21, 2011, and in 2010, 2009, 2008 and so on...  because that happens every year on the Winter Solstice (and the "perfect" alignment people talk about happened in the '90s).  Moreover, there's nothing anywhere in cosmology that indicates that anything could ever possibly happen simply because of that.  Then the doomsday believer points out that it fits with the Bible and the return of Jesus...  which of course, it doesn't, since the Bible says it should have already happened within the lifetimes of the apostles.  Then of course, the nutbar doomsday freak alludes to the idea that "Hinduism" predicts the end of Kali Yuga in 2012...  uuuhhhh...  no, it doesn't.  Where the hell did anybody get the idea that there is such specificity in any Hindu text?  If anything, dates are the sort of thing Hindu texts are least specific about.  In any case, the scientist, who can't really be expected to be an expert in every culture on earth can at least offer the most obvious objection that those are unfounded claims -- most likely fabrications simply to ride the popularity wave of the 2012 bullshit-mania, and not even a real genuine coincidence.  But even if they were, that would have no impact on the fact that the evidence shows nothing.  In the end, no one really listened to anyone, and the show ran out of time for the segment leaving the whole issue "unresolved" as it were, and simply moves on to something else.

Does anything about this strike you as wrong?  The description probably sounded plausible for a news program, but that's not quite where the problem lies...

How about the fact that there is even a dialogue on the topic in the first place?

I hope my flight isn't canceled...

The wonders of Blogger maintenance updates...  Postings you made some time ago enter a state of limbo and then reappear as "not yet published."  So I'll edit it and bring it up to date.

So, I'll apparently be in L.A. during Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, so I'll have to post my contribution late.


Basically, on account of various hassles, I have to return the following day.  There's a small problem with that...  That's the day the world comes to an end, according to yet another Rapture prediction from yet another horde of Bible-thumping loonies who have not a single surviving cell of gray matter.  Well, to be exact, it's the day that the Armageddon begins, and then the universe will cease to exist 153 days after.  Yeah.  I think I'm more likely to die laughing than of any "second coming" of someone who likely never even had a first coming.


Well, assuming that the airports and the TSA run their operations on the basis of...  reality... all will go well.  The very nice thing about the apocalypse, though, is that it apparently will be cascading with the time zones such that it appears at 6:00 pm local time wherever you are.  I'll be home in time for it, but I'll also be in time to call my brother (who's 3 hours ahead) and see if he has seen any of the Four Horsemen coming his way.