Monday 23rd of December 2024
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of crackpots' and experts' predictions...

end of the world

 

The end of the world is nigh; 21 May, to be precise. That's the date when Harold Camping, a preacher from Oakland, California, is confidently predicting the Second Coming of the Lord. At about 6pm, he reckons 2 per cent of the world's population will be immediately "raptured" to Heaven; the rest of us will get sent straight to the Other Place.

If Mr Camping were speaking from any normal pulpit, it would be easy to dismiss him as just another religious eccentric wrongly calling the apocalypse. But thanks to this elderly man's ubiquity, on America's airwaves and billboards, his unlikely Doomsday message is almost impossible to ignore.

Every day Mr Camping, an 89-year-old former civil engineer, speaks to his followers via the Family Radio Network, a religious broadcasting organisation funded entirely by donations from listeners. Such is their generosity (assets total $120m) that his network now owns 66 stations in the US alone.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-preacher-warns-end-of-the-world-is-nigh-21-may-around-6pm-to-be-precise-2254139.html

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What does the future hold? To answer that question, human beings have looked to stars and to dreams; to cards, dice and the Delphic oracle; to animal entrails, Alan Green span, mathematical models, the palms of our hands. As the number and variety of these soothsaying techniques suggest, we have a deep, probably intrinsic desire to know the future. Unfortunately for us, the future is deeply, intrinsically unknowable.

This is the problem Dan Gardner tackles in “Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Are Next to Worthless, and You Can Do Better.” Gardner, a Canadian journalist and author of “The Science of Fear,” takes as his starting point the work of Philip Tetlock, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Beginning in the 1980s, Tetlock examined 27,451 forecasts by 284 academics, pundits and other prognosticators. The study was complex, but the conclusion can be summarized simply: the experts bombed. Not only were they worse than statistical models, they could barely eke out a tie with the proverbial dart-throwing chimps.

The most generous conclusion Tetlock could draw was that some experts were less awful than others. Isaiah Berlin once quoted the Greek poet Archilochus to distinguish between two types of thinkers: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” Berlin admired both ways of thinking, but Tetlock borrowed the metaphor to account for why some experts fared better. The least accurate forecasters, he found, were hedgehogs: “thinkers who ‘know one big thing,’ aggressively extend the explanatory reach of that one big thing into new domains” and “display bristly impatience with those who ‘do not get it,’ ” he wrote. Better experts “look like foxes: thinkers who know many small things,” “are skeptical of grand schemes” and are “diffident about their own forecasting prowess.”

To his credit, Gardner is a fox. His book, though, is somewhat hedgehoggy. It knows one big thing: that the future cannot be foretold, period, and that those who try to predict it are deluding themselves and the rest of us. In defense of that theory, Gardner dips into the science of unpredictability and the psychology of certainty. And he provides case studies of failed prophets — a kind of hedgehog highlight reel, in which the environmental scientist Paul Ehrlich, the historian Arnold Toynbee and the social critic James Howard Kunst ler come in for a particularly hard time.

This schadenfreude-fest can be good fun. Gardner leaves plenty of prognosticators squirming on history’s thumbtack, like the British journalist H. N. Norman, who argued, in early 1914, that “there will be no more wars among the six Great Powers.” And throughout this terrain, Gardner is an able tour guide. That’s a common analogy in reviews, but I mean it here as literally as a figurative claim can be. Like the guy who leads 200 people a day around London, Gardner is knowledge able about the major attractions, cheerfully conversational, deliberately inoffensive and fond of jokes pitched at the chuckle range.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/books/review/book-review-future-babble-by-dan-gardner.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print       

if it is in the newspapers, it must be true...

Calif. Pastor: End of the World Is Near, Really

Every generation has cried "the end of the world is near." Yet "here we are still," noted one Southern California pastor.

Haven't we heard this all before?" Greg Laurie acknowledged on Sunday. "Every generation ... that has thought it was the generation that would see the Lord's return has been wrong because he didn't come, did he?"

"This idea of the end of the world coming, Christ returning, is this the truth?"

Laurie, pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, Calif., continued his messages on the end times in light of recent events, including the deadly earthquake in Japan.

This generation might be repeating what past generations have been saying, that these are the last days, but Laurie wonders whether the "cumulative effect" and the frequency of the events are cause to believe that indeed Jesus might return in his lifetime.

"Yes, we have heard this message before but over the years, certain things have happened that have immense prophetic significance," he said.

He listed the dramatic escalation of global wars and terrorism, the push for unity or globalism, the change in world economics toward a cashless society, the unprecedented increase of killer earthquakes, and false teaching permeating the church.

The world isn't quite yet at the seven-year Tribulation Period that the Bible prophesizes, Laurie said, but he believes it's close.

"That means the return of Jesus Christ is even closer yet," he said.

There may be some disagreements over the order of the prophetic events, he noted. But there is no division on "this one truth: that Jesus Christ is coming back again soon."

Of course, no one can say with certainty when that day will be.

"I'm not one of those date setters," the famed evangelist said. "Some looney tune will come along and say he's cracked the code. No man knows the day or the hour."

But what people can know are the "signs of the times," a phrase Jesus coined, according to Laurie.

What are these signs? "We see them on the headlines of newspapers," he said.


http://www.christianpost.com/news/calif-pastor-end-of-the-world-is-near-really-49402/

the science of science...

Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is an enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world.[1][2][3][4] An older and closely related meaning still in use today is that of Aristotle, for whom scientific knowledge was a body of reliable knowledge that can be logically and rationally explained (see "History and etymology" section below).[5]

Since classical antiquity science as a type of knowledge was closely linked to philosophy. In the early modern eraEnglish language. By the 17th century, "natural philosophy" (which is today called "natural science") had begun to be considered separately from "philosophy" in general.[6][7] However, "science" continued to be used in a broad sense denoting reliable knowledge about a topic, in the same way it is still used in modern terms such as library science or political science. the two words, "science" and "philosophy", were sometimes used interchangeably in the

Science is in modern use, "often treated as synonymous with ‘natural and physical science’, and thus restricted to those branches of study that relate to the phenomena of the material universe and their laws, sometimes with implied exclusion of pure mathematics. This is now the dominant sense in ordinary use."[8] This narrower sense of "science" developed as a part of science became a distinct enterprise of defining "laws of nature", based on early examples such as Kepler's laws, Galileo's laws, and Newton's laws of motion. In this period it became more common to refer to natural philosophy as "natural science". Over the course of the 19th century, the word "science" became increasingly associated with the disciplined study of the natural world including physics, chemistry, geology and biology. This sometimes left the study of human thought and society in a linguistic limbo, which was resolved by classifying these areas of academic study as social science. Similarly, several other major areas of disciplined study and knowledge exist today under the general rubric of "science", such as formal science and applied science.[9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science

the science of global warming...

Scientific opinion on climate change is given by synthesis reports, scientific bodies of national or international standing, and surveys of opinion among climate scientists. Individual scientists, universities, and laboratories contribute to the overall scientific opinion via their peer reviewed publications, and the areas of collective agreement and relative certainty are summarised in these high level reports and surveys. Self-selected lists of individuals' opinions, such as petitions, are not normally considered to be part of the scientific process.

National and international science academies and scientific societies have assessed the current scientific opinion, in particular on recent global warming. These assessments have largely followed or endorsed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) position of January 2001 which states:

An increasing body of observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system... There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.[1]

No scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion; the last was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, which in 2007 updated its 1999 statement rejecting the likelihood of human influence on recent climate with its current non-committal position.[2][3] Some other organisations, primarily those focusing on geology, also hold non-committal positions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

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Most of the world's scientists now agree that Earth is warming up.... but what will happen in the coming years, decades, and centuries? This is our handy guide to the best websites on global warming. If you're looking for public-domain (copyright-free) photos to illustrate a school project or report, please also take a look at our page of climate change and global warming photos.

http://www.ukrivers.net/climate.html

General
The Wikipedia articles Climate change and Global warming are strong summaries of the science, though younger readers may find them too complex.
US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Global Warming pages
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies: Contains reports of cutting-edge research into climate change. Explore the site and you'll find lots of useful new information.
Climate Science from the UK Meteorological Office Hadley Centre
The science of climate change: from Friends of the Earth UK
Climate science: from Greenpeace International
The climate conveyor theory of Wallace Broecker:
Thermohaline Circulation, the Achilles Heel of Our Climate System: Will Man-Made CO2 Upset the Current Balance? Wallace Broecker, Science, Volume 278, Number 5343, Issue of 28 Nov 1997, pp. 1582-1588.
What if the conveyor were to shut down?: by Wallace Broecker,GSA Today 9(1):1-7 (January 1999).
The Great Climate Flip-Flop William H. Calvin, The Atlantic Monthly, January 1998. Outlines Broecker's climate conveyor theory that global warming could lead, paradoxically, to drastic cooling.
Climate Impact of Quadrupling Atmospheric CO2
Climate change and greenhouse gases by Tamara S. Ledley et al, EOS Volume 80 Number 39, September 28, 1999.
European Network Activities on Global Change
What if the conveyor were to shut down?: by Wallace Broecker,GSA Today 9(1):1-7 (January 1999).
Science Magazine: Search for recent climate change articles.
Climate modelling
Models 'key to climate forecasts' by Dr Vicky Pope of the UK's Hadley Centre.
Global climate modelling: A more detailed explanation of modelling from NASA Goddard Insitute for Space Studies (GISS).
ClimatePrediction.net: An collaborative modelling project you can join in with, along the lines of SETI@home.
Climate change protection: the tolerable windows approach
Impacts
General impactsUS EPA Climate Change: Includes impacts on different ecosystems and human health.
The Global Warming Debate: It's real, inexorable, and heading our way E Magazine, September/October 2000.
Effects: The current and future consequences of global change: From NASA.
Greenpeace climate impacts: Greenpeace's current information on impacts.
Greenpeace climate impacts database: This is an archive page on the Greenpeace website and may no longer contain current data
The Pew Center on Global Climate Change - Reports and Environmental Policy Analysis: Selection of comprehensive reports on various impacts of climate change (sea-level rise, health, economic effects, etc.)
Environmental and Societal Impacts Group of National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Social and economic impacts of weather
Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us : A 2004 news story from The UK Observer.
Stark warning over climate change: BBC news story from April 2006.
Impacts on economic activity
Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change: A report published by the British government in October 2006 concluded that it makes sense to invest now to prevent economic losses from climate change in the future. You can download a summary and the full report from this site.
Climate Change Costs Could Top $300 Billion Annually: A 2001 news story: Leading reinsurance company Munich Re reports on the financial implications of climate change for the United Nations Environment Programme.
Climate Change and Tourism: A collection of material from the UN World Tourism Organization.
Climate change and tourism: responding to global challenges: A 2008 report from the UN World Tourism Organization.
Impacts on health
US EPA Climate Change: Health: Considers direct temperature effects, extreme events, climate-sensitive diseases, air Quality, and other health linkages.
Climate change and health: Information from the World Health Organization.
Climate Change and Our Health: Information from the Government of Canada concludes "Climate change has the potential to have serious effects on your health."
UK Health Impacts of Climate Change: A short report from the UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, 2004 (in PDF format).
Harvard Medical School: Center for Health and the Global Environment: Reports and information about health impacts of global climate change
Is global warming harmful to health? by Paul R. Epstein, from Scientific American, August 2000. "Computer models indicate that many diseases will surge as the earth's atmosphere heats up."
Impacts on food supply
Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Agriculture and Food Supply
Climate change and world food supply
Food security and climate change: from US Department of Agriculture (You need to downloadAdobe reader for this PDF file if you don't have it)
NASA Goddard Institute: Publications by Cynthia E. Rosenzweig (Search on Rosenzweig)
Climate change and agriculture Submission by Cynthia Rosenzweig to Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate Change, and Nuclear Safety, July 8, 2003.
Impacts on coral reefs
Climate Change, Coral Bleaching, and the Future of the World's Coral Reefs: a detailed 1999 report (and media briefing) from Greenpeace USA.
US State Department: Coral Bleaching, Coral Mortality, and Global Climate Change: 99/03/05 report on coral and climate change
Great Barrier Reef destruction from global warming from WWF
Impacts on oceans
Oceans and sea-level rise: A simple introduction from Climate Institute website.
Current sea-level rise: Introductory Wikipedia article.
Impacts on other ecosystems
The Carbon Bomb: Climate Change and the Fate of the Northern Boreal Forests a report from Greenpeace
Impacts around the world:
The Regional Impacts of Climate Change: An Assessment of Vulnerability: 1997 report from the IPCC
High Water Blues: Impacts of Sea Level Rise on Selected Coasts and Islands: 1997 report from Environmental Defense - includes superb figures illustrating the progressive drowning of the world!
Global warning: early warning signs: region by region analysis around the world, with clickable "hot map"
IPCC assessment: Regional Impacts of Climate Change
Climate change impacts: a summary from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Regional climate change impacts around the world: a series of short summaries from the Climate Institute, covering the following major regions: Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, Central and South America, North America, Polar Regions, Small Island States.
Impacts on the USA:
U.S. National Assessment:The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change
Climate change impacts on the United States
UCS: Impacts on California
California Global Warming Impacts from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Impacts of climate change: with particular emphasis on US coastal areas
Impacts on the UK:
How will climate change affect the UK? from BBC News, November 2000.
UK Climate Impacts Program (UKCIP)
UK Health Impacts of Climate Change: A short report from the UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, 2004 (in PDF format).
Impacts on Asia:
Climate Change in Asia
Impacts on polar regions
Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA): Links to several excellent reports
The Antarctica Project: climate change pages
Global warming in the arctic and antarctic: Gary Braasch's photo album: from NRDC
Answers from the Ice Edge: The Consequences of Climate Change on life in the Bering and Chukchi seas: A joint report from Artic Network and Greenpeace USA
Sightline Institute
NSF Office of Polar Programs: polar research by US scientists.
Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge University
World Glacier Monitoring Service
US National Snow and Ice Data Center
Cracks In the Ice: New Insights into Antarctic Ice Sheet Failures: from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, January 2001.
Impacts on the Gulf Stream
BBC News Gulf Stream climate change page
The climate conveyor theory of Wallace Broecker:
The Great Climate Flip-Flop William H. Calvin, The Atlantic Monthly, January 1998: Outlines Broecker's climate conveyor theory that global warming could lead, paradoxically, to drastic cooling.
Thermohaline Circulation, the Achilles Heel of Our Climate System: Will Man-Made CO2 Upset the Current Balance? Wallace Broecker, Science, Volume 278, Number 5343, Issue of 28 Nov 1997, pp. 1582-1588.
What if the conveyor were to shut down?: by Wallace Broecker,GSA Today 9(1):1-7 (January 1999).
Solutions?
Global warming and clean energy: from the Sierra Club USA
Fight Global Warming: Tips from Environmental Defense
World Wildlife Fund: Stopping Global Warming: Lots of practical tips that save money and the environment.
Friends of the Earth UK climate change campaign
Sustainable consumption Norman Myers, Science, 2000 March 31; 287: 2419.
Switch on to green energy: from Friends of the Earth UK
Greenpeace UK: Stop Climate Change
Stop Climate Chaos: A group of environmental organizations highlight the problem and offer solutions.
Geoengineering
Geoengineering A short introduction to artificial climate fixes by Explain that Stuff.
Dumping Iron By Charles Graeber, Wired 8.11. An introduction to Michael Markels's iron-fertilizer proposal (to add nutrients to the ocean to create fisheries and soak up carbon dioxide). Sequestration of CO2 by Ocean Fertilization by Michael Markels, May 2001 is a more detailed explanation.
Planting trees won't save the climate Scientific American, November 15 2000 The results of a new study, which looked at how increased carbon dioxide concentrations influence forest growth, are not as promising as some had expected
Iron supplement for the sea Scientific American, October 12, 2000: How to encourage plants to soak up more carbon dioxide.
Climate Solutions: Practical solutions to global warming
The Kyoto Protocol
Full text of the Kyoto Protocol
Congressional Research Service briefing on climate change: Last updated 2001.
Kyoto Diary: one journalist's diary recalls the tension of the Kyoto negotiations
Landmark global warming pact gains final approval: typical upbeat news story from CNN in 1997.
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM):
Clean Development Mechanism: Information from the UNFCCC.
Clean Development Mechanism: A basic overview from Wikipedia.
How much sustainable development can we expect from the Clean Development Mechanism?: World Resources Institute briefing and background on CDM.
The Clean Development Mechanism: A Primer
Clean Development Mechanism: Perspectives from Developing Countries: A 1999 research report from the University of California at Berkeley.
FAQs on the Clean Development Mechanism: from Centre for Science and Environment, India
Government agencies and international organizations
United Nations
UNEP Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
Full text of the convention
European Commission Environment Directorate: Climate change
UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Climate change
US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Global Warming pages
US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Institution (NOAA): Climate pages
NOAA's greenhouse warming links
Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS)
Scientific institutions
University of Bern: Climate and Environmental Physics
Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis
University of East Anglia: Climatic research unit
The Hadley Centre (UK Meteorological Office)
Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University, UK.
International Research Institute for Climate Prediction
Max Planck Institute for Meteorology
NASAGoddard Institute for Space Studies
NSF Office of Polar Programs: polar research by US scientists.
Scott Polar Research Institute: Sea ice and polar oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography: Atmosphere and Climate
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Campaign groups, NGOs, etc.
Indian Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) campaign on Global Climate
Climate Action NetworkClimate Law: international lawyers taking legal action to protect the climate
Environmental Defense- climate change pages
Friends of the Earth UK: Climate change campaign
Friends of the Earth US
Greenpeace International: Climate campaign
PewCentre on Global Climate Change: Useful reports and background info from non-partisan, non-profit organization.
NRDC: National Resources Defense Council: Climate change campaign
Rising Tide: A network of groups and individuals dedicated to taking local action and building a movement against climate change
Sierra Club: Global warming campaign
Union of Concerned Scientists
US Global Change Research Information Office
World Wildlife Fund (WWF): Climate Change campaign
Worldwatch Institute: facts and data on the state of the world
Reports
IPCC reports: All the definitive reports about climate change are available here.
The Pew Center on Global Climate Change - Reports and Environmental Policy Analysis: Excellent selection of comprehensive reports on various impacts of climate change (sea-level rise, health, economic effects, etc.)
Harvard Environmental School Center for Health and the Global Environment: numerous reports and factsheets on health, disease, pest transmission, etc.
Environmental Defense: numerous reports and factsheets from US environmental NGO
Climate change reports: From the David Suzuki foundation (numerous reports and factsheets, with a Canadian flavour).
UK climate change publications: Useful reports and data from Defra
Background, facts, data, and statistics
Climate change fact sheet Some of the key climate change data compiled by leading ocean scientist Stefan Rahmstorf. (PDF format, last updated November 2006).
IPCC Data Distribution Center
National Climate Data Center: World's largest archive of weather data
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory (CMDL), Carbon Cycle-Greenhouse Gases
World Meteorological Organization (WMO): World climate data and monitoring programme
US National Weather Service
NOAA climate data archives
World Resources Institute: Climate Change Facts and Figures
US Energy Information Administration: World Energy Use and Carbon Dioxide Emissions: Lots of useful charts.
Paleoclimate, Greenhouse warming, El Nino, and Climate change: Excellent links on many different aspects of the subject

of romans and planets...

Forget the hippie-era song that has Jupiter aligning with Mars and love steering the stars. The fact is, those two orbs get together all the time.

The truly remarkable event - when Jupiter lines up with Venus, Mercury and Mars in the pre-dawn sky - will be visible in Australia's eastern sky this Friday.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/planets-to-align-in-australian-sky-this-friday-20110511-1eici.html#ixzz1M2Vayjil

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meanwhile in Rome...:

 

Thousands of people are reported to be staying out of Rome for the next few days, over fears the city will be hit by a huge earthquake.

The panic was sparked by rumours that seismologist Raffaele Bendandi, who died in 1979, predicted the city would be devastated by a quake on 11 May.

Officials have insisted quakes cannot be predicted and special programmes have run on state TV calling for calm.

But many people said they were leaving the city to be on the safe side.

There are reports of an 18% increase in the number of city employees planning to stay away from work.

"I'm going to tell the boss I've got a medical appointment and take the day off," barman Fabio Mengarelli told Reuters.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13354988


possible trouble coming our way...

TOMORROW will be cool and windy, with a chance of total apocalypse.

That, at least, is the prediction of Harold Camping, the 89-year-old founder of a Christian cult that disseminates numerological interpretations of the Bible to followers via a network of FM radio stations in the US and podcasts on its website.

Familyradio.com says God ''wants us to know that exactly 7000 years after He destroyed the world with water in Noah's day, He plans to destroy the entire world forever''.

Through a complex series of calculations, Mr Camping has arrived at the date of May 21, 2011, as Judgment Day, when only true believers will be spared.

But if you're not quite ready for the Rapture, there's no need for total despair … yet. Saturday is just the beginning of the end. The final fiery ball of damnation won't visit us until October 21.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/cult-claims-end-of-world-is-nigh--go-figure-20110519-1euzb.html#ixzz1MqLN8V2a

Gus : in the meantime some of the planets have aligned, the moon has been full and the sun is waking up... Gravity subtle change may upset the cracks in the surface of the earth... who knows... See toon at top...

disaster holidays...

Resorts on Fiji's Coral Coast have been warned to take precautions ahead of tonight's high tide, after waves up to two metres tall swamped dozens of hotel rooms and damaged sea walls at tourist resorts.

The waves hit Fiji's main tourist destination on Friday morning (local time), dumping logs and debris, police said.

They said some tourists at the Tambua Sands resort had to move to higher ground after water entered their rooms, while 30 rooms were swamped at the Shangri-La resort.

The general manager for the Fiji Hideaway, John McFadden, says the resort's garden was flooded and two rooms had minor water damage.

Mr McFadden says a king tide, combined with strong southerly winds, saw waves breach the resort's 1.8-metre sea wall.

"We had such a high tide that the waves weren't breaking on the reef; they were breaking in the lagoon and coming over the sea wall," he said.

Other coastal resorts reported similar damage and flooding, and some moved guests to higher rooms as a precaution.

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/20/3222736.htm?section=justin

tonight's the night

"Though the absurdity of this claim is obvious to the majority of the world, it's a great opportunity to highlight some of the most bizarre beliefs often put forth by religious fundamentalists and raise awareness of the need for reason," said a posting about the party on the group's website.

Atheists in Tacoma, Washington, have headed their celebration "countdown to back-pedalling".

Events were also due to take place in Texas, Florida and California.

An atheist and entrepreneur from New Hampshire, Bart Centre, is enjoying a boost in business for Eternal Earth-bound Pets, which he set up to look after the pets of those who believe they will be raptured.

He has more than 250 clients who are paying up to $135 (£83) to have their pets picked up and cared for after the rapture.

They would be disappointed twice, he told the Wall Street Journal. "Once because they weren't raptured and again because I don't do refunds."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13468131

I am bloody disappointed...

They spent months warning the world of the apocalypse, some giving away earthly belongings or draining their savings accounts. And so they waited, vigilantly, on Saturday for the appointed hour to arrive. When 6pm came and went across the United States and various spots around the globe, and no extraordinary cataclysm occurred, some believers expressed confusion, while others reassured each of their faith. Still, some others took it in stride.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/apocalypse-passes-without-note-2287701.html

the significance of insignificance...

"Cognitive scientists have demonstrated that the human brain is hard-wired to look for meaningful patterns in the sensory data it collects from the world," Assistant Professor Lenzi, who studies biblical numerology, said.

"Numbers that are already significant to us, such as calendar dates that also coincidentally fall into an obvious pattern, become doubly significant. 11.11.11 is another example of people doing what people are cognitively prone to do - find significance."

And whatever people believed about tomorrow's date, it could serve as a "good excuse to get out and have a drink and a bit of a party", Dr Jacob said.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/1111am-on-111111--a-time-to-party-or-the-opening-of-the-gates-of-hell-20111111-1na1h.html#ixzz1dL47hfbr

Hell! This is the day when at eleven past eleven, whatever happens happens... 11.11.11.11.11.11.... Blimey!
But in geological time and history of this little pebble we can Earth, this is APPROXIMATELY day number:
1,642, 584, 221,986 at corrected time of 79 degrees and 36 minutes, depending on you position. Phew... No significance here... I can breathe better.
Have a happy 1,642, 584, 221,986  and 79 degrees and 36 minutes moment anyway...

Can I mention that this super-auspicious day, in the Chinese calendar is a very ordinary day and that eleven past eleven happens daily on our clocks? Twice if we use a 12 hour dial?

gods, doomsdays and a cracked-up planet...

 

Mr Rizni, like thousands of other Acehnese, took refuge at the mosque. ''Some people went to the mosque because it is quite high, 16 metres,'' Mr Rizni, 32, said yesterday. ''But it's true that during the afternoon and the evening prayers, they all prayed, through all the aftershocks, they stayed there, some praying, some reading the Koran, all the mothers looking after the children.''

In Islam, he believes, natural disasters are ''little doomsdays''.

''It's about warnings from God to his people about the mistakes they have committed, the wrongdoing they have committed,'' he said.

 

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/aceh-sees-disasters-as-sign-of-gods-wrath-20120413-1wyuw.html#ixzz1rxUquWtA

Okay, Mr Rizni, ease up with the godot thingy... Your part of the planet is all cracked up, NATURALLY... It's just unfortunate that your mob lives in that area prone to earthquakes...

Here is the map at 14/04/2012 of what is happening:

earthquakies

Please note also Honshu (Japan) — Mexico — Chile — Vanuatu — Tonga — New Guinea — The Himalaya area  — and the Banda Sea (the junction between two cracks). Cracks can be overlap of continental and seafloor plates  or can be cracks in continental plates or can be cracks in sea floors... or like in Hawaii, earthquakes and volcanoes can be due to a hot spot...

see toon at top


more crackpotting...

The year 2008 marked the last of God’s warnings to mankind and the beginning in a countdown of the final three and one-half years of man’s self-rule that will end by May 27, 2012.

On December 14, 2008, the First Trumpet of the Seventh Seal of the Book of Revelation sounded, which announced the beginning collapse of the economy of the United States and great destruction that will follow. The next three trumpets will result in the total collapse of the United States, and once the Fifth Trumpet sounds the world will be thrust into WW III. 

The Seven Trumpets of the Seventh Seal, as well as the Seven Thunders of the Book of Revelation (which the apostle John saw but was restricted from recording) are revealed in this book. 

http://the-end.com/2008GodsFinalWitness/?gclid=CNHcjvTJxa8CFWZMpgodsmtSag

Of course this is why Snow White had seven dwarfs looking after her...

glass is near empty for the beetles at news.com...

I’d like to be able to say we deserve to be a part of it. I’d like to be able to say that. But I can’t.

We don’t deserve it. We don’t deserve it because barely anyone knows that it exists.

Before the verdict, the South Africa’s government and its Square Kilometre Array (SKA) organisation, MeerKAT, were treating victory like it was a forgone conclusion while Australia diligently kept its mouth shut.

...

When the SKA organisation floated the idea that the two countries ought to share the project, the best Australia’s science and technology minister Chris Evans could summon was a fairly wimpy statement about how “it was a “tough contest” but he was hoping for the best and that he had no intention of travelling to Amsterdam, where the judges were convening to lobby for Australia. Talk about going out with a whimper instead of a bang.

And when we found out Australia would share the project, there was no objection. In fact Mr Evans called it “an outstanding result”.

I hope we make the most of it. The SKA does not deserve to become the great white elephant in the outback

http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/we-dont-deserve-this-huge-exciting-scientific-project/

I beg to differ slightly.... the glass is one third full... Why should there be an objection in sharing the project? Scientifically it makes more sense to spread the "wings" of the project and second, I believe the "contest" was already settled quite a while before the announcement was made... I also believe than no matter how much the minister would have jumped up or down, it would have made no difference to the result, except wastes some money...

prepers to watch CNN

 

If the end of the world arrives, chances are you aren't going to be watching CNN. But just in case you are, the cable news network has a video ready for the Big Sign-off. That's according to blogger Michael Ballaban who posted the purported footage online.

The clip isn't much, really - just low-res footage of a US Army band playing a mournful rendition of Nearer My God to Thee, which takes a little over a minute. Then fade, presumably, to the rapture, apocalypse, giant comet impact or whatever coup de grace fate has in store for our little blue marble.

Writing on the Jalopnik blog, Ballaban says he first heard about the video from a college professor who worked at CNN. He was then able to confirm its existence when he was an intern at the network in 2009.

The video, he reports, is available on CNN's MIRA archiving system under the name "TURNER DOOMSDAY VIDEO" - the lingering legacy, it seems, of now-departed CNN founder Ted Turner.

Of course, it's existence shouldn't be a total shock. Mr Turner has said that the same tune that serenaded the doomed passengers of the sinking Titanic would usher the world's population into the great hereafter. Still, Ballaban writes, he was a bit sceptical.

read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-30661941

 

See toon at top.... Of course God is a Jewish black woman...

 

See also: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/28872

sometimes (all the time) prophets take the piss out of us...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkxx4HUwGZI

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaFop23xWUA

 

I'd like to thank Potholer54 for all his very entertaining videos... 

recycling doomsday for the gullible...

 

The leader of a Christian group who claimed that the world would end on Wednesday has admitted his prediction was “incorrect”.

Chris McCann, head of the eBible fellowship, warned that the planet would be destroyed “with fire” on 7 October. This did not happen.

“Since it is now 8 October it is now obvious that we were incorrect regarding the world’s ending on the 7th,” McCann said.

McCann originally told the Guardian that by Thursday the world would be “gone forever: annihilated”. McCann based his claim on an earlier prediction by Christian radio host Harold Camping, who said the world would end on 21 May 2011. Camping’s forecast also turned out to be incorrect.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/08/christian-group-doomsday-prediction-adjustment-ebible-fellowship

See toon at top... Idiots...

 

no date yet, but how it will happen...

Civilization on Earth will probably be killed off in one of three ways, scientists have concluded.

Using math models, a team from the University of Rochester in New York calculated what would happen to the planet as the population grows and the effects of climate change inflict chaos.

The researchers found that human civilization could go through a soft landing, a gradual die-off or full-blown collapse.

A die-off is when 70 percent of life on Earth is wiped out before things go back to normal.

This was found to be by far the most likely outcome.

A soft landing was the most positive outcome.

But this only happened when a civilization adapted to its radically changing weather and sea levels and therefore avoiding a mass extinction.

A full-blown collapse will mean our planet was too sensitive to recover from damage caused by humankind. In this case, all intelligent life will perish very quickly.

In this doomsday scenario even when planets switched to renewable fuels to save themselves from extinction, the damage done was sometimes so bad it could not be reversed.

The scientists also applied their models to the possible histories of alien worlds.

They called these societies “Exo-civilizations,” and learning from their mistakes could help us prepare for climate change’s effect.

Writing in The Atlantic, coauthor Professor Adam Frank said: “Given that more than 10 billion trillion planets likely exist in the cosmos, unless nature is perversely biased against civilizations like ours, we’re not the first one to appear.

“That means each exo-civilization that evolved from its planet’s biosphere had a history: A story of emergence, rising capacities, and then maybe a slow fade or rapid collapse.

“And just as most species that have ever lived on Earth are now extinct, so too most civilizations that emerged (if they emerged) may have long since ended.

“So we’re exploring what may have happened to others to gain insights into what might happen to us.”

 

Read more:

https://nypost.com/2018/06/01/civilization-will-end-in-one-of-three-incr...

 

According to Gus' calculations, the likelihood of the shit hitting the fan is June 2032. But this would only be a preliminary (major) upset in weather patterns and global warming. The slow demise of humanity will be balanced by improvements in our adaptation, despite many deaths — far more than in all prior human conflicts. Should we fight over dwindling resources, this will add speed to our demise. While most scientific possible predictions are made till year 2100, Gus is optimistic enough to see humanity still fiddling along (bruised and in survival mode) 400 years from now, remembering that dudes like Shakespeare who we still connect to, lived 400 years ago. And Jesus was sandalling across the sand dunes 2000 years ago. The earth, 400 years from now, is thus the plot of my novel, The Source (Источник), now given to good Russian writers to develop. I'm too lazy to carry on...

 

Read from top.

 

See also: the great australian silence...

jewish crackpot cows...

It’s the end of the world as we know it.

An all-red heifer was born at the Temple of Israel on September 4, fulfilling a Biblical prophecy to “reinstate purity to the world and the rebuilding of the Holy Temple,” according to the temple’s YouTube announcement.

The sacrifice of a red heifer is essential to the construction of a third temple in Jerusalem, which would bring the coming of the messiah and the final judgement.

The Temple of Israel wrote, “The heifer is currently a viable candidate and will be examined [to see] whether it possess[es] the necessary qualifications for the red heifer.”

 

Read more:

https://nypost.com/2018/09/09/prophecy-fulfilled-after-red-cow-is-born-a...

----------------------

See when Gus makes crackpot predictions:

wearing a beige cardigan on a hot day at the beach because mum said so...

 

Read from top.

 

another crackpot predicts the end of the world, maybe...

Christian Broadcasting Network founder Pat Robertson has predicted that President Donald Trump will secure re-election, which he says will then lead to the end of the world.

“…The next thing is the election that's coming up in just a few weeks, at which time, according to what I believe the Lord told me, the president is going to be re-elected,” Robertson prophesized during his show on Tuesday. The preacher then added that Trump's victory is “going to lead to civil unrest, and then a war against Israel and so forth…”

According to Robertson, the war's outcome has also already been pre-determined. “There is going to be a war, then a time of peace,” he said, before adding, “And then maybe the end.”


Pat Robertson reports that he has been told by God that Trump will win reelection ... and it will bring about the beginning of the End Times. https://t.co/mH5ERpBFCspic.twitter.com/8WcYGxR3eO

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) October 20, 2020

 

Robertson's calm perspective on such radical world events quickly went viral on Twitter, with many users quipping about it being a “legit” take on reality.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/usa/504056-pat-robertson-trump-2020/

 

Read from top.