2012 hottest year on record in the US

2012 hottest year on record in the US by large margin
Seth Borenstein
January 8, 2013
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0108/2012-hottest-year-on-record-in-the-US-by-large-margin

A brutal combination of a widespread drought and a mostly absent winter pushed the average annual U.S. temperature last year up to 55.32 degrees Fahrenheit (13 Celsius), the government announced Tuesday. That's a full degree Fahrenheit (0.6 degrees Celsius) warmer than the old record set in 1998.

Breaking temperature records by an entire degree is unprecedented, scientists say. Normally, records are broken by a tenth of a degree or so.

The National Climatic Data Center's figures for the entire world won't come out until next week, but through the first 11 months of 2012, the world was on pace to have its eighth warmest year on record.

Scientists say the U.S. heat is part global warming in action and natural weather variations. The drought that struck almost two-thirds of the nation and a La Nina weather event helped push temperatures higher, along with climate change from man-made greenhouse gas emissions, said Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. She said temperature increases are happening faster than scientists predicted.

"These records do not occur like this in an unchanging climate," said Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. "And they are costing many billions of dollars."

Last year was 3.2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the average for the entire 20th century. Last July was the also the hottest month on record.

Nineteen states set yearly heat records in 2012. Alaska, however, was cooler than average.

U.S. temperature records go back to 1895 and the yearly average is based on reports from more than 1,200 weather stations across the Lower 48 states.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. last year also had the second most weather extremes on record, behind 1998. There were 11 different disasters that caused more than $1 billion in damage, including Superstorm Sandy and the drought, NOAA said.

The drought was the worst since the 1950s and slightly behind the dust bowl of the 1930s, meteorologists said. During a drought, the ground is so dry that there's not enough moisture in the soil to evaporate into the atmosphere to cause rainfall. And that means hotter, drier air.

The last time the country had a record cold month was December 1983.

"A picture is emerging of a world with more extreme heat," said Andrew Dessler, a Texas A&M University climate scientist. "Not every year will be hot, but when heat waves do occur, the heat will be more extreme. People need to begin to prepare for that future."

The apocalypse, by the numbers

Amy Roberts
Fri December 21, 2012
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/21/living/apocalypse-by-the-numbers

1 in 10 - People around the world who believe the world might end in 2012, according to a May poll by Reuters.

3 - Different types of calendars used by the Mayans.

5,125 years - Length of the Mayan "Long Count" calendar.

144,000 - Days in a b'ak'tun, a cycle in the Mayan calendar which restarts around December 21. That's about 394 years.

52 million - Tourists expected to visit Mexico during the "Year of the Maya" in 2012, according to the Mexican Ministry of Tourism.

200,000+ - Searches for "End of the World" and related terms on Google on December 20, the top search as of this writing.

200 - 300 - Calls per week NASA has been receiving recently from people asking if the world really is about to end.

36 - Percentage of Americans who believe increasing severity of recent natural disasters is a sign of the apocalypse.

6 - Times since its discovery in 1989 Asteroid 4179 Toutatis has passed "close" to the Earth. The nearest to us it came was 962,951 miles away.

$50,000 - $120,000 - Price of a luxury underground bunker, sold by Atlas Survivor Shelters.com

189 - Residents of Bugarach, a French village receiving hordes of visitors who believe the only safe place to hide during the apocalypse is inside a "sacred" mountain there where extraterrestrials live.

69 - Peak position of "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)," by R.E.M., on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart in 1988.

2 - Dates in 2011 Christian broadcaster Harold Camping predicted as dates of the end of the world, May 21 and then October 21.

27 - Percentage of respondents to a National Geographic survey who felt somewhat likely that a catastrophic event would happen on December 21, 2012.

27 - Percentage of those surveyed who said they make sure to "resolve feuds with loved ones" first if there was a possibility the world might end.

8 - Percentage of those who thought they could only survive about a day in a doomsday scenario with supplies they had at home.

Apocalypse believers' big finish predictions vary

Aaron Sagers
Fri December 21, 2012
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/21/living/2012-apocalypse-theories/index.html

When the Mayan "Long Count" calendar ends on Friday, December 21, some people predict it could mark the end of the world as we know it. But despite the attention that December 21 is garnering, many apocalyptic believers don't actually give much thought to the hype surrounding the Mayan calendar.

Some doomsday believers pinpointed 2012 as a pretty good year for disastrous solar flares, giant asteroids or global pole shifts that could likewise signal the apocalypse. Other theories that may or may not happen this year involve the Rapture, the catastrophic collapse of civilization or even a zombie uprising.

There is diversity among apocalyptic "prepper" groups, and to paint them all with a broad stroke of the crazy brush is to ignore the nuances in what these various groups believe.

John Hall, author of "Apocalypse: From Antiquity to the Empire of Modernity," said groups organized around 2012 end-of-world predictions -- driven by pseudoscientific or numerological predictions -- are "more fanciful" than some other doomsday believers. That's because they look toward dramatic external events, as opposed to others that approach theories with a "fair amount of scientific basis," such as the disappearance of natural resources.

Although Hall and his colleagues have spent years trying to define or connect them, the groups can be as hard to explain as their disparate beliefs.

"It's not like a pie of apocalyptic stories that can be divided up so much as it is a story where people coming from many different places can ... express the urgency of the crisis they foresee," Hall said.

For instance, Hall said the survivalists -- both those of the fundamentalist religious persuasion and the nonreligious -- are looking to opt out of post-apocalyptic strife.

That analysis applies to Dan Martin, a survivalist living off the grid and author of "Apocalypse: How to Survive a Global Crisis," a book that teaches skills for living a self-sufficient life after what he perceives to be an oncoming collapse of civilization and governments. He said his readers are "normal middle-class" soccer moms and teachers who read about world events and "connect the dots."

"Most of my readers aren't die-hard, end-of-the-world subscribers or enthusiasts," he said. "They don't want things to change, but aren't ignorant to the fact that they most likely will within our own lifetime, so preparing for such a strong possibility isn't desperation or ignorance or naivety, it's just another insurance policy."

Insofar as civilization's collapse is something we're bringing upon ourselves with a little help from world powers, Martin and his readers might relate to radical environmentalists or peak oil environmentalists, who subscribe to the theory that there is a date when petroleum production will max out and decline rapidly.

Hall sees a connection between the survivalists and religious rapturists who "look at themselves as missing out on the agonies of the apocalypse because they're going someplace else."

Jerry Jenkins, co-author of the "Left Behind" book series about the Rapture within the Christian Bible's end-of-days Book of Revelation, doesn't completely agree with Hall's assessment.

He said the media has incorrectly portrayed his readers as triumphalists who boast "We're going, you're not, too bad for you." The whole point of the "Left Behind" books, Jenkins said, was to encourage people to read the Revelation prophecies because religious rapturists want all people to have a better life in heaven.

"[We're not] saying 'good' people go and 'bad' people are left behind," said Jenkins, who believes the key to being raptured (or taken into heaven before the Apocalypse happens on Earth) is to receive Jesus Christ. But Jenkins added that even those "looking forward to being rescued" are still dedicated to improving life for everyone on terra firma before they go.

Interestingly, Jenkins said Christ himself said he didn't even know the day or hour of the Rapture, so the ilk of Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping who attempt to predict its timing are "crazies" engaged in folly that "make us all look like idiots."

Camping claimed he was able to use the Bible to calculate the exact date of the Rapture (most recently it was supposed to be May 23, 2011, and before that in 1994).

Those who point to science instead of Biblical lore to predict the end of the world are another apocalyptic subculture, according to Hall. These groups are comprised of theoretical physicists and futurologists -- such as Michio Kaku -- whom Hall calls "optimistic utopian prophets."

These people believe in the Technological Singularity theory: The possibility that technologically augmented intelligence will change human life as we know it or possibly wipe it out completely. There's even a think tank of sorts formed around this logic.

The Singularity Institute is comprised of scientists, philosophers and philanthropists from places such as the Research Triangle and Silicon Valley, and universities such as Oxford, Harvard and Stanford, said Michael Anissimov, media director at The Singularity Institute.

Their goal? Constructing a smarter-than-human intelligence that has the values of humanity. Instead of avoiding the growth of artificial intelligence, the Singularity Institute is trying to manage the risk.

If peak oil theorists believe we're rapidly running out of a major resource, the institute postulates that technology itself is advancing so rapidly that society will have an overabundance of it -- and an artificial intelligence is set to emerge that will not necessarily pursue mankind's best interests.

"We do think it's possible, if not probable, that it could actually lead to either the marginalization or end of humanity," said Anissimov.

Whereas religious and scientific apocalyptic subcultures converge and diverge on various points, there is one end-of-world scenario that manages to reflect all their anxieties: the zombie apocalypse.

The zombocalypse of popular culture has become something of a Rorschach test of apocalyptic fears. Depending on the point of view, zombies may result from an act of God, the irresponsible use of science, an environmental disaster, a cosmic event and so forth.

Scott Kenemore, author of "The Zen of Zombie" and a member of the advisory board of the Zombie Research Society, said the zombie apocalypse can represent a validation of sorts for people awaiting their particular extinction event.

Hall agreed that the pop-culture connection of zombies to apocalyptic groups is "a shared motif of a dystopian world emerging." He added that zombies are a stand-in for "The Other," an alien group, process or force that is "almost always" the basis for apocalyptic developments.

Zombies can be a substitute for a corrupt government, an oil-based economy, foreigners or even a Sodom and Gomorrah society itself.

"[H]ow you deal with the threat is an open question," he said.

Whatever route to the end (or new beginning), Hall thinks the very diversity of subcultures underscores the fact that we have reached an apocalyptic apex.

"In this moment, people are seeing the old ways of life recede," he said. "That's the occasion when all kinds of different people from all kinds of different directions come forward with one or another apocalyptic scenario."

Long Live Doomsday Predictions

Doomsday Averted; Long Live Doomsday Predictions
ALLISON MCCARTNEY
December 21, 2012
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/12/as-everyone-knows-by-now.html

As everyone knows by now, the apocalypse has been averted.

As detailed in movies, television shows and numerous advertisements, the end of the world predicted in ancient Mayan lore strikes on Dec. 21, 2012, the last day of the Mayan calendar, bringing with it floods, earthquakes, the reversal of the Earth's magnetic poles and the beginning of a new spiritual age.

This unlikely doomsday story has become a prominent thread in the national conversation. And if it resembles everything that Americans expect in a Hollywood blockbuster, that's probably because it's mostly an American creation, not a Mayan one.

Professor Mark Van Stone of Southwestern College, who studies Mayan hieroglyphs and calligraphy, says that early scholarly work on the Maya is partly to blame. "The scientists speculated that the Maya had this cycle and when the calendar went to 13.0.0.0.0, the gods started the clock running again," he said in a phone interview from Mexico Thursday.

The Mayan Long Count calendar is separated into 360 day years called "Tuns," 20 year periods called "Katuns," and 400 year periods called "Baktuns." The end of the 13th Baktun, or 13.0.0.0.0, falls on Dec. 21, 2012. In the mid-1970s scholars who had previously speculated on the Mayan cycle found references to dates far beyond 13.0.0.0.0.

"This escaped the general understanding," said Van Stone in the interview, "The scholars said, 'Oh, we were wrong,' but the memo didn't get out to the general public."

Professor John Hoopes of the University of Kansas, who has studied the development of the 2012 phenomenon, says that the origins of the doomsday myth lay in speculative academia that was then co-opted and embellished by others.

"Specific assertions about 2012 derive from statements made by reputable scholars -- the experts of their time -- that were misinterpreted in unanticipated ways," he wrote in an article last year for the International Astronomy Union.

Early scholars of the Maya in the U.S. and Europe derived their ideas of a Mayan prediction of the apocalypse primarily from documents dated to the 16th century, which led them astray.

"We don't see doomsday myths before the arrival of the Spanish, and that's an important distinction because there are end-of-the-world predictions that come after Roman Catholic missionaries," said Dr. Hoopes in a phone interview. "It was a Christian end-of-the-world eschatology."

However, all of this work might have remained on the dusty bookshelf of an academic library if not for the work of writers, poets and New Age spiritualists in the 1950s and 60s.

A book called "The Ancient Maya" published by archaeologist Sylvanus Morley in 1946 brought Mayan mythology to the masses, and inspired members of the Beat movement like William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg to travel to the sites of ancient Aztec and Mayan civilizations for further study.

Kevin Whitesides, who studies the emergence of 2012 mythology, says that there have been about 3,000 books written since 1966 that discuss 2012.

"There's quite a huge variety," he said over the phone. "You'll find perspectives from all the major religions. There's Buddhist books about 2012, there's Muslim, Christian and Hindu books on 2012.

"Then there's also all the new age books, those who are looking for the dawn of a new age, doomsday stories."

However, he says, most of these books have been self-published by their authors. Along with them have come books about less well-known aspects of the Mayan apocalypse.

"There are books on how to make money off of 2012, 2012 cookbooks, that sort of thing," he said.

The hold that 2012 has on the American imagination is so strong that astronomers and scientists have been asked to weigh in on the matter. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson vented his frustration at having to explain why the Earth isn't going to end from a scientific perspective while appearing on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon recently.

"There's no greater sign of the failure of the American educational system than the extent to which Americans are distracted by the possibility that the Earth might end on Dec. 21, 2012," he said.

The idea of setting a date for the end of the world is nothing new; American writers and religious leaders have predicted the end of time for centuries. Radio preacher Harold Camping signaled the alarm to his devoted followers on the coming of the "rapture" to no avail.

A recent Reuters poll found that one in seven people around the world think that the world will come to an end during their lifetimes, and that 10 percent believe it could happen in 2012 as predicted by the Mayan calendar.

If this is their fear, they should sit comfortable in knowing that the Mayan calendar accounts for many, many years to come.

Full ‘2012: Science Or Superstition’ Film

Only 99 cents
December 21, 2012
http://www.disinfo.com/2012/12/full-2012-science-or-superstition-film-only-99-cents/

Disinfonauts, as an endtimes special, we’re pleased to offer you the chance to own a complete digital download (high quality MP4 video) of our most popular film ever, the Disinformation original documentary 2012: Science Or Superstition, for just 99 cents.

Featured in the film are Graham Hancock, John Major Jenkins, Daniel Pinchbeck, Alberto Villoldo, Anthony Aveni, Robert Bauval, Jim Marrs, Walter Cruttenden, Lawrence E. Joseph, Alonso Mendez, Douglas Rushkoff, John Anthony West and Benito Vegas Duran.

Will the year 2012 be an apocalyptic game-changer?

Amid a swirl of science, hucksterism and genuine spiritual belief, prognosticators say Dec. 21, 2012, will usher in a new era of nonviolence and sustainability or bring about TEOTWAWKI — survivalist shorthand for The End of the World As We Know It.
Some believe 2012 is the end of a major cycle in the Maya calendar, with possibly fateful consequences.
Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles Times
mitchell.landsberg@latimes.com
January 1, 2012
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-apocalypse-20120101,0,66615.story

There are years that are remembered for changing the course of human history: 1492. 1776. 1945.

Then there are years that were predicted to change the course of history. 1844, when Judgment Day didn't materialize. 1910, when Halley's Comet didn't wipe out humanity. And remember Y2K?

But rarely does a year arrive with such a mixture of anticipation and dread as 2012.

We speak not of the presidential campaign but of the Maya calendar, and the projection that it — or, more accurately, a cycle within it — will end on Dec. 21, 2012. That date has kicked up a swirl of anticipation, based on science, pseudoscience, hucksterism and spiritual belief. The idea is that 2012 will be a game-changer, the last year of civilization as we know it.

The predictions range from the benign — that this will be a year of spiritual breakthrough, the beginning of a new era of nonviolence and sustainability — to the worst sort of disaster movie cataclysm. And the Maya calendar is just the start. A hodgepodge of other theories has sprung up around the same date.

There are groups who claim that an uncharted, unseen planet called Nibiru will strike Earth or nearly hit it; that the Earth's polarity will reverse (so that north is south and south is north), wreaking widespread havoc; or that solar storms will destroy civilization by disrupting power grids. Most of the predictions are timed to coincide with the "end" of the Maya calendar on Dec. 21, the winter solstice.

Although scientists and many Maya scholars insist that there is nothing to most of the predictions, the idea of 2012 as a watershed year "has gotten great traction," said John Hall, a sociologist at UC Davis who specializes in apocalyptic movements. Hall said he expects the frenzy will only grow over the next 12 months.

Already, survivalist websites are full of accounts of people preparing for the coming TEOTWAWKI — survivalist shorthand for The End of the World As We Know It. Mexico, Guatemala and Belize are getting ready for an upsurge in tourism to Maya ruins.

"They're expecting to do some serious business," said Gerardo Aldana, an expert in Maya history and hieroglyphics at UC Santa Barbara.

It would be difficult to estimate how many websites are devoted to the topic, some branching into seemingly arcane aspects of the 2012 phenomenon. "Try googling 'Maya calendar' and 'crop circles,'" said Richard Landes, a historian at Boston University who specializes in millennial and messianic movements. "You'll have enough to read for the rest of your life."

For many people, the run-up began in 2009 with the movie "2012," in which things go badly for Earth. Both before and since then, dozens of books have been written with titles such as "Apocalypse 2012: The Ticking of the End Time Clock," "2012: The Awakening" and "The Mystery of 2012: Predictions, Prophecies and Possibilities" (whose publisher, Sounds True Inc., might not inspire confidence).

There is debate about the origins of the 2012 phenomenon, but since the 1960s there have been references to 2012 as the end of a major cycle of the 5,100-year Maya "Long Count" calendar. Since at least the 1980s, the date has been fixed to Dec. 21, the winter solstice, which is said to coincide with an extremely rare "galactic alignment" of the sun and the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

There is dispute among Maya scholars about the date, however. While some believe it is accurate, Aldana contends the calculations used to align the Maya calendar with the Gregorian calendar (the one widely used today) were based on a misunderstanding and could be as much as 50 to 100 years off.

There appears to be widespread agreement among serious scholars, however, that the Mayas never intended for the end of the Long Count calendar (one of several Maya calendars) to signal the end of the world.

"It was like 2000," Aldana said. "It was the end of a millennium, but that didn't mean it was the end of the world."

And, to be fair, many proponents of the 2012 phenomenon predict not doom, but the dawn of a new and better era of human kinship with one another and the Earth.

In any event, scientists say the astronomical phenomena being predicted for 2012 are, for the most part, hooey.

"It's not astronomy, it's astrology," Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program, said during a recent speech at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. He was referring to the idea of a "galactic alignment."

According to NASA astronomers, the Earth and sun are aligned with the center of the Milky Way every December, with no discernible trouble. NASA has also been quick to dismiss the other 2012 disaster scenarios, saying the planet Nibiru doesn't exist, and therefore cannot strike the Earth; that the north and south poles do, in fact, switch polarity every 400,000 years or so, but that this poses no particular danger and isn't expected any time soon; and that warnings of the effects of a solar storm are vastly exaggerated.

However, NASA has said that such storms do occur on the sun approximately every 11 years, with the next cycle occurring around 2012-13. Though most are benign, 2012 doomsayers point to a National Academy of Sciences report issued in 2008 that warned of a severe solar storm blindsiding the Earth someday, causing a calamity through geomagnetic surges that could knock out power and communications across wide areas.

Meanwhile, scientists complain, the Earth faces a much more likely threat: climate change. And there are, of course, other slow-moving disasters looming.

"There are real crises in the world," said Hall of UC Davis. "There's the environmental crisis. There's the threat of terrorism. There's the economic crisis. There are political upheavals. And in a way, this [2012 phenomenon] is a great distraction for people. And how odd it is that real events that we might be able to do something about are having disastrous effects, and people focus their attention on an event that isn't going to happen."

Significa 1-5-12

Kool Websites
Watch Live Baseball
http://www.watchlivebaseball.com/

Tune in to Watch Baseball Live Streaming online on your pc with instant access payments...


Watch Live NBA Online
http://www.watchlivenba.tv/

Watch all the top NBA games through high quality online streams...

The Jinn
http://www.thejinn.net/

UFO, alien, poltergeist, demon, ascended master, space brother, monster, Watcher, nephilim, reptilian, Grey, Bigfoot, ghost....

We don't actually know a single thing about life on other planets. Scientific evidence that extraterrestrials visit us doesn't exist.

Our belief that they do is fantastic modern mythology in the making.

However, there is enormous evidence that deceptive entities are masquerading as extraterrestrials.

There are unseen creatures that we share this Earth with.

They don't come from other planets.
They've been called many names: aliens, spirits, Etherians, Ultraterrestrials, and more.

In the Koran they are called the Jinn.

Information about the Jinn reads like a textbook description of UFO and other paranormal phenomena.

Discovering these entities gives you an essential key to understanding paranormal phenomena.

They are the major players behind our myths and most perplexing mysteries.

UFOs aren't extraterrestrial -- They're extradimensional.

*

Celente’s Trends Proven Accurate; What Will 2012 Bring?
Gerald Celente
Trends Research
December 16, 2011

“Wake-Up Call” Trend: The Decline of America trend is nowhere near bottom, and the worse is yet to come.

One year later: “Worse” has happened, as the country piles up more and more debt, politicians are gridlocked, paralyzed in some perpetual political traffic jam of inaction.

“Crack-Up 2011” Trend: Teetering economies will collapse, currency wars will ensue, trade barriers will be erected, economic unions will splinter...

One year later: The Sovereign debt crisis threatens both the European Union and Euro, currency wars are underway and the US and China are trading trade barbs.

“Crime Time” Trend: No job + no money + compounding debt = high stress, strained relations, short fuses. Hardship-driven crimes will be committed across the socioeconomic spectrum by legions of the on-the-edge desperate who will do whatever they must to keep a roof over their heads and put food on the table.

One year later: Thieves are stealing copper piping and cables, cooking oil and temple donation boxes; “Criminal recycling” is flourishing; in 2011 a record number of cyber crimes is reported to the FBI: more than 23,000 per month.

“Screw the People” Trend: As times get even tougher and people get even poorer, the “authorities” will intensify their efforts to extract the funds needed to meet fiscal obligations.

One year later: In the two-tier American justice system, the long arm of the law only reaches down to the low hanging fruit. Banks are slapped with slap on the wrist fines for billion dollar crimes, and like Jon Corzine, no crime time. But swift justice is readily dealt out for small time crimes. From closing down lemonade stands operating without a license to swat teams busting raw foods cooperatives, in America, Justice means “just us!”

“Students of the World Unite” Trend: “University degrees in hand yet out of work, in debt and with no prospects on the horizon, young adults and 20-somethings are mad as hell, and they’re not going to take it anymore.”

One year later: Occupy Wall Street is just one of the scores of worldwide student protest movements, some of which have proven powerful enough to bring down governments.

“Crackdown on Liberty” Trend: A national crusade to “Get Tough on Crime” will be waged against the citizenry. And just as in the “War on Terror,” where “suspected terrorists” are killed before proven guilty or jailed without trial, in the “War on Crime” everyone is a suspect until proven innocent.

One year later: TSA strip searches of little old ladies; Obama backs bill “authorizing indefinite military detention of U.S. citizens.”

“Journalism 2.0” Trend: With its unparalleled reach across borders and language barriers, “Journalism 2.0” has the potential to influence and educate citizens in a way that governments and corporate media moguls would never permit.

One year later: Aleksai Navalny, an imprisoned young Russian blogger/Twitterer with some 200,000 followers, is “credited with mobilizing a generation of young Russians through social media, a leap much like the one that spawned Occupy Wall Street and youth uprisings across Europe this year.”

“Cyberwars” Trend: The demonstrable effects of Cyberwar and its companion, Cybercrime, are already significant – and will come of age in 2011. Equally disruptive will be the harsh measures taken by global governments to control free access to the web, identify its users, and literally shut down computers that it considers a threat to national security.

One year later: Iran proudly displayed a sleek, white U.S. drone that was used for spying on Iranians; Iranians were able to capture what US military officials privately told Bloomberg was a Lockheed Martin RQ-170 by hacking into its security code; PayPal shuts off service to WikiLeaks.

Gerald Celente was spot on with his Top Trends 2011. No one else came even close. To get a heads up on “History before it happens,” you’ll want the Top Trends 2012.

*

Why the Smell of Cinnamon Makes You Spend Money
Retailers know how to manipulate all our senses — and that includes our olfactory ones
Martin Lindstrom
December 16, 2011
http://ideas.time.com/2011/12/16/why-the-smell-of-cinnamon-makes-you-spend-money

Lindstrom's latest book is Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy.

Every December, you vow it’s not going to happen and yet, without fail, you return home from your Christmas shopping with far more than you intended. Do you ever wonder why? The answer might surprise you, because you’ve probably been seduced by something you can neither see nor hear.

It was a perfectly normal kind of day when I was first struck by that feeling of Christmas in the air, the one that links directly to childhood anticipation of the festive season. The odd thing was that it was early November, yet my need for tangible symbols of the festive season had bitten like a bug. I studiously hit the streets of my neighborhood in search of the perfect tree. I bought decorations and wrote Christmas cards, only to realize that Nov. 5 was a little early to be mailing them.

I was astounded by my behavior. After all, I’m a 41-year-old man who’s long since stopped believing in Santa Claus. So what was it that led me to this neat pile of cards ready to be mailed a good six weeks before Christmas? In my attempt to understand, I went over the details of the days leading up to my own personal Christmas frenzy, and I tracked the origins of it back to a brief window of time as I changed flights in the Zurich airport. I noticed the duty free shops were already full of the colors of Christmas. There was a ginormous tree topped by a gleaming star, surrounded by images of Santas and reindeer and sleighs. But surely it would take more than clichéd icons to turn me into a Christmas zombie?

Not having anything else to go on, I investigated further. Turns out I was on the right path, for the truth of the matter was to be found in the mechanisms behind the displays. To be more precise, carefully camouflaged tubes strategically placed amongst the tinsel and glitz were piping in the sumptuous smells of Christmas: a perfect mix of cinnamon and pine.

Although it seemed I’d gotten to the nub of the issue, I was still perplexed. I mean, can a tube dispensing cinnamon and pine really compel me to embrace the Christmas spirit way ahead of time? Surprisingly, yes. Dr. Gemma Calvert, who is an expert in modern brain imaging based in Oxford, England, discovered the remarkable ability smells have to reactivate childhood memories. She exposed a group of volunteers to cinnamon and then viewed their reactions, using an fMRI scanner. As they breathed in the sweet spicy scent, their brains fired up — including the region responsible for authentic emotional engagement. It seems cinnamon is one of the main ingredients associated, over time, with baking and cider-making rituals and can kick-start an emotional journey whenever it wafts our way.

So while it might seem as though retailers are concentrating on everything that delights your eyes and ears, they also might be surreptitiously enticing you to buy more through your nose. And they might not even be doing it in a sneaky manner. This season, Trader Joe’s, Publix, and other supermarkets are prominently displaying heavily-scented “cinnamon brooms” by the check out — large, smelly bunches of twigs to hang inside your home and anoint with cinnamon oil when their pungency starts to fade. At Bed, Bath and Beyond, Home Depot, and other big-box stores, cinnamon-scented pine cones for sale greet you as you walk in the door. Take these items home and you might even get the urge to rush out shopping again. Christmas is in the air — quite literally!

Lindstrom is a marketing consultant and the author of Brandwashed. The views expressed are his own.

*

Konformist Book Club

The World's Greatest Conspiracies
http://www.atomicbooks.com/index.php/worlds-greatest-conspiracies.html

$21.95

Too unsettling to be buried in the shadows for far too long, the Pandora’s Box of information unleashed in this completely updated and expanded expose proves you just can’t get away from Them. Hidden agendas, massive cover-ups, diabolically sinister plots—if you can handle it, the lowdown on the latest right-under-your-nose conspiracies is right here, including: - 9/11: Islamic terrorism...or inside job? - George W. Bush: The real powers behind the leader of the free world - Atlantis Rising: the deep and wide mythology of a “lost” civilization - Elvis: Still everywhere, with new King-size theories aplenty - Cuidad Juarez: Who—or what—is behind the unsolved serial killings of more than 90 women in this otherwise sleepy border town? - Dick “Darth” Cheney: Dr. Evil for the New Millennium? - And many others that will have you looking over your shoulder With the sordid truth finally leaking more and more into the nightly news, this provocative compilation is crucial reading for seeing beyond what They want you to believe. Whether you’re a cynic or completely certain, this walk on the wild side will convince you of one thing: You should be very, very nervous. “Fills a desperate need in this paranoid era.” —Wired magazine

Jonathan Vankin / John Whalen
Publisher Citadel Press
Page Count 844pp
Publication Date June 29, 2010
ISBN 978-0806528786

The Man Cave Book
Jeff Wilser

Kindle Price: $9.99 includes free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
Paperback $10.19

What separates the men from the boys? The Man Cave.

Boyhood Fort Vs. Man Cave

Who's allowed
Boyhood Fort: Not girls—they have cooties
Man Cave: Not women—they have authority

Primary materials used in construction
Boyhood Fort: Wood, stuff your mom doesn't want
Man Cave: Particleboard, stuff your wife doesn't want

Key activities inside
Boyhood Fort: Goofing around, avoiding responsibility
Man Cave: Goofing around, avoiding responsibility

Peak periods of use
Boyhood Fort: After school, weekends
Man Cave: After work, weekends

Slumber parties with buddies?
Boyhood Fort: Yes
Man Cave: No

Food and beverages consumed
Boyhood Fort: Soda and unhealthy snacks
Man Cave: Beer and unhealthy snacks

Spend the night inside?
Boyhood Fort: Not as a habit, but it's been known to happen
Man Cave: Not as a habit, but it's been known to happen

Money spent on space
Boyhood Fort: As little as possible
Man Cave: As much as possible

Is this a phase you will outgrow?
Boyhood Fort: Yes
Man Cave: No

The Man Cave Book is a tribute to great and glorious man spaces and the craftsmen behind them. Complete with instructions and insights into creating your own unique refuge and shrine to beer, sports, and everything else that's right with the world, this is an essential manual for any man cave enthusiast.

About the Author

A former USMC Reserves squad leader and the author of The Maxims of Manhood, Jeff Wilser is a regular columnist on dating, nightlife, and pop culture who has contributed to GQ, Esquire, Glamour, MTV, and VH1.

Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 8251 KB
Print Length: 192 pages
Publisher: HarperCollins e-books; Original edition (April 19, 2011)
Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
Language: English
ASIN: B004U73C1S
Text-to-Speech: Enabled

Amazon URL

Kindle Edition:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-Cave-Book-ebook/dp/B004U73C1S/thekonformist

Paperback:
http://www.amazon.com/Man-Cave-Book-Jeff-Wilser/dp/0062003925/thekonformist

*

Awesome Quotes

“You know, a one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done would have been, in the long run of this country, much better.”
Matt Damon on Barack Obama

"The sound of five pretentious old guys joylessly grinding out sub-shoegaze drone and patting themselves on the back for being 'subversive.' It's more out of touch than a bunch of CEOs starting a drum circle at an Occupy rally and as sonically disastrous."
Entertainment Weekly, in naming the Lou Reed - Metallica collaboration Lulu the worst album of the year

*

YouTube Greatest Hits

Tiger Woods Amazing Miracle Shot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHMPpZVOfbI

16th Hole at the 2005 Masters in Augusta...


The Dark Crystal, Part 1 of 8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMnFMAF_0RQ

All eight parts are available...


Bill Hicks: On Letterman (1993)
The Cut Set
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vf340K_Ed0o

In honor of what would be his 50th birthday on December 16th:

http://alchemicalarchives.blogspot.com/

Hicks constantly faced problems with censorship. In 1984, Hicks was invited to appear on Late Night with David Letterman for the first time. He had a joke that he used frequently in comedy clubs about how he caused a serious accident that left a classmate confined to a wheelchair. NBC had a policy that no handicapped jokes could be aired on the show, making his stand-up routine difficult to perform without mentioning words such as "wheelchair". Hicks was disappointed that the TV audience didn't get to experience the uncensored Bill Hicks that people saw in clubs.

On October 1, 1993, about five months before his death, Hicks was scheduled to appear on Late Show with David Letterman, his twelfth appearance on a Letterman late night show but his entire performance was removed from the broadcast — then the only occasion where a comedian's entire routine was cut after taping. Hicks' stand-up routine was removed from the show allegedly because Letterman and his producer were nervous about Hicks' anti-religious jokes. Hicks said he believed it was due to a pro-life commercial aired during a commercial break. Both the show's producers and CBS denied responsibility. Hicks expressed his feelings of betrayal in a letter to John Lahr of The New Yorker. Although Letterman later expressed regret at the way Hicks had been handled, Hicks did not appear on the show again. The full account of this incident was featured in a New Yorker profile by Lahr, which was later published as a chapter in Lahr's book, Light Fantastic.

Hicks' mother, Mary, appeared on the January 30, 2009, episode of Late Show. Letterman played the routine in its entirety. Letterman took full responsibility for the original censorship and apologized to Mrs. Hicks. Letterman also declared he did not know what he was thinking when he pulled the routine from the original show in 1993. Letterman said, "It says more about me as a guy than it says about Bill because there was absolutely nothing wrong with that."

*

Retropedia: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
http://www.retroland.com/santa-claus-conquers-the-martians

Earthlings have long held an affinity for the jolly bearded fellow in the red suit that hands out Christmas presents each year. Is it any wonder that other planets might just be a little jealous that we haven’t shared St. Nick with the rest of the galaxy? Well, that all changed in 1964, when the Martians took matters into their own hands in the campy sci-fi classic, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. It might not have given Citizen Kane a run for its money in terms of quality, but that hasn’t stopped numerous generations from gleefully embracing this one-of-a-kind B-movie that remains popular to this day.

The poor kids on Mars have a tough life, what with all of that forced educational programming that has left them little freedom to have fun. Luckily, they are allowed access to some good ol’ Earth television and, as a result, have become enamored by famed North Pole resident, Santa Claus. One particular set of Martian parents, Kimar and Momar (dad and mom, respectively) become aware of this trend, thanks to their kids Girmar and Bomar, and bring their children’s fascination with St. Nick to the attention of the all-knowing Martian, Chochem, who realizes the importance in letting the children of Mars have a little fun in their lives. To that end, he instructs the Martian leaders to head over to Earth and kidnap the famed Kris Kringle.

The idea is to have Santa set up shop on Mars and start churning out toys for the kids, but that doesn’t sit well with one particularly cantankerous alien named Voldar, who would rather see Santa killed, rather than corrupt their ancient culture. So when Santa arrives, along with two Earth children, Betty and Billy, Voldar starts plotting their demise. He immediately sends his henchmen, Shim and Stobo to sabotage the new toy factory so that it builds defective products. And when fellow Martian, the dimwitted Dropo, starts impersonating Santa around town and shows up at the toy factory, Voldar mistakes his identity for the real thing and kidnaps the faux Santa. Meanwhile, the real all-knowing Santa is a step ahead of the scheming and Voldar’s plans quickly unravel. But the big guy is too kind-hearted to leave the children of the planet sans Santa and he has a pretty good idea of who might make a suitable replacement for him on the planet.

While there may not be any huge box-office revenues to report or a list of Academy Award nominations, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is one of those films that is almost impossible not to like, despite its “B” status. And, although the film certainly didn’t boast an all-star cast, eagle-eyed viewers might notice that one of the Martian kids is actually a very young Pia Zadora.

Recent generations were re-introduced to Santa Claus Conquers the Martians as part of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 show on Comedy Central. The cast poked fun at (skewered) the film in their own inimitable way, leading it to become one of the most popular episodes, one that airs every holiday season. And, although rumors of a remake have persisted for years, it would appear that this classic film is safe from being re-invented as of this writing.


To view the movie:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/24/holiday-movie-santa-claus-conquers-the-martians

RawStory.com review:

There are b-movies and c-movies and then there’s this holiday confection, “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.” The title alone should tell you everything you need to know about how seriously this 1964 release takes itself. We file this one under “So bad, it’s good.” Actually, make that under “So bad, it’s AWESOME.”

Merry Christmas!

*

RIP

Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011:
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/12/In-Memoriam-Christopher-Hitchens-19492011

Vaclav Havel, Czech dissident, playwright, politician dead at 75:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/18/world/europe/czech-republic-vaclav-havel-obit

Cheetah the Chimp, Johnny Weissmuller's sidekick in the Tarzan movies, at the age of 80, allegedly:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/12/cheetah-remembering-tarzans-hairy-sidekick.html

The Wilshire Grand Hotel in downtown Los Angeles:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-1223-wilshire-grand-20111223,0,2448939.story

NOT RIP: Jon Bon Jovi. Also, Taylor Lautner isn't gay...

Mayan filmmaker offers photo as proof of aliens, says Hawking agrees

Oct. 26, 2011
Steve Pond, TheWrap
http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=678294

The filmmakers behind "Revelations of the Mayans 2012 and Beyond," who said that their film will reveal evidence of contact between the Mayans and extraterrestrials, have now released to TheWrap what they claim is photographic evidence of a pre-Mayan, alien civilization.

And they claim they've got Stephen Hawking on their side.

The monument, according to an accompanying letter by archaeologist Hector E. Mejia, dates back to between 3,500 and 5,000 B.C. and is evidence of a superior civilization unlike any known to have lived on Earth.

Mejia described the photograph as being "of a bust which at first glance can be seen to have an elongated cranium and fine characteristics which are not consistent with pre-Hispanic races of America."

"I certify that this monument presents no characteristics of Maya, Nahuatl, Olmec or any other pre-Hispanic civilization," he wrote. "It was created by an extraordinary and superior civilization with awesome knowledge of which there is no record of existence on this planet."

The photo is one of several purported pieces of evidence that will be shown in Julia-Levy's documentary, which he is making with the cooperation of the Mexican and Guatemalan governments keyed to 2012, the date the Mayan calendar ends.

"This explains who we are," said Julia-Levy, the son of actor Raul Julia. "This explains why these big f---ing monuments are all around the world."

And Julia-Levy then passed along a direct quote that, he claimed, came from no less than Stephen Hawking, whom he said "is going to work with us" and will be included in his film: "'I warn humanity that aliens are out there. Just because the aliens were friends with the Mayans doesn't mean they are our friends. Humans should avoid contact with aliens at all costs.'"

An email sent to a representative for Hawking asking about the authenticity of the quote was not answered.

Hawking has in the past said that that alien life is likely to exist in the universe ("to my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly natural"), and has speculated about the dangers of contact.

"If aliens ever visit us," Hawking has said, "I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans."

TheWrap has been unable to unearth any instances of Hawking saying anything about the aliens ever contacting or being friends with the Mayans.

But Julia-Levy insisted that the words are Hawking's. He also claimed government conspiracies surrounding the photo and the head it depicts: After the photo was taken in the late 1930s, he said, it was published only once, in a magazine that was then immediately withdrawn from circulation by "the government of England."

He also said the head depicted in the photo, 17 meters (51 feet) tall and six meters wide, is no longer in the Guatemalan jungle but has been moved to the United States and hidden.

"I was informed by officials in the government of Guatemala that the U.S. government brought it here," he said.

According to Meija, "The creative style is not consistent with the civilizations that inhabited the southern coast of Guatemala prior to the arrival of the Spaniards ... It is indisputably pre-Olmec and pre-Maya ... [O]ne can assign an age between 3,500 and 5,000 BC."

Mejia is a licensed archaeologist affiliated with the Atlas Arqueological de Guatemala and the Institute of Anthropology and History in Guatemala, and with the University of San Carlos. His statement was written in Spanish; TheWrap had it translated.

Mejia goes on to compare it to other monuments, including "the Moais of Easter Island," "the Pascual Abaj monument ... in Guatemala" and "the Great Sphinx in Egypt." He said it was "created by an extraordinary and superior civilization" that "settled in the south of Guatemala and from there shone its light and knowledge on the hunter gatherers who were its first students and received its teachings."

Julia-Levy said that Mejia is part of an international team of archaeologists and other professionals assembled by the filmmakers because they are "willing to tell the world the truth" about the Mayan/alien connection.

"We have a gang of archaeologists and scholars and scientists that are going to come forward and show everything they have," he said.

And, he swears, governments will do the same.

"I was told by the officials that the Mayans and the extraterrestrials had a history of exchange," he said. "This is official. This is as official as it can get."

Added Julia-Levy, "The world hasn't seen this. Nobody has seen this. But there's no doubt in my mind that the world is ready for the truth.

"This is going to create a worldwide impact in how people see things."

His movie, by the way, has yet to begin shooting. Principal photography is scheduled to begin in Mexico and Guatemala in mid-November.

The Mayans & Aliens

From Yahoo:

A Mexican documentary about Mayan civilization has proof that aliens visited earth, according to its producer. Really.

Raul Julia-Levy, son of actor Raul Julia, made the bizarre claims about ‘Revelations of the Mayans 2012 and Beyond’ to industry site TheWrap.

He told them the movie will show “codices, artifacts and significant documents with evidence of Mayan and extraterrestrial contact, and all of their information will be corroborated by archaeologists.”

On his own, Julia-Levy sounds like a desperate producer attempting to drum up business for his niche project, but corroboration of sorts was provided by Luis Augusto Garcia Rosado, the Minister of Tourism for the Mexican state of Campeche.

He told TheWrap that the project draws on newly discovered evidence, including “landing pads in the jungle that are 3,000 years-old”.

He said the film has proof of “contact between the Mayans and extraterrestrials, supported by translations of certain codices, which the government has kept secure in underground vaults for some time.”

Rosado gave the filmmakers access to previously unexplored Mayan sites in Calakmul...

Handily, the theatrical release is sometime in 2012, so you’ll have time to watch it before the end of the world, as prophesied in the Mayan calendar for 21 December.

Mexican film claims 'proof of aliens'
Orlando Parfitt
Wed Sep 28, 2011
http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/blog/article/260614/mexican-film-claims-proof-of-aliens.html

Humor Break: 2012

Lindsay Lohan For President!

Adam Gorightly
April 12, 2011
http://gorightly.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/lindsay-lohan-for-president

With the 2012 elections (and the end of the world as we know it!) just around the corner — and the likes of Michelle Bachman and The Donald launching exploratory campaigns — we here at Untamed Dimensions have decided to fire the first election year salvo in a glorious red white and blue explosion of stars and stripes. Damn I love this country!

So, from the great State of California, I nominate that gone party girl and around Hollywood scene maker, Lindsay Lohan for President; that f-you finger-nail paint sportin’, ankle bracelet wearin’, stone fox vixen with an attitude and collagen lip injection that don’t stop. I mean, if we’re gonna throw up brainless eye candy like Sara Palin for public consumption, then we might as well run someone up the flagpole with an edge to her like Lindsay, who likes to toss a few down and isn’t all hung up in some puritanical dream world that became old news over a century ago when dear old uncle Al Crowley announced this as a new eon where mom and apple pie would take a back seat to sex, drugs and rock n’ roll!

I mean, who would you rather party with? With that in mind we’ll call our political party, The Party Party, and I hearby nominate Linday (she has dropped the Lohan part, I guess) as the next President of these here United States, and while we’re at it we might as well nominate Lindsay as Vice President as well.

Major War in 2012?

From PrisonPlanet.com:
When cycle forecaster Charles Nenner told the Fox Business network yesterday that the Dow Jones was set to collapse to the 5,000 level on the back of a “major war” that will shake the globe at the end of 2012, hosts David Asman and Elizabeth MacDonald sat in stunned silence.

Nenner, a former technical analyst for Goldman Sachs, is head of the Charles Nenner Research Center, which purports to be able to predict market trends with a computer program based around pattern forecasting and securities analysis. Nenner predicted the stock market and housing collapse over two years before the fall of Lehman Brothers.

Nenner predicts that the Dow is heading down to just 5,000, a gargantuan drop given that it now hovers above the 12,000 level and only sunk as deep as 6,547 during the lowest ebb of the economic collapse in March 2009.

On the back of this forecast, Nenner has advised his clients to vacate the market almost entirely.

“I told my clients and pension funds and big firms and hedge funds to almost go out of the market, almost totally out of the market,” said Nenner, saying that the collapse will unfold over the course of a couple of months and that the reversal will come when the Dow hits just above the 13000 level...

Ex-Goldman Sachs Analyst: “Major War” Coming End Of 2012
Paul Joseph Watson
Thursday, March 10, 2011
http://www.prisonplanet.com/ex-goldman-sachs-analyst-major-war-coming-end-of-2012.html

Armageddon in 2012? The truth behind the doomsday theories

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/8216394/Armageddon-in-2012-The-truth-behind-the-doomsday-theories.html

UFOs
Armageddon in 2012? The truth behind the doomsday theories
The picturesque French village of Bugarach, southwestern France braces for invasion of UFO campaigners who believe it will be only place to survive Armageddon in 2012. Here we examine the fact and the fiction behind the most popular doomsday scenarios.
21 Dec 2010

1. Alien invasion/government confirmation of extraterrestrial contact

Alien invasion has been the subject of great works of fiction since HG Wells published War of the Worlds in 1898. Fear of such an attack such as from Mars, a species from outside our galaxy or beings from other dimensions, ebbs and flows with the general state of anxiety on Earth.

Researchers have found that fear of attack by aliens tends to rise at times of heightened fear about more terrestrial threats.

Believers cite increasing numbers of UFO sightings, the alleged crash of a disc at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947 and several seemingly credible photographs and videos of strange craft in our skies as evidence that such a threat is increasing.

Evidence: Photographs, videos, official releases that prove how governments around the world have monitored UFO activity for more than 50 years, stories by abductees and other claims by campaigners. But do any of these suggest that we're about to be taken over by a race of grey humanoids with large black eyes at any time in the future, let alone in 2012?

Likelihood: 0.1/10

2. Nibiru/Planet X/Wormwood

Thousands of web forums and sites propose the belief that sometime in the early years of the 21st century, a previously undiscovered planet will collide with or pass very close to the Earth destroying civilisation or causing a massive planetary cataclysm.

Nibiru was invented in the late 1960s by Zechariah Sitchin in a book. According to Sitchin, Nibiru is a planet in our solar system which follows an erratic orbit bringing it into the inner system every 3,700 years. But Sitchin never suggested that it would threaten the Earth.

Some even suggest that Nibiru is a brown dwarf sister to our own sun and will first be seen towards the end of this year.

Evidence: Very little. Some point to the 2005 announcement by Nasa that a 10th planet had been discovered on the outer fringes of our solar system and many think that it will pass close to the Earth in 2012. But this 10th planet is most certainly not moving into the inner solar system.

Likelihood: 0.2/10

3. Solar catastrophe

This is one of the few doomsday scenarios connected with the end of the Mayan calendar that may actually be based on science. In this scenario a vast solar flare or expulsion of gases from the sun in December 2012 will engulf the Earth wreaking havoc upon mankind and the planet's ecosystems. There is no evidence that such catastrophic events happened in the past.

Evidence: There may be some correlation between the observed 11-year solar cycle and the time cycles seen in the Mayan calendar although this evidence is rather weak. But whilst a solar flare from the sun could cause problems such as satellite damage and injury to unprotected astronauts and blackouts, the flare itself would not be powerful enough to destroy Earth, certainly not in 2012. In the far future, when the sun runs out of fuel, most scientists accept that it will swell into a red giant and engulf the Earth. But rather than happening in 2012, this event will happen no sooner than five billion years from now. Last year a Mayan elder dubunked the claims, insisting that time will not "run out" on December 21 of that year. Apolinario Chile Pixtun said he was tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the end of the world. "I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff," he said last year. Nasa has also said that the world was not coming to an end on December 21, 2012.

Likelihood: 0.3/10

4. Magnetic pole shift

A large section of doomsday believers believe a dramatic reversal of Earth's magnetic poles is imminent and that it will trigger a reversal of the planet's rotation and the subsequent catastrophic events.

They point to evidence of pole shifts in Earth's past and claim that these reversals can be calculated by studying sunspots or magnetic field theory. Many believe the Mayans and the ancient Egyptians discovered evidence of pole reversal events in the future and that the secrets have been covered up by today's governments.

Evidence: Work by scientists at Princeton University and Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, France, indicates that Earth did rebalance itself 800 million years ago. They studied magnetic minerals in sedimentary rocks in Norway and found that the north pole shifted by more than 50 degrees (a quarter the distance from pole to pole, in effect) in under 20 million years.

Other scientists have also discovered that seasonal movements in both polar regions do effect the positioning of the poles. But where the scientists and the "doomers" differ greatly is over the timescale of any potential pole shift.

While the apocalyptic visionaries believe such a switch could happen in a very short time scale, geologists think that it would happen over a period of one million years.

Likelihood: 1/10

5. Supervolcano

A supervolcanic eruption would be larger than any volcanic eruption in modern history. Researchers believe this will happen when magma rose into the Earth's crust but would be unable to break through.

The resulting build in pressure would mean that at some point a huge area of land would be devastated as the magma blasted skyward. Such an event would, campaigners say, blast millions of tons of debris and poisonous gases into the atmosphere, and could either plunge the world into a so-called nuclear winter triggering an ice age or, at worst, wipe out life in parts or all of the planet.

Evidence: Most of the concern about 2012 and supervolanoes centres on the so-called super-caldera underneath Yellowstone Park in the United States.

Satellite images have over the past few years shown changes in the the movement of molten rock 10 miles under the surface.

Wayne Thatcher of the US Geological Survey recently told Nature magazine: "We know now how mobile and restless the Yellowstone caldera actually is."

Nobody actually knows whether the caldera will blow or, if it does, when such an event could take place.

Likelihood: 1/10

6. World War III

Almost as soon as the Second World War in 1945 ended and with a standoff between the Western Allies and the Eastern bloc in place through the middle of Europe, there was rising anxiety that the world would be consumed by another epic conflict.

When Russia exploded its first atomic bomb just two years later, a nuclear arms race between East and West began. The invention of hydrogen (thermonuclear) devices only accelerated the race which peaked in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis when the world came closest to an all-out nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The build-up of weapons continued throughout the 1970s and 1980s but a dedicated hotline between the Kremlin and the White House and some arms control treaties reduced the threat of an accidental nuclear war. The threat diminished in the 1990s with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some believe the latest "war games" between North and South Korea

Evidence: Today, the fears of a nuclear exchange centre on the rising power of China and the American response and the possibility of wars between India and Pakistan or North and South Korea escalating into global conflicts.

Likelihood: 1.5/10

7. Mass casualty terrorism

Since September 11, 2001 and the deaths of nearly 3,000 people in New York and Washington DC there have been fears about al Qaeda or another terrorist network acquiring weapons of mass destruction and devastating a major western city or releasing a chemical or biological attack.

Statements by governments about the risk of such an attack have done little to lessen the anxiety with both the British and American administrations raising the spectre of a stray nuclear weapon being detonated in a major city.

Dick Cheney, the former US vice president, is reported to have stated that he is haunted by thoughts of a mushroom cloud rising over an American downtown skyline.

Many conspiracy theories, particularly those who believe that the 9/11 attacks were actually planned and executed by rogue elements in the US administration, believe that there will be a so-called "false flag" nuclear attack to divert attention from the west's woes and usher in an era of martial law and totalitarian government. The UK's terror level was raised to "severe" in January. After the arrest of 12 men around Britain on Monday, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner John Yates, the country’s most senior counter-terrorism officer, said the raids had been “absolutely necessary” to keep the public safe.

Evidence: Osama bin Laden famously declared a few years ago that his organisation has several nuclear devices but they were only a "deterrent". There has been some concern about several "loose" nukes from the former Soviet Union, particularly six so-called "suitcase" nukes.

But there is no evidence that al-Qaeda or anybody else holds nuclear weapons and several attempts by terrorists in the UK to make nerve or biological agents have proved inept failures. Nevertheless, concern now centres upon the instability of the Pakistan regime - a nuclear-equipped country - and fears that al-Qaeda or a Taliban group could topple the government and get its hands on nuclear weapons.

Likelihood: 2/10

8. Peak oil

The reduction of global oil stocks is a reality with the world's economies consuming - financial collapses excepted - ever-increasing amounts of the black gold.

But peak oil theory centres around supply and demand and postulates that, at some point, demand will outstrip supply. When is this likely to happen? Some believe that it already has while others think that it is likely to happen some time between now and 2020.

A number of doomer sites link peak oil with the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012. Demand for oil outstripping supply would have huge consequences around the world given that most economies are powered by oil, agriculture is completely dependent upon it for fertilisers and pesticides and the plastics industry is based on oil extraction. A collapse in social order following a peak in oil production is, therefore, something to be taken seriously.

Evidence: Peak oil is a near certainty but two questions remain: when will it happen and will the world have developed alternative sources of fuel in time?

M. King Hubbert created the theory behind peak oil in 1956 to accurately predict that United States oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. The theory has successfully predicted the decline from oil fields and regions subsequently.

Optimistic observers do not believe that peak oil will occur before 2020 but admissions by some oil companies that they have overstated the reserves held underground have raised fears that we are at or may already have passed the peak.

A decline in investment in new oil fields and plant during the global recession has only served to emphasise our total dependence upon a finite resource.

Likelihood: 4/10

9. Bee colony collapse

More than a third of the commercial beehives in the US were lost to colony colapse disorder [CCD] in the winter of 2008. The syndrome, in which all of the worker bees in a colony die off suddenly, leaving nothing but a solitary queen wandering alone on empty frames, has spread to several countries in Europe already including France, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

Several causes of the disease have been suggested, including the almost universally present varroa mite, certain pesticides, Israeli acute paralysis virus, climate change and mobile phone broadcasts, but none have yet been proved to be the culprit.

No cure has been found either, and as cases are reported in new countries the likelihood of a global pandemic leading to the extinction of the honeybee becomes a real possibility.

Evidence: Apart from the loss of the honey crop, without the honeybee several crops key to human life would be wiped out, including the soya bean, cotton, brassicas, several kinds of nut including brazil nuts and almonds, grapes, apples and sunflowers, the source of a large proportion of the world's vegetable oil. Almost a third of the world's food is directly traceable to the action of bees. If they became extinct severe shortages, starvation, violence and riots would surely follow.

Likelihood: 7/10

10. Environmental collapse

Today's mantra is climate change or man-made global warming. In previous decades pollution, soil depletion, the destruction of the ozone layer and an imminent ice age were the ecological catastrophes that faced us.

There is, of course, no doubt that man's impact upon his environment is getting worse although a large body of opinion believes that global warming is a liberal conspiracy and that the world has actually been cooling over the last decade.

A total environmental collapse brought about by runaway warming, toxic poisoning of the seas of parts of the inhabited areas of the world or a tipping point with some of the most crucial species (see Bee colony collapse above) would have a huge impact upon civilisation and could render parts of the world near uninhabitable. The world is however, attempting to combat this with key summits in Copenhagen, Denmark last December, and Cancun, Mexico, this month seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. After two weeks of tense negotiations, the United Nations finally agreed on a way forward to keep global temperature rise below 2C (3.6F). David Cameron expressed his satisfaction at the climate change package that will see the rich world committed to forking out billions of pounds every year to stop global warming, but delay plans to cut carbon emissions.

Evidence: Few scientists dispute that the global average temperature has been rising for at least a century. This is despite rows over an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report into rising temperatures and another controversy surrounding the science behind climate change, dubbed “Climategate”, when leaked e-mails appeared to suggest that scientists at the University of East Anglia had manipulated climate change data.

The Government's chief scientific adviser Prof John Beddington has insisted that uncertainty about some aspects of climate science should not be used as an excuse for inaction. Nasa scientists have reported that the past decade was the warmest on record, proving that global warming had continued “unabated”. Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, found average global temperatures have increased by about 1.5F (0.8C) since 1880, when records began.

Likelihood: 7/10

World's time is up in 2012 as 'Armageddon will destroy Earth'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/8216311/Worlds-time-is-up-in-2012-as-Armageddon-will-destroy-Earth-campaigners-believe.html

World's time is up in 2012 as 'Armageddon will destroy Earth', campaigners believe
The world’s time is up in 2012, the year of Armageddon, according to both Nostradamus and Mayan prophesy.
According to campaigners, 2012 is a "year of spiritual transformation".
21 Dec 2010

Several “eclectic authors” claim that a “major, world-changing event” will take place during the same year of the London Olympics and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

According to campaigners, 2012 is a “year of spiritual transformation”.

The doomsday theorists quote the 1995 book, The Mayan Prophecies, which links the Maya calendar with long-period sunspot cycles. A Mayan elder has since dismissed those suggestions.

Another book, The Nostradamus Code, details a series of natural disasters caused by a comet… which will allow “the third anti-Christ to disperse his troops around the globe under the guise of aid in preparation for a nuclear war”.

“2012 is someverdana claimed to be a year of spiritual transformation (or apocalypse),” the website Armageddon online says.

“Many esoteric sources interpret the completion of the thirteenth B'ak'tun cycle in the Long Count of the Maya calendar (which occurs on December 21 by the most widely held correlation) to mean there will be a major change in world order.

“Although there is a distinct lack of evidence from the extant records of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization that they themselves considered this occurrence in 2012 would signify end of the world.”

It adds: “Many new age spiritualists and philosophers ("new-agers") believe humankind will enter an age of enlightenment in 2012.”

It comes as the picturesque French village of Bugarach, southwestern France braces for an invasion of UFO campaigners, who are booking one way tickets there next year.

The village has become the focus of internet buzz as being the only place on Earth that will survive Armageddon in 2012.

Some campaigners believe its mountain Le Pic de Bugarech, is a UFO garage.

Nostradamus stayed in the neighbourhood because he liked its culture and Hitler, Mitterrand and Mossad allegedly conducted mysterious digs there.

Are the 2012 Olympics part of a plot to take over the world?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/05/olympic-games-2012-alien-conspiracy-theory

Are the 2012 Olympics part of a plot to take over the world?
Some people believe an elite clique will use the games to simulate an alien invasion in their plan for global domination
Steve Rose guardian.co.uk, Sunday 5 December 2010

When Wenlock and Mandeville, the official mascots of the London Olympic Games, were unveiled to the world in May, the general reaction was one of bemusement. These stumpy, one-eyed, metallic-skinned creatures, the organisers explained, had formed out of stray drops of molten steel during the construction of the Olympic stadium, but most of the public and media simply interpreted them as aliens. What do monocular extraterrestrials have to do with the Olympics? A year earlier, the 2012 Olympic logo was greeted with a similar mix of derision and puzzlement. Jaded observers passed off these designs as sorry reflections of the state of British creativity, but a small minority had a very different answer: we were being primed for the establishment of the New World Order, by means of the greatest hoax in history.

Even in conspiracy-theory terms, the London Olympics plot is a difficult one to swallow, but that hasn't stopped a credulous minority from gulping it down. You'll find them on cult conspiracy blogs such as Red Ice Creations, Godlike Productions and Above Top Secret, or even making their own video presentations on YouTube. The basic scenario goes something like this: while the world's eyes are on London in 2012, a spectacular alien invasion will take place at the Olympic stadium. Or so the public will think; it will actually be a hoax invasion, orchestrated by the New World Order as an excuse to stage a global coup d'etat. Terrified by the appearance of aliens, the world's populace will surrender their civil liberties, and "they" – a vague array of elite cliques such as the Bilderberg group, the Freemasons, the Illuminati, and dynasties such as the English royal family, the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds – will have smoothly achieved their goal of a single world government, economy and religion. It sounds like a cross between Dan Brown, the X-Files and Watchmen, but believers insist this stuff is real.

The evidence for such a plot is vague: exhibit A is the 2012 Olympic logo. Rearrange the four angular numerals of the bizarre design, the theorists say, and it really spells "zion". There's even a dot to go over the "i". This is a sign that "they" plan to build the new Jerusalem right here in England's green and pleasant land, just as William Blake's poem predicted. The "dark satanic mills" of the Lea Valley will become the epicentre of the New World Order. Conspiracy theorists insist there is nothing anti-semitic in their use of the word "zion", although the suspicion is there.

The next giveaway is the street names around the Olympic site: Great Eastern Road, Carpenter's Road, Angel Lane, Temple Mills Lane, Church Road – don't they all seem a little biblical? Isn't it strange that such a large patch of land has stood undeveloped in London all this time?

It goes on: Prince William is the obvious choice for king of this New Jerusalem because of his royal bloodline, his birthday (the 21 June – the summer solstice) and the fact that he will be 30 years old in 2012, the year of the 30th Olympiad, or XXX in roman numerals. Numerology counts for a lot in these circles. And as for the fake UFO invasion, the theorists note the closing ceremony of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, in which a flying saucer landed in the stadium and an alien walked out and waved to the crowd. The staged spectacle, in which a blacked-out military helicopter lowered a model spaceship by cable into the Coliseum, did not prompt mass panic, but it has been interpreted as a warm-up. The advocates of "London Zion", as the theory has become known, have been poring over London Olympics promotional videos and finding a lot of suspicious symbolism in them – flying saucers and other spaceship-like objects, lights in the skies, stadiums in flames, all-seeing eyes. Then Wenlock and Mandeville came along and the theory really had legs, albeit stumpy alien ones.

"Once your eyes are open to it, it's amazing what's hidden in plain sight," explains David (not his real name), the friend of a friend who first told me about the London plot a year ago. So in the name of curiosity, and, perhaps, the future of civilisation, we arranged to meet at the Olympics site to look for evidence. You can't get into the site itself – construction continues apace and security is tight – but there are daily guided tours of the perimeter. On a clear, chilly morning, as we wait outside Tesco for the tour to begin, David explains how most of the clouds in the sky are now man-made. Aeroplanes have been lacing the atmosphere with metal particulates for decades to facilitate holographic projection, he claims. That's how they'll pull off the UFO illusion. These "chemtrails" also enable the use of top-secret super-weapons that bounce energy off the upper atmosphere to remote locations. The Haiti earthquake was triggered this way.

David spends hours scouring the internet for conspiracy information, and stumbled on the Olympics plot theory two years ago on a blog called the Cosmic Mind, run by 28-year-old Rik Clay from Leeds. Clay was making a name for himself in these esoteric circles. As well as the Olympics, his blog discussed everything from the significance of the No 11 to crop circles to Princess Diana. But three months after the Cosmic Mind launched, it suddenly went down in August 2008. Clay had died. Internet forums were full of wild allegations about the cause of his death.

As the tour proceeds, David's eyebrows rise at certain points, such as when the guide explains how they had to reroute power lines crossing the site 30 metres underground. "There's bound to be a secret network of tunnels so that dignitaries can escape when it happens," David says. Had the guide ever seen anything paranormal going on here? "What, you mean like flying saucers? No, nothing like that," she laughs. David's eyebrows rise again. No one mentioned flying saucers. The vast construction site looks fairly innocuous to me. David isn't so sure. "What about that cross in the sky up there?" he says. Two short fragments of aeroplane contrail have formed a distinct cross in the sky directly over the stadium. That is good enough for him.

Unsurprisingly, the London Olympics organisers deny all knowledge of the conspiracy. "Since we launched the logo in 2007, many people have passed comment on it and have suggested it resembles different shapes or characters," a spokesperson says. "This is a new one on us. The logo represents the figure 2012, nothing else." The conspirary theory is far from cast-iron: you could make the word "zion" out of the numbers 2,0, 1 and 2 however you designed them. And while some of the road names around the site might sound biblical, the ones that don't, such as Pudding Mill Lane, have been conveniently omitted. "Of course it sounds ridiculous," David acknowledges. And then he delivers the killer blow: "But if I had said to you 10 years ago that a few people were going to destroy the Twin Towers by flying planes into them, and that Britain and the US would start two wars as a result, would that have sounded believable?"

Just as the assassination of JFK and Watergate fuelled a golden age of paranoia, so the attacks of 11 September 2001 and its repercussions have ushered in a new, productive generation of conspiracy theories. It's not just a fringe minority. In a 2006 poll by Scripps Howard/Ohio University, 36% of Americans agreed that the US government was either involved in the 9/11 attacks or did nothing to stop them. Another poll by Zogby in 2007 put the proportion at 26.4%. Then again, polls this year also found that 18% of Americans believe Barack Obama is a Muslim and 27% believe he was born outside the US. Public credulity seems to be at an all-time high, or reliable information at an all-time low. For the conspiracy hardcore, though, 9/11, the London 7/7 attacks and other terrorist incidents are what's known as "false flag" operations; hoax attacks designed to advance the conspirators' agenda, and the London Olympics plot is the next one.

Rik Clay's Olympics theory was chiefly inspired by another British researcher, Ian R Crane, whom he saw speaking at an event in Glastonbury in 2007. A former oil industry executive, Crane is something of a heavy hitter on the conspiracy circuit. He regularly holds public lectures and releases DVDs on what he calls "deep geopolitics", and claims to have predicted the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster, and pre-empted a failed terrorist attack in Chicago in 2006. It was Crane who first deciphered the "Zion" in the Olympic logo, and who suggested a fake UFO invasion was being planned. "We've seen the abilities of computer graphics in Hollywood movies," he says. "It doesn't take much to recast that fantasy as something that's then presented as a reality."

Crane also acknowledges that the Olympics conspiracy sounds crazy, but "it's only when one puts it into context with the much deeper geopolitical agenda that it starts to have some basis," he says. He sketches out this context in dizzying strokes. How the recent financial meltdown was deliberately planned, purported links between Obama adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and extreme rightwing thinktanks, Henry Kissinger and global warming. "They're all inextricably linked," he says. "What we're really looking at here is a web of intrigue that actually goes back a long way. The individuals who believe themselves to be the rightful rulers of the planet have some concern about what the very short-term future holds. In their belief system, they feel they need to have total planetary control by 2012."

Crane and Clay exchanged emails, but never met. Crane doesn't think there was anything suspicious about Clay's death. Nor do others close to Clay, including his parents, who have been understandably distressed not just by the death of their son but by the subsequent internet rumours. "There have been many outlandish ideas put forward about Rik's death, some that beggar belief, but most have come from people ignorant of the real facts and who have been too lazy to do their research," says John Clay, Rik's father. "An autopsy was carried out and an inquest held at Bradford coroners court in February 2009. The official verdict was that Rik took his own life while the balance of his mind was disturbed." There were clear pointers to where Rik was heading, says John. A few weeks before his death, he had suffered some form of mental breakdown. He had jumped out of a third-floor window, fracturing his heel. His parents took him in for six weeks. "During his time with us he was not the Rik that we knew and was mostly very withdrawn," says John. "He told us that he had things in his head that shouldn't be there but would not elaborate, which was quite normal for Rik – he would only tell you what he wanted you to hear. Rik could be quite obsessional."

Another close friend of Rik's also believes his death was caused by a combination of his work and his mental health: "It's a stressful arena, conspiracy stuff. You can't trust anything any more. What level do you take it to? If you're passionate and paranoid, it can really take over, and I think that's what happened with Rik. He wanted to get to the bottom of everything. Unfortunately the result of that was that he pulled apart his own reality."

One of the problems with many conspiracy theories is that, unlike scientific theories, they're impossible to definitively prove wrong. Any attempt to do so invites accusations that you're in on them. Conversely, labelling something as a "conspiracy theory" is a convenient way to close down political debate or a challenge to authority by painting the theorists as wackos. Tony Blair described his critics as obsessed with conspiracy during the Chilcot inquiry earlier this year, just as George Bush in 2001 urged the UN not to tolerate "outrageous conspiracy theories" about the 9/11 attacks. Neutral observers point out that regardless of their content, conspiracy theories are "unofficial" knowledge, and therefore threaten institutions of official knowledge, such as academia and journalism. The two sides resemble each other more than they would like to admit.

The London Olympics theory is an intriguing case, not least because it actually makes a prediction. Either something will happen in 2012 or it won't: the theory will be right or wrong. What will people such as David do if nothing happens? "I'll be really bloody surprised," he says, "but if nothing happens, I'd say that the forces of good behind the scenes, like us, saved the day and the forces of evil were stopped."

Stuff You Should Know: The Future

http://www.thesmokingjacket.com/entertainment/stuff-you-should-know-the-future

Stuff You Should Know: The Future
10/26/2010
Kristi

Just because we’re not flying around on Hoverboard jet cars, ingesting meals in tablet form and still alive despite the Y2K disaster that never happened, doesn’t mean that we’ve completely failed at the future. It only means the future has failed us. Or that we’re really bad at predicting the future. Probably that second one. Here are a few other things you might not know about the future.

1. Newton Got Time Wrong

Isaac Newton saw time as absolute, meaning it flows at the same rate for anyone anywhere in the universe. Einstein disagreed. His theory of special relativity replaced absolute time with spacetime, which is a model that puts time as the 4th dimension of the universe, after length, width and depth. Furthermore, according to Einstein, under the right conditions and with the right tools, time traveling to the future is theoretically possible. Score! Which leads us to…

2. Stephen Hawking Can Totally Build Us a Time Machine!

Kinda. OK, that was misleading. The title should have read, “Stephen Hawking Theoretically Knows What We Need to Do to Build a Time Machine That Will Take Us to the Future.” All we need for time travel, according to Hawking and every other scientist ever, is to go really, really fast. Almost as fast as the speed of light.

Sounds impossible, right? Wrong. Two words: particle accelerator. Over at CERN in Switzerland, physicists are pushing particles to almost the speed of light, and here’s where things get freaky. At that rate of acceleration, time for the particles slooooowwws down, which is why they live 30 times longer than they would in regular time. Apply those principles to a magic train that orbits the earth and boom! Time machine, yo.

3. Ancient People Saw Time as Cyclical

And that’s why they thought they could predict the future; because it’s all happened before. After all, the seasons, the stars, animal migrations and even humans acted in a predictable cycle, why not time itself? The Mayans, the Buddhists, Greek and Romans, Babylonians, Hindus, pretty much everyone, saw time as a wheel with repeating ages. St. Augustine put the kibosh on wheel time for Christians (and therefore the entire Western world) when he asserted that time began at Creation, will end when God says so, and everything and everyone only happens once.

4. But He Didn’t Stop People From Trying Their Darndest to Predict the Future

Not by a long shot. Over the years people have believed they could predict the future using stars, tea leaves, crystal balls, tarot cards, spirit boards, even urine bubbles, cheese shapes and poop.

5. But What People Really Love Doing is Predicting Doomsday

The first Christians believed Jesus was coming back in their lifetime, and that his coming would usher in God’s reign on earth and the end of human time. Over the years, Christians and non-Christians alike have tried to pin a date on when this all will take place. They’re almost always wrong.

New England farmer William Miller thought the Bible pointed to October 22, 1844 as the day Jesus was going to get his return on. Pat Robertson thought 1982 would be the big year. The folks with the Heaven’s Gate cult thought the end of the world was imminent, and that mass suicide would allow them to catch a ride with some aliens trailing the Hale-Bopp comet. In fairness, we’re not entirely sure they were wrong.

Even pop singers who look curiously like Alan Cumming and Steve Zahn have gotten into prognosticating the future act:

"In the Year 2525" by Zager & Evans
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhNM2K8cmU8

6. This Just In: The World Will Not End in 2012

No, really. It turns out this big Mayan Calendar thing that everyone’s been talking about is off by 50 to 100 years. Not only will the world not end in 2012, but no one has any idea where they miscalculated when they converted the Mayan calendar to the modern Gregorian calendar. So, technically the end of the world may have already happened, according to Mayan prophesies.

Hope you didn’t already cash in your insurance policies!

7. Even Scientists Can Be Way Off About the Future

In 1974, Time magazine predicted a coming Ice Age, citing global cooler temperatures, “persistent pack ice” and many other dangerous warning signs as their evidence:

“Man, too, may be somewhat responsible for the cooling trend.”

So close. Change one word in that statement and they would have nailed it.

8. Science Fiction Writers, However, are Excellent Future Predictors

2001: A Space Odyssey totally predicted the iPad in 1968. Arthur C. Clarke called it a “newspad.”

“…he would plug in his foolscap-size newspad into the ship’s information circuit and scan the latest reports from Earth. One by one he would conjure up the world’s major electronic papers… he would hold the front page while he quickly searched the headlines and noted the items that interested him…the postage-stamp-size rectangle would expand until it neatly filled the screen and he could read it with comfort. …”

H.G. Wells called genetic engineering in 1896’s The Island of Dr. Moreau, police are testing out software that predicts crime before it happens, just like in Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report and in 1863 Jules Verne predicted the Internet, gas powered cars, skyscrapers, calculators and the building of the freakin’ Eiffel Tower, 23 years before it was actually built.

9. Futurists are Real World Scientists Who Are Paid to Predict the Future

Not joking, it’s a completely real, not made up job. And the best part of this job is that futurists can just make up whatever they feel like and call it a prediction. I’m going to be a futurist and predict you’ll read on to the the next sentence.

Ha! I did it! Someone get me a turban!

This year, Japanese futurists came up with some pretty cool educated guesses about what our future will look like:

•By 2022, synthetic blood will make blood transfusions unnecessary
•In 2026, we’ll finally have our robot maids.
•In 2031, we should finally be able to orbit the Earth for funsies.
•By 2038, we’ll have aircraft that doesn’t run on fossil fuel.
•And we’ll finally get that moon station we’ve been hoping for since the 1960’s in 2040.
Way to speed things along, science.

10. Other Than the Hoverboard Thing, Back to the Future II is Working Out Nicely, Thank You

Especially in the not-awesome predictions of the movie like constant, highly targeted advertising and surveillance cameras everywhere. But they also got telephone conversations via TV right, and that was just made possible this year. They also nailed hands-free video games, mobile payments and a kind of proto-version of social media. Hellooooo, Facebook.