I would normally not waste anyone's time with the recently debunked craze over 12/21/12 being the End of the World, but two things I heard lately, I thought, were worth sharing:

1) A friend of mine said the ultimate irony would be if, at the stroke of the solstice, every single human being of Mayan extraction simply vanished off the face of the planet, poof!

2) Another friend said he was trying to organize a movement wherein everyone would rush out of their homes on the morning of 12/22/12 and scream joyously "He did it! The Doctor saved us!"



-the other Doug

I still distinctly remember the May 2003 non-event, as the Bad Astronomer covered it thoroughly here: http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/
I also remember their postponing of the apocalypse to nine years later, and just shaking my head at the though of almost a decade more of this bandwidth wasting...
The forum where this stuff was peddled is evidently still alive and kicking, and not much has changed (at least from the hilarious thread titles). It wouldn't do to stumble upon that side of the internet by accident, especially for those of us used to UMSF quality levels of discussion. So if anyone wants a link, I'll send a PM; it will certainly make you appreciate this place!

I can't but agree that I feel happy to be spared such noise on this forum.
There's been one person I know rather well, a researcher actually who have been caught up with such to such a degree of actually asking me about this matter. So it have not only been the less educated who have fallen for this........

My main message here are however - Merry Christmas to all on the forum!