First Amendment May Not Protect Church's Protest

[Note. (Jan. 12, 2011) - please page down to the end of the post for the latest news.]

by Mara Gray, AoL News, Dec. 10, 2010.
[extracts]
"The Westboro Baptist Church can say what it likes on its website, but that doesn't mean the group has a right to picket Elizabeth Edwards' funeral with its hate-filled message."

"That's according to legal experts, who say it's likely that the Kansas-based church won't be covered under the First Amendment on Saturday when it protests the funeral of John Edwards' estranged wife, who died Tuesday at the age of 61 after a six-year battle with breast cancer."

" 'First Amendment law makes it clear that the Westboro Church can indulge in vicious lunacy on its website. But the First Amendment does not confer the right to speak anywhere at any time,' Steven Shiffrin, a law professor at Cornell University and a First Amendment scholar, said in a statement to AOL News today."
_more here_

See also :-

Westboro Baptist Church Outnumbered At Elizabeth Edwards' Funeral
by Caitlin Tadlock, AllVoices, Dec. 13, 2010.
"It seems the attention grabbing religious group from Topeka, Kansas failed to cause a major stir at their latest protest, thankfully." ...
... "Former Senator John Edwards, her estranged husband, and their three children joined friends and family at the service."
_more here_ (includes 34 photographs).

Legal arguments :-
Snyder v. Phelps, First Amendment - Freedom of Speech. Oct. 6, 2010.
_click here_

"The Westboro Baptist Church is a fundamentalist Christian church that contends that God kills soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan as punishment for America's tolerance of homosexuality and for the presence of gays in the U.S. military. The church operates a number of websites, including www.godhatesfags.com, on which it disseminates its rabidly anti-homosexual views. The church has gained notoriety for staging protests at the funerals of U.S. soldiers in order to draw attention to its message."
Source: _Citizen Media Law Project_

Video: "Westboro Baptist Church Protests" -- debate on Fox News :-

YouTube page :- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UMP3AK5jwo

NB. The Westboro 'Baptist' Church isn't associated with any mainstream Baptist organization.
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Arizona Legislature To Announce Anti-Westboro Law To Protect Shooting Victims
by Nick Wing, The Huffington Post, January 11, 2011.
[extract]
"Arizona's state legislature has announced a legislative effort to combat the infamous Westboro Baptist Church's plans to picket the funerals of the shooting victims in Tucson over the weekend."
" 'We're going to try to protect the families from undue harassment,' State Rep. Daniel Patterson (D), one of the leaders of a bipartisan group of legislators, told Talking Points Memo Monday."
_more here_
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The Language of Abusive Churches - Part 1 [repost]

Does your church (or did your old church) use these words and phrases to manipulate and control the members of the group?
(Compiled by Bill Newcomer and other contributors for the Battered Sheep Ministry.)
Please go here to see the explanations :- http://www.batteredsheep.com/church-speak.html

1 - A bitter spirit* - - - - - - - - Y / N
2 - A family matter - - - - - - -- Y / N
3 - A jezebel spirit - - - - - - - - Y / N
4 - A rebellious heart - - - - - -- Y / N
5 - A rebellious spirit - - - - - -- Y / N
6 - Accountable - - - - - - - - - Y / N
7 - Angry - - - - - - - - - - - - - Y / N
8 - Apostate - - - - - - - - - - - Y / N
9 - Backslider - - - - - - - - - - - Y / N
10 - Bad attitude - - - - - - - - -- Y / N
11 - Because I'm the pastor, that's why!** - Y / N
12 - Black sheep - - - - - - - - - - Y / N
13 - Congregationalism - - - - - -- Y / N
14 - Critical spirit - - - - - - - - -- Y / N
15 - Disfellowshipping - - - - - - -- Y / N
16 - Dissident - - - - - - - - - - -- Y / N
17 - Divisive - - - - - - - - - - - -- Y / N
18 - Don't be bitter* - - - - - - - - Y / N
19 - Don't be petty - - - - - - - - - Y / N
20 - Free will - - - - - - - - - - - -- Y / N
21 - Love gifts - - - - - - - - - - -- Y / N
22 - May I remind you I am the pastor!** - Y / N
23 - Oh, they just use the doctrine of men - Y / N
24 - Oversight - - - - - - - - - - --- Y / N
25 - Prodigal son/daughter - - - - -- Y / N
26 - Singleness - - - - - - - - - - -- Y / N
27 - Slander - - - - - - - - - - - --- Y / N
28 - Teachable - - - - - - - - - - -- Y / N
29 - The truth is here - - - - - - --- Y / N
30 - The "Work" - - - - - - - - - - -- Y / N
31 - The "World" - - - - - - - - - --- Y / N
32 - This is a safe church - - - - --- Y / N
33 - Troublemaker - - - - - - - - - -- Y / N
34 - Unsubmissive - - - - - - - - - -- Y / N
35 - Unteachable - - - - - - - - - --- Y / N
36 - Unwilling to reconcile - - - - - -- Y / N
37 - We are a "nondenominational" church - Y / N
38 - We don't do things that way - -- Y / N
39 - We don't want to overreact - --- Y / N
40 - We don't want to take sides - --- Y / N
41 - We don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water - Y / N
42 - You need to be open and transparent - Y / N

[This article was originally posted in this blog on December 5, 2008. You can see it, and some comments _here_ ]

See Part Two _here_
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How The Maya Calendar Works

Extracts from this website :-
http://www.chaacreek.com/how-the-maya-calendar-works/

"The Maya were remarkable mathematicians and astrologers, and certainly some of history's most proficient, accurate keepers of time. To appreciate the Maya concept of time, it is important to understand the different [ie. more than one] calendar systems they developed and how they were used." ...

"The 'Tzolk'in' or 'Sacred Round' calendar consists of a 260 day cycle." ...
"It is useful to think of the Tzolk’in as two intermeshing gears, one inside the other, with the 13 numerals marked at intervals around the smaller gear set inside a larger one that is marked with day names denoted by glyphs." ...

"The 'Haab' calendar is based on the cycle of the sun and was used for civil, agricultural, accounting and administrative purposes." ...

"To measure, record and predict events over longer periods of time, the Mesoamericans developed the 'Long Count'. Long Count dates are the ones usually recorded on monuments and stellae." ...

"It is widely accepted that the Long Count's "zero”, or creation date was August 11 3114BC, and that this marked the end of a previous world and the beginning of the current one, and it is further conjectured that the end of this current thirteenth b'ak'tun will fall on the Maya date 13.0.0.0.0, or December 21 2012." ...
"This event has been given much attention in recent times and unfortunately has been subject to gross misinterpretations of Maya history and cosmology. Sensational films, television shows, internet exposure and other media present the end of the 13th b'ak'tun as “proof” of an impending apocalypse and global destruction. In fact, most serious Maya scholars and contemporary Maya daykeepers and other accepted spiritual and village leaders consider it to be simply the end of one cycle of time and the beginning of another."
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Online Safety For Kids -- Info For Parents

YouTube page :- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2TqQSiWSes
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Global Temperature Anomaly

This experimental widget uses the UAH lower troposphere temperature data as well as the Mauna Loa CO2 data combined with NOAA SWPC solar information.

The largest temperature spike in the middle of the graph is for 1998.
Please note that the abbreviation 'ppm' is parts per million. So 390.58 is the equivalent of 0.039 percent of the atmosphere.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Click on this image to get your own widget for your blog's sidebar.

... or just copy all of this html code :-

[a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/widget/"][img alt="Click to get your own widget" src="http://cache4.intelliweather.net/wcw/world_climate_widget_sidebar.gif" title="Click to get your own widget" width="166" height="223" /]

(Change all of the bold brackets to angled brackets.)

You could increase the width to 332 and height to 446 to get an image that is twice as big -- but the resulting image is a bit fuzzy. As can be seen further down this page, in the right-hand sidebar.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

The GW theory primarily says that when you get increased levels of the minor atmospheric gas CO2 you should also get an increased average global temperature.
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Belize Maya Prepare For 2012 Celebrations

by Travel Video News, September, 2010.
[extracts]
"...Dr Awe, one of Belize’s foremost archaeologists, was speaking at a preliminary launch of a new Belizean website dedicated to the 2012 celebrations planned for this tiny Central American nation. Dr Awe also laughed off suggestions that the Maya feared 2012 would herald in the Apocalypse, as suggested by the popular film 2012 and numerous internet sites."

" 'Hollywood drama has very little to do with the reality of what the Maya Calendar and Long Count calculations are all about. This represents the ending of one cosmological cycle, and the beginning of another. It’s very much the way most people would look at the end of a millennia and the beginning of another, but over a very, very long period of time. It is an event that will mark the completion of a great cycle and a time for reflection, and for considering future direction,' he said."
_more here_
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Expert Rubbishes Solar Storm Claims

by Stuart Gary, ABC Science Online, August 27, 2010.
[extracts]

"Australia's leading body responsible for monitoring space weather has dismissed claims that a massive solar storm could wipe out the Earth's entire power grid.

"One report quotes an Australian astronomer as saying 'the storm is likely to come sooner rather than later'.

"But Dr Phil Wilkinson, the assistant director of the Bureau of Meteorology's Ionospheric Prediction Service, says claims that this coming solar maximum will be the most violent in 100 years are not factual.

" 'All this talk about gloom and doom has selling power, but I'm certain it's overstated,' he said."
_more here_
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Armstrongism / Church of God / Ronald Weinland [repost]

Are you easily influenced? Do you have lots of heroes? Do you admire many charismatic people? Do you find it hard to criticize popular people, and is it easy for you to believe everything they say? Are you depressed because this is a low point in your life, and does it seem that everything is going wrong?

If so, it would not be a good idea to allow yourself to be *recruited* by any of the following churches. They are the main “splinter” groups formed at various times after certain doctrines were rejected by the Worldwide Church of God. The splinter groups have kept the doctrines of the original pastor-general, Herbert W. Armstrong. (The list below was compiled with assistance from an article about Armstrongism at the 4truth.net website.)

Church of God, International. (abbrev. CGI or COGI.)
-- Based in Tyler, Texas.
-- Armor of God television program and periodical.
-- Infuse magazine, and The International News.

Church of God, Pasadena. (abbrev. CGP or COGP)
-- Based in Pasadena, California.
-- Pastor is David Hulme.
-- Vision magazine and website

Church of God - Preparing for the Kingdom of God. (abbrev. COG-PKG)
-- Based in Cincinnati, Ohio.
-- Pastor is Ronald Weinland.
-- The Prophesied End-Time book.
-- 2008 - God's Final Witness book.
-- The-End website.
-- History of church and pastor - 'false prophet Ronald Weinland'
-- A critical book review - Christian Media Research
-- June 13, 2012 - Ronald Weinland convicted for income tax evasion.

Grace Communion International (abbrev. GCI)
Name changed in April 2009.
ex. Worldwide Church of God (abbrev. WCG or WCOG)
-- Based in Glendora, California.
-- Original pastor-general was Herbert W. Armstrong (1892-1986)
-- Second pastor-general was Joseph W. Tkach, Sr. (1927-1995).
-- Third pastor is Joseph W. Tkach, Jr.
-- The Plain Truth magazine, plus various booklets.
-- Christian Odyssey magazine, website, and Together (WCOG News).
-- In the 1990s several of the Armstrong doctrines were rejected.
-- In 1997 it was accepted into the National Association of Evangelicals.
-- This church now appears to be less extreme than the others listed here.

Intercontinental Church of God. (abbrev. ICG or ICOG)
-- Based in Tyler, Texas.
-- Original pastor was Garner Ted Armstrong (1930-2003).
-- Current pastor is Mark Armstrong.
-- Associated Ministry :- Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.
-- 21st Century Watch magazine.

Living Church of God. (abbrev. LCG or LCOG)
-- Based in Charlotte, North Carolina.
-- Pastor is Roderick C. Meredith.
-- Tomorrow's World television program.
-- Tomorrow's World magazine, booklets, and bible study course.

Philadelphia Church of God. (abbrev. PCG or PCOG)
-- Based in Edmond, Oklahoma.
-- Pastor is Gerald Flurry.
-- The Key of David television program.
-- The Philadelphia Trumpet magazine.
-- The Wonderful World Tomorrow book.

Restored Church of God. (abbrev. RCG or RCOG)
-- Based in Wadsworth, Ohio.
-- Pastor is David C. Pack.
-- The Real Truth magazine
-- The World To Come videos
-- _A critical article_ on the 'Living Armstrongism' blog.

United Church of God. (abbrev. UCG or UCOG)
-- Based in Milford, Ohio - east of Cincinnati.
-- President is Clyde Kilough.
-- Pastor is Roy Holladay, amongst other elders.
-- The Good News magazine and bible reading program.
-- United News, and Vertical Thought, Virtual Christian magazines.
-- World News & Prophecy website.

(A more complete list is here.)


If I can’t convince you that being *recruited* by any of those churches would be a bad idea, please carefully consider the following questions and information :-

1/ When you first join the group do you get any ‘instant’ friends?
2/ Does everyone dress more or less the same, act the same, and talk the same?
3/ Is questioning the group, or the group leaders, discouraged or frowned upon?
4/ Does everyone in the group believe exactly the same things (i.e. what the leaders tell them to believe)? Is there no room for individual belief or opinion even in minor areas?
5/ Is reading any literature critical of the group discouraged?
6/ Does the group believe that it is an elite and exclusive organisation which alone has ‘the truth’ and answers to life’s questions?
7/ Does the group pour scorn upon, ‘attack,’ and mock other Christian churches and their interpretation of the Bible?
8/ Does the group discourage association with non-members (except, maybe for the possibility of converting them to the group)?
9/ Does the group give you ‘black and white answers’? -- What the group agrees with is right and what the group disagrees with is wrong.
10/ Does the group tend to withhold certain information from you? Are the more unusual doctrines of the group not discussed with you until you are more deeply involved in the movement?

If you answered ‘yes’ to more than (say) two of the above questions you are in danger of being manipulated by con men and women who use powerful mind control techniques which bypass your ability to critically evaluate and question the group.

If you stay with the group for longer than the indoctrination period, these questions will become more relevant :-

1/ Do you feel that no matter how hard you try, the ‘good deeds’ you perform for your group are never quite enough? As a result of this do you often feel plagued with feelings of guilt?
2/ Have you attempted to disable your own critical thinking abilities by ‘shelving’ various doubts about the group or group’s teachings?
3/ Are others in the group, who do not conform to the requirements of the movement’s teachings, treated with suspicion and treated like second class members?
4/ Do you feel fearful of leaving the group? Many ‘cults’ use subtle fear tactics to stop members from leaving. For example, the group may imply that those who leave will be attacked by the Devil, have a nasty accident, or at least not prosper because they have left ‘the truth’.

However, do not become depressed - because all is not lost!
The option to leave the cult will always be available.
The last three paragraphs in this blog page should help you achieve that aim: Mind Control by Cults

Professional help from Christian counselors is available through this site :- http://christiantherapist.com/
(If possible, it would be wise to check if counselors have relevant qualifications. Recommendations from previous patients would also be very valuable.)

(Questions above originally supplied by Spotlight Ministries - page - Used by permission.)
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Space Exploration by NASA

Exploration and Investigation

History recalls that there have always been explorers in the human race -- people who want to expand their horizons, investigate their surroundings, and understand the complex nature of the environment, the Earth, the Solar System, and Space itself. Apart from space exploration, there are countless scientists around the world 'expanding their horizons' in many fields of endeavor. Who decides how much funding those fields of endeavor will receive, and who decides which ones are worthy of receiving funds? In the end it is likely to be a political decision. A wealthy country can probably afford to fund scientific investigations as well as looking after the poorer members of its society.

This is part of a speech given by Michael Griffin (ex NASA Adminstrator) to the 39th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference on March 10, 2008

"To me, the person who best captured NASA’s true mission was Gene Roddenberry, with his immortal line about the mission of the Starship Enterprise, “To explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no [one] has gone before.” That’s almost perfect; I think we’re more likely to create new civilizations than to find others, but I love those lines, and if it wasn’t for the royalties we’d have to pay, and of course the split infinitive…

"All joking aside, there are several nuggets of wisdom in these words, nuggets that speak not only to the public’s perception of what we do at NASA, but also serve to provide a deep sense of purpose to the work you all perform as lunar and planetary scientists. You here today are the ones who explore strange new worlds, seek new life, and who go where no one has gone before. Do you ever think about what life might be like for working scientists a few hundred years from now, maybe by comparing the trails we are blazing today with those cleared for us by Galileo, Tycho Brahe, Kepler and many other astronomers and planetary scientists? Could they have ever imagined what we are doing today? Can we possibly foresee anything of the world of, say, the 26th Century? We are living today in exciting times. Planetary science is going through a true Renaissance age; some of the discoveries of this age will be discussed at greater length right here at this conference. For example, it had been 33 years since NASA last flew by the planet Mercury with Mariner 10. But just two months ago, MESSENGER recorded spectra and snapped over 1,200 images of previously unseen features on the planet Mercury’s surface, and we will see even more this October during its next flyby. I can’t wait. Meanwhile, in orbit around the planet Saturn, Cassini will fly within 50 kilometers of Enceladus this Wednesday to sample water-ice samples and other gases. Previously, Cassini revealed that Saturn’s planet-sized, organic-rich moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves here on Earth. And who among us was not awed last year by the time-lapse images from New Horizons when it observed a spectacular 200-mile-high volcanic eruption from the Jovian moon Io, and spotted the infrared glow from at least six other active volcanoes?

"We are exploring strange new worlds today, and you are the scientists who are making it happen. It may not be as dramatic as portrayed in science fiction – but it’s not fiction. It’s real. NASA’s Science Mission Directorate is currently operating over fifty flight missions in the various Earth and space science disciplines, and Alan Stern’s team has heeded the advice of the science community in formulating a more balanced portfolio of missions – large, medium, and small missions – while addressing the priorities articulated by the Congress, President, and various science communities.

"While we might all wish we had more money to fund each and every space mission ever desired or proposed, it is a fact across, stretching across multiple Presidential Administrations and Congresses, that NASA simply does not have the budget resources to accomplish all of the many and varied space and aeronautics missions that our many constituencies would like us to do. The President’s request for NASA in FY 2009 is $17.6 billion out of $3.1 trillion for all U.S. government spending, less than 6/10ths of a percent of the entire Federal budget. We don’t get anything like the 24% of the budget that the average American thinks we receive, and so we must set priorities, establish a careful balance between them, and ask members of the space community to respect these priorities as well as NASA’s other mission areas, human spaceflight and aeronautics research, as worthy and noble endeavors in their own right."
.
[emphasis by me!]
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Mayan Nobel Laureate to Address the 2012 Prophecies

by Laura Snider (dailycamera.com) - July 5, 2010
[extracts]

"The '2012' movie is based on the notion that the Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world on Dec. 21, 2012. The movie is just one of a number of doomsday prophecies based on the end of the 13th baktun (each baktun equals approximately 144,000 days) on the Mayan calendar."

"But these interpretations are based more in pop culture than in reality, according to Rigoberta Menchú Tum, a Mayan who was raised in the Guatemalan highlands."

"Menchú Tum, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 for her work promoting social justice for indigenous people, will be in Boulder on Thursday with two of her spiritual elders to discuss how Mayan communities interpret the prophecies of 2012."
_more_

When: 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Thursday, July 8, 2010.

Where: Naropa University's Nalanda Campus, 6287 Arapahoe Ave., Boulder, Colorado, USA.

Cost: Tickets cost $195 and can be purchased online here: www.peacejam.org

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Go here for more info: A 'Boulder Weekly' interview with Rigoberta Menchú Tum
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YouTube video: 2012 Revealed - KGNU radio interview

YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwkFtc950Lc
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Claims of Life on Mars 'Positively False'

by Clara Moskowitz, 'space.com' senior writer - 29 April 2010.
[extracts]
"Despite recent media reports that NASA found evidence for life on Mars, the U.S. space agency says proof that we are not alone is still a ways off.

"A Wednesday [28 April 2010] article in the U.K.'s 'The Sun' newspaper entitled, 'NASA: Evidence of Life on Mars,' reported that the agency had unveiled 'compelling evidence' for Martian organisms. But NASA officials and veteran Mars mission scientists say 'no.'

" 'This headline is extremely misleading,' said Dwayne Brown, a spokesman for NASA based at the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C. 'This makes it sound like we announced that we found life on Mars, and that is absolutely, positively false.'

"The piece claimed that the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which have been wheeling around the surface of the red planet since January 2004, found pond scum, which the paper calls 'the building blocks of life as we know it.'

" 'I think they have taken this stuff out of context,' Brown said. Such a discovery would truly have been groundbreaking, since pond scum, scientifically known as cyanobacteria, are actually a form of life themselves, not just building blocks for it.

" 'I can only assume that the Sun reporter misunderstood,' said Cornell University planetary scientist Steve Squyres, principal investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover project, who was quoted in the story. 'What Spirit and Opportunity have found is sulfate minerals... not organic materials, not pond scum, and not the building blocks of life as we know it.' "
_lots more here_
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A Scared Teenager Asks Questions About 2012

In the USA (and other countries) lots of young people have become scared because they have been told that the world will end on Dec 21, 2012. One of those young people sent an email to me recently and asked several questions. Most of my answers below are based on what scientists have written, and what they have said in recent videos. The videos can be seen here: Scientists Respond to 2012 End-of-World Hype. Further details about the wild claims of the doomsayers were compiled during research that has spanned many years.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

[begins]
The overall message is that you can relax! There is absolutely no scientific evidence that any worldwide disasters will happen in December 2012. Those websites, books, and videos can say anything they like. Ask them for some evidence to backup their wild claims!! They won't be able to supply it. I could make a wild claim that the Sun is going to explode on May 30 in the year 2013 when the ancient Martian calendar ends one cycle and starts another.
But you know that I'm only making it up, don't you?!
"The '2012 doomsday' is a hoax, a fraud, and a con job. It is a cruel and disgusting lie being promoted by scam artists after money. First they scare people to death that something terrible is going to happen, then [they] publish books and videos on 'how to survive the apocalypse'. Get the scam?!"
http://www.2012hoax.org/start

Q: People say that a meteor might hit us in 2012. Is there any fact behind this?
No. There are countless astronomers around the world looking for the tracks of any possible 'Near Earth Objects' against the background of stars. (NEOs are asteroids and comets with orbits that come within 28 million miles (about 45 million kilometers) of Earth's path around the sun.) NASA maintains a database and website dedicated to recording them and their potential risk. Go here for more info :- http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/
The database doesn't show anything that we need to be concerned about for the year 2012, or any year for the foreseeable future.
So far, the database shows 6,708 near Earth asteroids. http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/stats/
This table shows the risk evaluation: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/
Note that the Torino Scale is a ten point scale. http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/#legend
"According to this ten-point scale, a rating of zero indicates the event has 'no likely consequences'. A Torino Scale rating of 1 indicates an event that 'merits careful monitoring.' Even higher ratings indicate that progressively more concern is warranted. The Torino Scale is defined only for potential impacts less than 100 years in the future."

"NASA has granted funding for the WISE infrared telescope to finish an extra full sky scan, giving scientists an additional opportunity to comb the inner solar system for hard-to-see asteroids that could threaten Earth." http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1012/19wise/

Q: Would we survive if a meteor hit?
This question and answer is largely based on theory and predictions. As above, there aren't any objects we need to be concerned about in the foreseeable future. Near Earth Objects come in all shapes and sizes. (Meteors and meteorites are small objects that have entered the earth's atmosphere.) The vast majority of meteors burn up in the upper atmosphere. They are known as 'shooting stars'. If (a big if ! ) a larger object, such as an asteroid, hit the Earth, the danger would depend on its size and where it hit the Earth (including the bottom of the seas and oceans). Note that oceans cover 71 percent of the Earth’s surface. So chance indicates that an object would likely hit oceans, or other unpopulated areas such as deserts and Arctic areas."Given several years warning time, existing technology could be used to deflect the threatening object away from Earth.""No one should be overly concerned about an Earth impact of an asteroid or comet. The threat to any one person from auto accidents, disease, other natural disasters and a variety of other problems is much higher than the threat from NEOs." http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/target.html

Q: Does 2012 deserve all the hype it has?
No. Definitely not! Like I wrote in the introduction above, there is absolutely no scientific evidence that any worldwide disasters will happen in December 2012. It is all an Internet hoax, with no basis in fact.

Q: What is the mentality behind the Mayan's long calendar ending in 2012?
The Mayans had a number of calendars, used for specific purposes, that each covered a number of our days. If a calendar reached it's maximum number of days it would start again at day 'one'. That is much like our calendar covers 12 months, or about 365 days, and ends on December 31st. A new calendar starts on January 1st.
"Contrary to popular understanding, the ancient Meso-Americans, be they Aztec or Maya or any other group, left no oral or written “prophecy” record about what would or could happen on or about the year 2012 -- other than a great age of 5125 years would end and another commence."http://www.2012hoax.org/mayan-prediction
http://foresight-of-hindsight.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-maya-calendar-works.html

Q: What are the Anunnaki, and what is their relevance to 2012?
The Anunnaki aliens were mentioned by a writer called Zecharia Sitchin. He proposed that they lived on a planet called Nibiru. The idea is apparently based in ancient Babylonian myth. Some people have suggested that Nibiru (or Planet X) could return in 2012. There is absolutely no evidence of this. (If it existed astronomers would know all about it!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_objects_proposed_in_religion,_astrology_and_ufology#Planets_proposed_by_Zecharia_Sitchin
If somebody suggests that a large object is approaching the Earth, or will approach the Earth in a certain year, ask them to supply the right ascension and declination of the object. If nobody can supply that information the object doesn't exist, period!
http://nibiruchallenge.blogspot.com/
A new video by David Morrison :- The Truth About Nibiru (October 21, 2011)

Q: Is a super-tsunami possible? What would the affects be?
By "super-tsunami" I assume you mean a tidal wave bigger than one caused by under-sea volcanic eruptions and movement of the sea floor. A super-tsunami could be caused by an asteroid hitting an ocean. However, as shown above, there aren't any objects we need to be concerned about in the foreseeable future.
Some people might mention an asteroid called Apophis. It is supposed to come fairly close to Earth in 2029 and 2036, but it is being closely monitored, and NASA has recently shown that any slight risk has been greatly reduced. "The asteroid is expected to make a record-setting -- but harmless -- close approach to Earth on Friday, April 13, 2029, when it comes no closer than 29,450 kilometers (18,300 miles) above Earth's surface."
http://foresight-of-hindsight.blogspot.com/2009/10/asteroid-apophis-reduced-risk-in-2036.html
As already mentioned, no one should be overly concerned about an Earth impact of an asteroid or comet.


Please advise if I have calmed your fears. Also, like the quote at the start of my blog, "Don't give up your education, or your hopes and ambitions, to follow a rainbow." I really hope that you can return to living a happy life, with absolutely no fears for the future.
I really hate what these Internet hoaxes are doing to the young people in USA and other countries.
Remember: "Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence..." The 'people' making these claims cannot supply scientific evidence to backup their claims. They are shamelessly trying to make money from the books, videos, and other things.
After December 21, 2012, I would like to see the Internet flooded with apologies written by doomsayers whose claims didn’t have a basis in fact.

Yours sincerely,
Peter Yates,
(Dunedin, New Zealand.)

PS. You are welcome to copy or forward this email to your friends.
[ends]
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The teenager has written back saying that I have definitely settled his nerves.


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