So long, Kansas... nice knowing you

[Warph]

Harold Camping's end of the world prediction did not take place, but now we are approaching the New Age equivalent.  The calendar of the ancient Mayans has time running out on our December 21, 2012.  A range of New Agers, including flying saucer cultists, have picked up the theme.  And in those secularist bastions of Europe, Russia, and China, panic is spreading.  From the London Telegraph:


Ahead of December 21, which marks the conclusion of the 5,125-year "Long Count" Mayan calendar, panic buying of candles and essentials has been reported in China and Russia, along with an explosion in sales of survival shelters in America. In France believers were preparing to converge on a mountain where they believe aliens will rescue them.

The precise manner of Armageddon remains vague, ranging from a catastrophic celestial collision between Earth and the mythical planet Nibiru, also known as Planet X, a disastrous crash with a comet, or the annihilation of civilisation by a giant solar storm.

(Q: Is there a planet or brown dwarf called Nibiru or Planet X or Eris that is approaching the Earth and threatening our planet with widespread destruction?
A: Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax. There is no factual basis for these claims. If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist. Eris is real, but it is a dwarf planet similar to Pluto that will remain in the outer solar system; the closest it can come to Earth is about 4 billion miles.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html#nibiru )

In America Ron Hubbard, a manufacturer of hi-tech underground survival shelters, has seen his business explode."We've gone from one a month to one a day," he said. "I don't have an opinion on the Mayan calendar but, when astrophysicists come to me, buy my shelters and tell me to be prepared for solar flares, radiation, EMPs electromagnetic pulses ... I'm going underground on the 19th and coming out on the 23rd. It's just in case anybody's right."

In the French Pyrenees the mayor of Bugarach, population 179, has attempted to prevent pandemonium by banning UFO watchers and light aircraft from the flat topped mount Pic de Bugarach.

According to New Age lore it as an "alien garage" where extraterrestrials are waiting to abandon Earth, taking a lucky few humans with them.

Russia saw people in Omutninsk, in Kirov region, rushing to buy kerosene and supplies after a newspaper article, supposedly written by a Tibetan monk, confirmed the end of the world.

The city of Novokuznetsk faced a run on salt. In Barnaul, close to the Altai Mountains, panic-buyers snapped up all the torches and Thermos flasks.Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian prime minister, even addressed the situation."I don't believe in the end of the world," before adding somewhat disconcertingly: "At least, not this year."

In China, which has no history of preoccupation with the end of the world, a wave of paranoia about the apocalypse can be traced to the 2009 Hollywood blockbuster "2012″.

The film, starring John Cusack, was a smash hit in China, as viewers were seduced by a plot that saw the Chinese military building arks to save humanity.

Some in China are taking the prospect of Armageddon seriously with panic buying of candles reported in Sichuan province.The source of the panic was traced to a post on Sina Weibo, China's version of Twitter, predicting that there will be three days of darkness when the apocalypse arrives.One grocery store owner said: "At first, we had no idea why. But then we heard someone muttering about the continuous darkness."  Shanghai police said scam artists had been convincing pensioners to hand over savings in a last act of charity.

Meanwhile in Mexico, where the ancient Mayan civilisation flourished, the end time has been seen as an opportunity. The country has organised hundreds of Maya-themed events, and tourism is expected to have doubled this year.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9730618/Mayan-apocalypse-panic-spreads-as-December-21-nears.html


Okay... what I want to know is, how are the Mayans supposed to know when the world will end?  What inside information are they thought to have?  At any rate, it is remarkable that people and societies that consider themselves too sophisticated for Christianity can nevertheless embrace New Age irrationalism.

So will there even be a Christmas this year?  Some people will presumably wait to do their shopping, or perhaps max out their credit cards because they won't have to make the payments once the world ends.  Holy crap.... we have to worry not only about the country going over the fiscal cliff but about the whole world and maybe the whole universe going over an existential cliff into the void.

But, in the words of the great Merle Haggard:
"If we can make it through December, we'll be fine."

   

[jarhead]

Aw, the Mighty Merle. One of the best, singing one of his best. Still undecided on weather Waylon or Merle is/was the greatest singer of all time

[Warph]

Published on Jun 21, 2012

Interesting crop circle with something to say about 21st December 2012

Music by Ray Ventura - "Ca vaut mieux que d'attrapper la scarletine"

A Video about 2012, Aliens & Crop Circles can be found here,,,

Here an ex-Russian astronaut tells of an adjacent large
mass and about a shock-wave being emitted from the
center of the milky way that are heading our way and
affecting our sun... and much more....


Link to Mayan References of 21-12-2012 date
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120628181735.htm

(I have no idea what all of this is about and overlook this
poor guys spelling in the video)[/font][/size][/b]


         

"The Nibiru cataclysm is a supposed disastrous encounter between the Earth and a large planetary object (either a collision or a near-miss) which certain groups believe will take place in the early 21st century. Believers in this doomsday event usually refer to this object as Planet X or Nibiru. The idea that a planet-sized object could collide with or pass by Earth in the near future is not supported by any scientific evidence and has been rejected as pseudoscience by astronomers and planetary scientists.

"The idea was first put forward in 1995 by Nancy Lieder, founder of the website ZetaTalk. Lieder describes herself as a contactee with the ability to receive messages from extra-terrestrials from the Zeta Reticuli star system through an implant in her brain. She states that she was chosen to warn mankind that the object would sweep through the inner Solar System in May 2003 (though that date was later abandoned) causing Earth to undergo a pole shift that would destroy most of humanity. The prediction has subsequently spread beyond Lieder's website and has been embraced by numerous Internet doomsday groups, most of which link the event to the 2012 phenomenon. Although the name "Nibiru" is derived from the works of the late ancient astronaut writer Zecharia Sitchin and his interpretations of Babylonian and Sumerian mythology, Sitchin denied any connection between his work and various claims of a coming apocalypse."

[Warph]

SIX MORE DAYS BEFORE 12/21/12 - ARE YOU READY?

[Warph]

Three More Days To Go Before.....

[Warph]

Is this the way the world will end....

Will a world wide flood bring the end of the world in 2012?

As in the time of Noah?

OR...

...Will it be Solar Flares?

Solar flares are classified according x-ray brightness in the wavelength range 1 to 8 Angstroms:


1.  X-class solar flares -  major events: can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms.  

2.  M-class solar flares - medium events: can cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth's polar regions.

3.  C-class solar flares - small events: these have hardly any noticeable effects on Earth.

Solar activity operates on an 11 year cycle with the Sun being more active in the 11th year.  The next cycle to be completed will be in 2012.  This is why some are expecting extra large solar flares in 2012.

WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT SOLAR FLARES?

It's not logical to suggest that the earth will be mortally wounded by a solar flare or solar flares in 2012 just because that is when the next 11 cycle starts/ends.  It is not logical because large solar flares can happen at any time.  There is therefore no reason to believe at that the completion of the next 11 year cycle in 2012 a solar flare will destroy the earth.  And even after we had an unprecedented X-class solar flare at X28, the earth is still here.  Most people probably didn't even know it happened!

                                 

There is nothing we can do about solar flares.  All we can do is take photos of them.  Solar flares are totally out of our control.  The moon and the sun affect our climate but they remain out of our control.  Our energy is best spent finding responsible ways to look after earth, here and now.  If the day came when the earth was fatally wounded by a solar flare, you would have bigger things to worry about.  Why?  Because when you die (and you will die no matter whether the earth is here for another gadzillion years of not) you will at that moment find out whether what you believed about life after death is true or not.[/font][/size]

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser & L. L. Christensen)

NEW Update by NASA - The Surprising Power of a Solar Storm

http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/main/index.html

Space Storm Tracked from Sun to Earth:


NASA has revised their prediction for solar maximum to now occur around mid-May of 2013. sources:http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/next-solarstorm.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0Ehe77wrV0&feature=related

Solar SuperStorm 1859 -- It could happen again
http://modernsurvivalblog.com/solar-cycle/solar-superstorm-1859-it-can-happen...
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/10mar_stormwarning/
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/01apr_deepsolarmini...
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/29may_noaaprediction/


http://article.wn.com/view/2012/05/24/Astronomer_insists_there_is_a_Planet_X_...


Solar physicist David Hathaway of the National Space Science & Technology Center (NSSTC) explains: "First, remember what sunspots are--tangled knots of magnetism generated by the sun's inner dynamo. A typical sunspot exists for just a few weeks. Then it decays, leaving behind a 'corpse' of weak magnetic fields."

Enter the conveyor belt:

"The top of the conveyor belt skims the surface of the sun, sweeping up the magnetic fields of old, dead sunspots. The 'corpses' are dragged down at the poles to a depth of 200,000 km where the sun's magnetic dynamo can amplify them. Once the corpses (magnetic knots) are reincarnated (amplified), they become buoyant and float back to the surface." Presto—new sunspots!

The sun's "great conveyor belt."

All this happens with massive slowness. "It takes about 40 years for the belt to complete one loop," says Hathaway. The speed varies "anywhere from a 50-year pace (slow) to a 30-year pace (fast)."

When the belt is turning "fast," it means that lots of magnetic fields are being swept up, and that a future sunspot cycle is going to be intense. This is a basis for forecasting: "The belt was turning fast in 1986-1996," says Hathaway. "Old magnetic fields swept up then should re-appear as big sunspots in 2010-2011."

Like most experts in the field, Hathaway has confidence in the conveyor belt model and agrees with Dikpati that the next solar maximum should be a doozy. But he disagrees with one point. Dikpati's forecast puts Solar Max at 2012. Hathaway believes it will arrive sooner, in 2010 or 2011.
"History shows that big sunspot cycles 'ramp up' faster than small ones," he says. "I expect to see the first sunspots of the next cycle appear in late 2006 or 2007—and Solar Max to be underway by 2010 or 2011."

Who's right? Time will tell. Either way, a storm is coming...
A massive eruption of the sun would save waves of radiation and charged particles to Earth, damaging the satellite systems used for synchronising computers, airline navigation and phone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_TzIUlaQok&feature=related

[Warph]

        Space Storm Tracked from Sun to Earth


                             

                               


For the first time, a spacecraft far from Earth has turned and watched a solar storm engulf our planet. The movie, released 08.18.2011 during a NASA press conference, has galvanized solar physicists, who say it could lead to important advances in space weather forecasting.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/news/solarstorm-tracking.html
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010809/index.html

"The movie sent chills down my spine," says Craig DeForest of the Southwest Researcher Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "It shows a CME swelling into an enormous wall of plasma and then washing over the tiny blue speck of Earth where we live. I felt very small."
CMEs are billion-ton clouds of solar plasma launched by the same explosions that spark solar flares. When they sweep past our planet, they can cause auroras, radiation storms, and in extreme cases power outages. Tracking these clouds and predicting their arrival is an important part of space weather forecasting.

Still from video of the orbital positions and fields of view of the STEREO

When CMEs first leave the sun, they are bright and easy to see. Visibility is quickly reduced, however, as the clouds expand into the void. By the time a typical CME crosses the orbit of Venus, it is a billion times fainter than the surface of the full Moon, and more than a thousand times fainter than the Milky Way. CMEs that reach Earth are almost as gossamer as vacuum itself and correspondingly transparent.

"Pulling these faint clouds out of the confusion of starlight and interplanetary dust has been an enormous challenge," says DeForest.

Indeed, it took almost three years for his team to learn how to do it. Footage of the storm released today was recorded back in December 2008, and they have been working on it ever since. Now that the technique has been perfected, it can be applied on a regular basis without such a long delay.

Alysha Reinard of NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center explains the benefits for space weather forecasting:

"Until quite recently, spacecraft could see CMEs only when they were still quite close to the sun. By calculating a CME's speed during this brief period, we were able to estimate when it would reach Earth. After the first few hours, however, the CME would leave this field of view and after that we were 'in the dark' about its progress."

"The ability to track a cloud continuously from the Sun to Earth is a big improvement," she continues. "In the past, our very best predictions of CME arrival times had uncertainties of plus or minus 4 hours," she continues. "The kind of movies we've seen today could significantly reduce the error bars."

The movies pinpoint not only the arrival time of the CME, but also its mass. From the brightness of the cloud, researchers can calculate the gas density with impressive precision. Their results for the Dec. 2008 event agreed with actual in situ measurements at the few percent level. When this technique is applied to future storms, forecasters will be able to estimate its impact with greater confidence.

At the press conference, DeForest pointed out some of the movie's highlights: When the CME first left the sun, it was cavernous, with walls of magnetism encircling a cloud of low-density gas. As the CME crossed the Sun-Earth divide, however, its shape changed. The CME "snow-plowed" through the solar wind, scooping up material to form a towering wall of plasma. By the time the CME reached Earth, its forward wall was sagging inward under the weight of accumulated gas.

The kind of magnetic transformations revealed by the movie deeply impressed Guhathakurta: "I have always thought that in heliophysics understanding the magnetic field is equivalent to the 'dark energy' problem of astrophysics. Often, we cannot see the magnetic field, yet it orchestrates almost everything. These images from STEREO give us a real sense of what the underlying magnetic field is doing."

All of the speakers at today's press event stressed that the images go beyond the understanding of a single event. The inner physics of CMEs have been laid bare for the first time -- a development that will profoundly shape theoretical models and computer-generated forecasts of CMEs for many years to come.

"This is what the STEREO mission was launched to do," concludes Guhathakurta, "and it is terrific to see it live up to that promise."

Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

music: Apocalypse 2012 artist: starman65

[Warph]

* Proof * A Giant Solar Flare is coming 2012-2013

Published on Nov 6, 2012

Every 11 Years our sun flips and sends a shock wave hurling towards earth, now as of 2007 they found a huge hole in the magnetosphere, the shields are down!! PROOF the government knows and isnt going to help us, see their "plan B"

3 years of research can be summarized in this video repor:.

             

[Warph]

Pack Them There Bags --- the End of the World is a-Comin' Tomorrow 12/21/2012 --- The Final Day

Well... the History Channel's let the cat out of the bag... again.  This time, the end of the planet Earth is scheduled to commence December 21, 2012.  I'm surprised they haven't posted a time, and plotted the path of destruction in the same way your favorite weather Barbie or Ken doll demonstrate the storm patterns on a green screen.  The Mayans, our pal Nostradamus and even Edgar Cayce (from what I'm told) all said our number's up on December 21, 2012.

I for one don't buy it.  But, like the advice I give to Atheists, isn't it better to hedge your bets?  For the non-believers, I generally say, "Hey. Better be nice to folks, 'cause just because you don't believe in God doesn't mean He's not taking notes!"  So, this is my way of taking a teaspoon of my own medicine and considering the possibility (remote as it may be) that something very, very bad will happen tomorrow on December 21, 2012.

Let's get one thing straight.  Old Warph ain't no expert on survival.  I've never ponied up my hard-earned money for a survival-training course.  Heck, the last time I had any sort of experience with first aid training was in a medi-shack in Nam, when I tentatively approached Resusci-Annie, clutching an rubbing alcohol-saturated towel to tenderize her lips before I breathed air into her rubber lungs.  Hardly a ringing endorsement for my expertise on survival.

However, I have thought a ton on the subject and even researched the topic, so I can opine freely and with some degree of confidence.

The Warph Recipe for Disaster Survival  

1) Go to Where the Disaster Isn't and Fire up your search engines, kiddies, and do a little research.  From what I'm hearing, if you live in the United States, you want to get into the center of the country (away from the giant tidal waves that will do more than sweep away your beach ball) and head up a mountain.  You got any mountains in Kansas, toto?  If I had a little money stashed away, I might consider looking into renting a nice, solid log cabin up on a mountain somewhere in the middle of the United States. Look at a map.  Figure it out.

2) Water!  Water is a good thing to have around.  Plenty of it.  Make sure you have a method of distilling said water supply... like one of those Water/Wise distellers....  just in case you need to... and you will.  Boiling the water and collecting the steam is the way to go, from what I hear.  Figure out how to do this.  Oh yeah, if your survival cabin has a Well (strongly recommended), I'd look into a way to get the water out of the earth and into your bucket without electricity... because you better believe that during Armageddon, the power grids are going to go belly up.  A shallow well hand pumping system is a good alternative.  They usually work for ground water supplies less than 20 feet deep.

3) Food! This is a no-brainer... at least, I hope it is.  But head out to your local supermarket and clear the shelves of canned goods.  Buy some Ramon noodles, too.... Safeway is running a big sale... them's good eating when you're sitting alone playing your 11-thousandth game of Solitaire.  But more important than canned goods (eventually they're going to run out), learn how to cook cockroaches.  Those suckers are going to make it... they always do, so you'll want to learn how to catch, harvest and serve up the nasty little critters.  I also suggest learning how to hunt and fish, so the mutant fish and game of the world, such as they will be, might end up on your dinner plate.

4) First Aid Kit!  Buy one.  Make it a big one.  Because you are going to hurt yourself up there on the mountain.  Chances are good you'll skin your knee and without proper treatment, you can count on it getting infected.  Make sure you've got plenty of bottled distilled water and gauze around to clean up those nasty wounds. I t's hard to amputate your own foot, so try to avoid putting yourself in a situation that will make the operation necessary.  Keep a first aid manual nearby.  It's going to come in handy.

5) Get Many Books!  You may find yourself holed up for a long, long time.  It's going to get boring up there.  Keep your eye on FreeCycle for folks dumping paperbacks.  Collect them and make sure you've got plenty of room in your cabin for reading material storage.  I'm serious.  If you're the last person on the planet, and everything else is destroyed, you'll have nothing but time on your hands.  Those books will remind you of the world you once knew and maybe provide a little hope.  You'll need that hope to make it through each day.

6) Bonus Tip! Stay Fertile!! Hold off on tying those tubes or that snip job.  Imagine being the last man on Earth and one day, the last woman shows up.  Now imagine having to say, "Sorry.  Can't procreate with you.  I had a vasectomy a few years back."  That might not go over so well.  As the sole male or female survivor, you've got a duty to give birth to new generations of humans, who, after a few thousand years, will blow the place up again!

Good luck Kansas!

[Warph]

This morning I got up and found I was still here, intact.  Then someone called me, and they said that they had tried to call a few minutes before and my PHONE DIDN'T WORK!  I mean, it worked the second time, but it didn't work the first time.  I think that means something.  I think I read on a blog about an article written by a guy who talked to a friend, who knew a professor who knows someone who was at the ACTUAL Mayan ruins, and I think he said that intermittent phone service is how the apocalypse begins.  My son was there this past summer.  Need to call him and check that out.

Anyway, I'm not taking any chances.  It's back to my walk-in closet for me.  Wha... what was that sound....