Apocalypse in 2012? Date spawns theories, film
"There's going to be a whole generation of people who, when they think of the Maya, think of 2012, and to me that's just criminal," said David Stuart, director of the Mesoamerica Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
"There is no serious scholar who puts any stock in the idea that the Maya said anything meaningful about 2012."
But take the fact that December 21, 2012, coincides with the winter solstice, add claims the Maya picked the time period because it also marks an alignment of the sun with the center of the Milky Way galaxy, and you have the makings of an online sensation.
The article does a good job of talking to knowledgable, skeptical scholars such as Anthony Aveni ("I think that the popular books... about what the Maya say is going to happen are really fabricated on the basis of very little evidence"), as well as 2012 'celebrities' such as John Major Jenkins ("The trendy doomsday people... should be treated for what they are: under-informed opportunists and alarmists who will move onto other things in 2013").
But even if 2012 is just another year, you can always enjoy (?) seeing the world collapse via Roland Emmerich's next disaster flick - 2012.
"There is no serious scholar who puts any stock in the idea that the Maya said anything meaningful about 2012." 
Find out more about the history and culture of the Maya »
But take the fact that December 21, 2012, coincides with the winter solstice, add claims the Maya picked the time period because it also marks an alignment of the sun with the center of the Milky Way galaxy, and you have the makings of an online sensation.
Long Count 101
• The Long Count calendar was one of several created by the ancient Maya.• It consists of the following units of time:
kin = one day
uinal = 20 days
tun = 360 days (18 uinal)
katun = 7,200 days (20 tun)
baktun = 144,000 days (20 katun)
• The calendar shows the number of days elapsed since the beginning date: August 13, 3114 B.C. (some scholars think the date is actually August 11, 3114 B.C.)
• The dates are written as numbers separated by periods in the following order:
(baktun).(katun).(tun).(uinal).(kin)
• July 20, 1969 -- the date of the first moon landing -- would be written as: 12.17.15.17.0
• December 21, 2012, would be written as 13.0.0.0.0 and the day after that as 0.0.0.0.1
Source: Howstuffworks.com
Type "2012" into an Internet search engine and you'll find survival guides, survival schools, predictions and "official stuff" to wear, including T-shirts with slogans such as "2012 The End" and "Doomsday 2012."
Theories about what might happen range from solar storms triggering volcano eruptions to a polar reversal that will make the Earth spin in the opposite direction.
If you think all of this would make a great sci-fi disaster movie, Hollywood is already one step ahead.
"2012," a special-effects flick starring John Cusack and directed by Roland Emmerich, of "The Day After Tomorrow" fame, is scheduled to be released this fall. The trailer shows a monk running to a bell tower on a mountaintop to sound the alarm as a huge wall of water washes over what appear to be the peaks of the Himalayas.
'Promoting a hoax'
One barometer of the interest in 2012 may be the "Ask an Astrobiologist" section of NASA's Web site, where senior scientist David Morrison answers questions from the public. On a recent visit, more than half of the inquiries on the most popular list were related to 2012.
"The purveyors of doom are promoting a hoax," Morrison wrote earlier this month in response to a question from a person who expressed fear about the date.
A scholar who has studied the Maya for 35 years said there is nothing ominous about 2012, despite the hype surrounding claims to the contrary.
"I think that the popular books... about what the Maya say is going to happen are really fabricated on the basis of very little evidence," said Anthony Aveni, a professor of astronomy, anthropology and Native American studies at Colgate University.
Aveni and Stuart are both writing their own books explaining the Mayan calendar and 2012, but Stuart said he's pessimistic that people will be interested in the real story when so many other books are making sensational claims.
Dozens of titles about 2012 have been published and more are scheduled to go on sale in the coming months. Current offerings include "Apocalypse 2012," in which author Lawrence Joseph outlines "terrible possibilities," such as the potential for natural disaster.
But Joseph admits he doesn't think the world is going to end.
"I do, however, believe that 2012 will prove to be... a very dramatic and probably transformative year," Joseph said.
The author acknowledged he's worried his book's title might scare people, but said he wanted to alert the public about possible dangers ahead.
He added that his publisher controls the book's title, though he had no issue with the final choice.
"If it had been called 'Serious Threats 2012' or 'Profound Considerations for 2012,' it would have never gotten published," Joseph said.
Growing interest
Another author said the doom and gloom approach is a great misunderstanding of 2012.
"The trendy doomsday people... should be treated for what they are: under-informed opportunists and alarmists who will move onto other things in 2013," said John Major Jenkins, whose books include "Galactic Alignment" and who describes himself as a self-taught independent Maya scholar.
Jenkins said that cycle endings were all about transformation and renewal -- not catastrophe -- for the Maya. He also makes the case that the period they chose coincides with an alignment of the December solstice sun with the center of the Milky Way, as viewed from Earth.
"Two thousand years ago the Maya believed that the world would be going through a great transformation when this alignment happened," Jenkins said.
But Aveni said there is no evidence that the Maya cared about this concept of the Milky Way, adding that the galactic center was not defined until the 1950s.
"What you have here is a modern age influence [and] modern concepts trying to garb the ancient Maya in modern clothing, and it just doesn't wash for me," Aveni said.
Meanwhile, he and other scholars are bracing for growing interest as the date approaches.
"The whole year leading up to it is going to be just crazy, I'm sorry to say," Stuart said.
"I just think it's sad, it really just frustrates me. People are really misunderstanding this really cool culture by focusing on this 2012 thing. It means more about us than it does about the Maya."THE AQUARIAN CONSPIRACY: FACT OR FICTION?
There is a sizeable portion of the otherwise reading population that refuses to look at ANYTHING connected to Lyndon Larouche. In its most acute form, this intellectual close-mindedness centers primarily on his lack of what some believe is an essential positive regard for the British royalty. Perhaps the most "outlandish"OR "true-blue" publication has been Chapter VII of EIR, DOPE, INC. (3rd Ed. 1992). Following the chapter is a fragmentary chronology of events. True or false. You decide for yourself.
The Canadian Press, EDMONTON -
... in southern Alberta is really a vast, open-air sun temple with a precise 5000-year-old calendar predating England's Stonehenge and Egypt's pyramids. ...
PitchEngine (press release), WY -
This Sun Temple pre-dates Stonehenge, contains a lunar calendar and solar calendar more accurate than ours. (Calgary, January 7, 2009) In a remote location ...
Virginia Tech Engineers Study Space Weather
Conditions That Affect Our Lives
from Mitch Battros - Earth Changes Media
For the past 15 years, engineers and scientists have gained a greater understanding of global warming, the effects of geomagnetic storms, the impact of the solar wind interacting on the magnetized region around the Earth, and other dynamic processes that occur in the Earth's near-space environment. Among their tools, they use a high-latitude network of radars to obtain increasingly sophisticated views of electric fields, plasma structures, atmospheric waves, and other effects in the ionosphere and atmosphere.
"The Earth's magnetosphere is immersed in the tenuous, fully-ionized outer atmosphere of the Sun, which is responsible for the solar wind and its structured and dynamic magnetic field. In the aftermath of severe solar disturbances, such as solar flares, energized solar wind plasma impinges on the Earth's magnetic and plasma environment and initiates a broad range of interactions. These reactions lead to the onset of disturbances in the magnetosphere" says Virginia Tech's J. Michael Ruohoniemi, lead principal investigator.
Equation:
Sunspots => Solar Flares => Magnetic Field Shift => Shifting Ocean and Jet Stream Currents => Extreme Weather and Human Disruption (mitch battros)
Ruohoniemi goes on to say: "During these events, the magnetosphere- ionosphere system passes through a range of states that can be described as quiescent, mildly disturbed, and storm-like. As each transition takes place, the effects of disturbance reach to ever increasing fractions of the Earth's plasma environment.
EurekAlert (press release), DC -
The consequences of these solar-induced disturbances are often described as space weather and they can threaten harm to humans in space, perturb spacecraft ...
Virginia Tech engineers study space weather conditions that affect ...
 Canada.com | Spitzer Watches Wild Weather On A Star-Skimming Planet Space Daily, CA - Now, thanks to NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists have measured how this planet's atmosphere responds to a super-summer day. ... NASA Telescope Spots Weather Changes Outside This Solar System HD 80606b: The Hotheaded Exoplanet UC Santa Cruz astronomers document distant planet's exploding skies |
Also in today's links: porn aficionados, boys who break the law -- and more.
- Sure, we all knew somebody in middle school named Ernest Funkhauser and figured that, given his name, it made sense he'd be angry with the world. A new study concludes that boys with less common names are more likely to break the law than boys with names such as Michael or David. Now, I've spent a long while thinking about this, and it still doesn't quite make sense in my mind. The creepiest part of the article is the quote from the study about this finding helping target high-risk individuals. Really?
- Forget curbing emissions. When it comes to global warming, some people have moved on to the next stage: acceptance. Pioneers in the new field of geo-engineering are looking at ways to deal with a hotter earth, from CO2-sucking algae blooms to a giant space umbrella.
- Sulphates, such as what's spit out by volcanoes, are also discussed as a means of controlling temperature, so perhaps Mount Redoubt might help. Scientists are keeping a close eye on the Alaska volcano, which may blow any time now. The natives seem completely unruffled, though.
- The head of the Senate Finance Committee wants to take a look into an issue that appears to be sucking time away from the pursuit of science: the problem of NSF employees watching porn and hanging out in chat rooms while at work. Maybe they were all doing research into human sexuality?
- For the most part we think of the Information Age as a boon to, well, information -- there seems to be more of it more readily available than ever. But the head of the British Library is warning that the digital record acquires huge gaps as Web sites are updated and changed.
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ToTheCenter.com, NY -
Even still, several dozen titles, including “Apocalypse 2012” by Joseph Lawrence, are already disseminated into the marketplace, and Hollywood has hopped ...
 FEARnet.com | '2012' Apocalypse Has Been Pushed Back. Resume Normal Activities. FEARnet.com, PA - Over at HollywoodReporter.com, they’ve discovered that Sony is delaying the release of Roland Emmerich’s (10000 BC) apocalyptic mayhem movie, 2012! ... Movie and Television News |
 AFP | Thought things were bad? US survivalists await worse AFP - The more radical survivalists are getting ready for what they call EOTWAA, the End-Of-The-World-Armageddon-Apocalypse, or the niftier SHTF, as in Shit Hits ... |
2012: Science or Superstition (2008) PopMatters, IL - In the end, 2012: Science or Superstition does little except put the idea of a possible apocalypse out there like so many others have before. ... |
 MTV.com | Sony Delays ‘2012,’ Citing Summer Strength Of ‘Angels And Demons ... MTV.com - According to Variety, Sony has delayed Roland Emmerich’s apocalyptic action flick “2012” from July 10 all the way back to November 13. ... "2012" pushed back on release calendar Sony Pushes 2012 Back Several Months Sony Pushes Emmerich's 2012 From July to November |
 Excalibur Online | Apocalypse 2012: the end is nigh Excalibur Online, Canada - ... 2012 presents seems to hold any water besides a few monumental happenings that could easily be coincidences and uphold dozens of other apocalypse ... ‘2012’ Doc on iTunes |
 CanMag | 2012 Pushed Closer to 2010 CanMag, CA - Originally set for a summer release on July 10th, the film will now bring apocalypse to theaters on November 13th. While the first assumption is that 2012 ... |
December 21, 2012, marks the end of a 5126-year cycle on a Mayan ... CNN International - Dozens of titles about 2012 have been published and more are scheduled to go on sale in the coming months. Current offerings include "Apocalypse 2012," in ... |
2012 — The End of the World, or A New Beginning? LongIslandPress.com, NY - In Dec., 2012, we will have seen 13 baktun pass. And because of that, many 2012 apocalypse theorists have surmised that the world will subsequently cease. ... |
FILM: 2012: A pseudoscientific odyssey McGill Tribune, Canada - The coming apocalypse (whether it's 2012 or Y2K) is a great scenario for action films, but it makes for terrible documentaries-especially when the new-age ... |
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