As Roland Emmerich’s disaster movie 2012 opens in cinemas worldwide and as we slowly get closer and closer to the year 2012, the hysteria about the world ending has been growing.

2012 myths as well as Emmerich’s film focus on the end of the world occuring because a ficitious planet called Nibiru smashes into Earth.  The fact that Nibiru has never been found by anyone with a telescope hasn’t stopped conspiracy theorists from coming up with all kinds of ridiculous stories about NASA and the governments of the world covering up this world ending event.   There is even a website called Surviving Nibiru and it states:

In 2012 a planet called Nibiru/Planet-X may reek real havoc on our planet as it passes through our inner solar system.

By 2010, Nibiru will be the headline of every major newspaper in the world and global pandemic would soon follow.

By then it will be almost to late to prepare for the inevitable. Will you be one of them or is your family ready?

Currently Nibiru is being seen with the naked eye in the skies in the most southern hemisphere.
By 2010 Nibiru will be able to be seen with the naked eye in the northern hemisphere.

Since 12-31-1983 Planet-X has been tracked by NASA, and continues to this day.

In the name of Global security, official news of Nibiru has been suppressed.

Now I live in Southern Hemisphere and I haven’t seen this mysterious planet appear in the night sky.  Has anyone else? You would think that if this planet was visible that people would be talking about it regardless of  the fact that “official news of Nibiru has been suppressed”, I mean, most of us are on Twitter or Facebook or some other form of social networking site.  But why let the facts get in the way of a fantastic story.

Unfortunately, this fantastic story has gained so much traction that NASA has now had to come out with an official statement about Nibiru and the truth of the 2012 myths.  It is so sad that this eminent space research facility has had to waste time addressing this nonsense, but they have.

“There is no factual basis for these claims,” NASA said in a question-and-answer post on its website.

If such a collision were real “astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye,” it added.

“Obviously, it does not exist.

“Credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012,” NASA concluded.

After all, “our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years.”

All of this would be funny, if there wasn’t people out there who honestly believed in this stuff and who are making plans for what to do when Nibiru either smashes into Earth or messes with our poles and gravity.

For those of you who went to university and graduated, is your degree in the same field that you are now currently working in or is it in something completely different?

For those of you reading this in a reader, you may need to come to the site to vote.

Most people I know graduated with a degree in one field and are now working in a completely different field, me included.  I have a BSc majoring in genetics (which I hated) and minoring in anatomy and pathology (which I loved).  I now work in tech support for a digital technology solutions provider.  I am wondering how many other people out there are in the same situation.

If you are in the same situation what degree did you get and what field are you are now working in?  I am interested to see what is the most unrelated degree/current job pair we can find.

It is once again “that time of the year” when Christmas carols start playing at the mall, Christmas decorations start springing up everywhere and people begin to ask you if you are excited about Christmas and what you are doing for the big day.

If you are an atheist or agnostic like I am, then you might be wondering where we fit into this whole celebrating Christmas stuff since we don’t believe in the religious reason behind it.  Do you renounce Christmas and refuse to take part in the whole retched thing? Or do you go along with the whole thing to keep your family happy? Or do you take a look around and realise that very few people doing the whole Christmas thing have remembered or care that Jesus has anything to do with it and just decide to join them in celebrating anyway?

It is all a matter of personal choice.  There is no right or wrong way for an atheist to “celebrate” Christmas. However, the main thing is to stay true to yourself and your beliefs.  If you don’t want to go to Midnight Mass at the local Catholic church, then inform your family about why this is so, but if you enjoy the carols and a chance to meet up with people you haven’t seen in ages, then go along.  Same goes with buying presents and taking part in the traditional Christmas dinner.

For me personally,  there are aspects about Christmas that I like and therefore continue to take part in.  Whilst, it is slightly annoying to do a 400km round trip,  I still enjoy going to my family’s Christmas get together where I get to see my cousins, aunts and uncles as it is usually the only time all year I do see them.  Fortunately, this does not take place on Christmas day but usually a week or so beforehand so we don’t have to battle the Christmas traffic.  I also enjoy buying and getting presents (then again, doesn’t everyone enjoy getting presents?).  But the rest of the Christmas stuff like the gaudy decorations and terrible carols I really dislike and therefore I don’t decorate my house or even put up a Christmas tree.  I also don’t make an appearance at Carols By Candlelight.

For me, Christmas Day is spent having a very sedate lunch with my Jewish in-laws away from all the dramas of Christmas and that is the way I like it.

Written for the Blog This Challenge.

On my way home from work walking through Central Station, I was handed this pamphlet.

It is “A special publication on the world’s most effective Purification Program” from the Church of Scientology and has a large quote from L.Ron Hubbard that proclaims, “Drug resides can stop any mental help. They also stop a person’s life!”.  What is contained within is 4 pages of how this purification program can ‘rid you of the harmful mental effects of toxins, drugs and radiation’.

The article is pretty much  your run of the mill standard detox program do about how harmful modern life is to your health and how you need to detox to rid yourself of these ‘toxins’ with this lovely diagram shown below.

The steps of this Purification Program are:

1. Drugs are essentially poisons and take their toll on your body by eating up its stores of vitamins and minerals
2. Besides drugs, our chemical-orientated society is awash with other substances toxic to human life, which can and do enter your system.
3. It is a proven fact that drugs and toxins can be trapped in the body

4. Years later, they can dislodge and being to affect your awareness, ability and attitudes.
5. But there is way out of the trap: the Purification Rundown, an exact regimen which can rid you of the harmful effects of drugs and other toxins. It’s the only program in existence that does.  You need this program.

Don’t you just love the crappy pictures, especially the 1979 drug taking one.

Then there is the disclaimer which is to free them of claiming to dispense medical advice:

“We are not concerned with handling bodies on the Purification Rundown life improvement procedure. Our concern is freeing the individual up spiritually. The only dosages recommended are those classified as food. There are no medical recommendations or claims to it. The only claims is future spiritual improvement. “

Got to wonder about a program that talks all about the toxins affects on the body and then has a tiny disclaimer that says that they are not concerned with the body.

It is all such utter rubbish and yet people will part with their cash to do this program. This is what infuriates me and makes me want to bang my head against a brickwall.  Can’t people see that this is all just woo??

For sale signs for houses are usually full of hyperbole of how wonderful the house is, even if the house doesn’t live up to the way it is described, which is normally the case.

However, what do you write for a house that is so bad that you can’t even think of one good selling point?

Perhaps this For Sale sign for a house near the end of my street might answer your question.

It reads:

Land Value With A Bonus House

• MASSES of Work to Do
• Cheapest House in the District
• Only For The Very Brave Or Very Bored

I am wondering if this house is actually going to sell at auction this week and if so, how much for.  If I find out, I will let you all know.

There are those movies that you will proudly admit to loving to anyone who asks and then there are those movies that you watch almost in secret (and no, I don’t mean porn) and you would never admit to actually liking.  These are movies that you feel are kinda dorky, but you love them anyway.

What movie/s do you love but are almost too embarrassed to admit to it?

For me, it is Three To Tango.  I just love this film yet it fall squarely in a genre that I really don’t like, the romantic comedy.  I find most romantic comedies predicable and extremely cheesy.  Yet for some unknown reason, I love Three To Tango even though it is just as cheesy as the rest of the genre. Maybe I love it because it deals with gay issues and stars the gorgeous Neve Campbell and the fantastic Oliver Platt.  Maybe I love it cause it makes me laugh, I really don’t know. I do know  I love it so much that I tracked down a copy of it on DVD to replace my video cassette copy.  It is currently hidden amongst all my ‘cooler’ movies hoping that no one notices it.

Now I have revealed my embarrassing movie love, it’s your turn.

I started getting into skeptic and science podcasts about a month ago and have tracked down an amazing collection to listen to on the way to and from work.

What I am listening to at the moment are:

• Monster Talk
• Skepticality
• Skeptics With A K
• Skeptoid
• The Skeptic Zone
• The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe
• This Week In Science

If you are interested in the skeptical movement, I thoroughly recommend downloading one or more of the podcasts above and having a listen to them.

For those of you already heavily involved in the skeptical movement and much more knowledgeable than I, which fantastic podcasts am I missing that I should be listening to.

I also have this list in my sidebar and will update it with any new podcasts I discover.

For today’s installment of Curious Minds:

Can you describe your life with a six word sentence?

‘Constantly wanting to learn new things’ is mine and I think it sums my life up pretty well, especially considering all the varied jobs I have had and the fields of study I have done.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and to share their opinion to everyone that they want to.  However, when you are a celebrity, for better or worse, your opinion carries more weight than the average person on the street.  Therefore, celebrities should think before they speak and should research their opinions before they relate them to the media.

Enter, Jenny McCarthy, a once minor celebrity on MTV and now a major anti-vaccination proponent.  She has a son with autism, which she attributes to childhood vaccinations.  She has appeared on Oprah numerous times since 2007 preaching the fact that vaccinations are dangerous and encouraging parents not to vaccinate their children.  Thanks to Jenny McCarthy and people like her, the rate of vaccination in the US and other developed countries has fallen to levels where previously rare diseases are making a comeback.  Jenny McCarthy has a body count to her name.

Oprah, you don’t get away scott free either.  You have given this quack a platform to preach her dangerous ideas to millions of parents worldwide. You  don’t offer any other viewpoint nor do you challenge her views.  Shame on you.

It both amuses and appals me when some Christians make shit up in an attempt to try to prove how their god is so much better than anyone else’s.  This article by Kimberly Davies called The Danger of Celebrating Halloween fell into the amusing category cause it is so out there that the fact that anyone could believe this nonsense is mind boggling.
She writes

The word “holiday” means “holy day.” But there is nothing holy about Halloween. The root word of Halloween is “hallow,” which means “holy, consecrated and set apart for service.” If this holiday is hallowed, whose service is it set apart for? The answer to that question is very easy—Lucifer’s!

And it just gets better from there on in.

She comes up with gems like

Most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches.

and

During this season witches are celebrating the changing of the seasons from summer to fall. They give praise to the gods for the demonic harvest.

The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) originally published this article on their site, but now appear to feel differently about promoting this idiotic nonsense as this article has since been removed.  However, thanks to the caching powers of Google, we can still enjoy it in all its entirety.  Thanks Google!