Yes, it's my sig line and will be for a few days. I chose it because the "phenomenon" is becoming disturbingly mainstream and in a nation where anti-intellectualism is prized this can only end in tears. Very sad tears, full of sadness.
I thought I'd rant about it awhile. Because, as the diary title and my sig line says, it really is a raging cacaphony of stupid and it's getting even louder. It's a supernova of Stupid. An Extinction Level Event of Stupid. A Gamma Ray Burst of Stupid. A Big Bang of Stupid.
Our office uses outlook and anyone can set up an outlook calendar. It pains me to say this, but one of our exceptionally educated people here actually has set up a calendar event for December 21, 2012 titled "The End of the World" and each time it gets sent I delete it without comment.
I usually just laugh it off, but every time I hear it at work I die a little bit inside.
And if you have cable or one of the dishes, you see the advertisements on The "History" Channel for their various Nostradamous and 2012 "Documentaries." And because they are called "documentaries" instead of the "someone who was lactose-intolerant shit on the digital film and called it entertainment", people think they're awesome, accurate, and totally the truth. This is actually an argument someone presented to me and it was stunning because it boiled down to "I saw it on TV so it must be true." Then again this same person (nice person and I'm required to say that because this person is a member of the boyfriend's family and Family is Everything to him so I must be nice, but wow, some crazy ideas held) is a Glen BecKKK fan so that tells you all you need to know about their critical logic process.
And then of course, there's a crappy movie coming out in a few days that hopefully I won't get dragged to. I can see stupid at home for free. I don't need to pay $22.50 to see it in a theater of gullible idiots.
I also went to the bookstore not too long ago and spotted several of those bullshit 2012 books in the SCIENCE section. I about had a stroke. I then removed the offending books and put them where they belonged: in the fantasy section. I'm sure no respectable thinking person minded my noble sacrifice.
The rant aside, I have real live science on my side. No, the Mayans didn't predict any event for 2012. In fact, idiot Westerners have simply misinterpreted their calendar and belief system which is not surprising considering the Spanish burned almost all the Mayan books when they colonized invaded the Yucatan half a millenium ago. And besides, how the frak could the Mayans predict the end of the world for 12/21/12 when they couldn't even predict the horrible drought and horrific overpopulation that erased their civilization from the map, similar things that threaten our world civilization within a century or two?
Cracked pontificated on this back in June.
Specifically put, the Mayans have this calender, see, and it works in cycles. The cycle is about 5,125 years. It was lined up with our own Gregorian calendar and that's why the idiocy regarding 12/21/12 has come about.
That Wiki Place has a pretty good collection of all the stupid. No, the "galactic alignment" isn't going to cause the end of the world. No, there's no pole shift (aka a geomagnetic reversal) occuring (and thanks, believers in that level of stupid, for perverting actual science of things that actually do occur.) There's no planet Nibiru. There's no black hole alignment. Timewave Zero is bullshit made up by a shroomhead, the I Ching is bullshit and the only reason Web Bot is predicting the end of the world is because so many morons are talking about that happening on the Tubes!
Simply put, 2012 is a great way to cash in on human un-intelligence. I mean we all have dumb ideas, delusions, and what-not, it's part of being a human being. Me personally, I think the universe is full of intelligent life warping around between the stars and stuff. I think they avoid this planet because they have sensors calibrated for stupid, and there's a lot of it being emitted from a landmass in the northern hemisphere of the third planet, thus giving us an "AVOID" rating in the Encyclopedia Galactica. And yes, much of the previous paragraph is snark.
But sadly, the raging cacaphony of stupid is just going to get louder and more stupid as we approach December 21 of that year. Maybe it'll open up a singularity of stupid that will suck in the entire universe and then, and only then, will the people saying that date will bring the end of the world be correct.
Thus endeth the Rant.