[CliffordK (OP)]

I heard on the news today.  That the end of the world is coming...  TODAY, May 21^st.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/hottopics/detail?entry_id=89183

So I guess I should head out and party.  Spend all my money.  Give away my belongings. 

[imatfaal]

Well it's a lovely day for it.  We have already decided to crack open a few beers and watch the sun go down for the last time.  I presume that India, Asia, Most of Africa and Australasia have been judged and found wanting.  6 o'clock local time where-ever you are seems a strange way of doing it - is that summertime (daylight saving for the colonial cousins) or solar time.  As I am practically on the Greenwich meridian I will be able to tell nicely - if my watch makes it to showing 5 past six then it's solar time, and if it doesn't the chances aren't that bad 200million saved out of 6775million people - I have seen worse odds.

[imatfaal]

Cliff - there are parties planned all over the states, so maybe head off to one this evening.  North Carolina (which I know some of our forum members are from) is apparently hosting "2011 - the best damned party ever"  and I love the name.  Unfortunately no one is taking it seriously enough to even arrange a mocking party in England - so it will just be a few tinnies in the garden

[Geezer]

You know, if they keep making a lot of these predictions, eventually somebody may actually get it right. Then they'll be able to say "I told you so"....er, well maybe they won't actually be able to.

Hilarity aside, what I find really depressing is that the nut cases good people in the US that are pushing this were able to get millions of dollars of contributions from people who are willing to believe "gullible" is not in the dictionary.

"Harold Camping, an 89-year-old retired civil engineer who has built a multi-million-dollar nonprofit ministry based on his apocalyptic prediction." (Associated Press)

[CliffordK (OP)]

You know, if they keep making a lot of these predictions, eventually somebody may actually get it right.

Right.
If the world doesn't end today.
We can still wait until 2012 and the end of the Mayan Calendar.

But, the end of the world won't come with the judgement of God, although it could feel like the wrath of God coming down upon us.

• Catastrophic Nuclear War is still a possibility, although it seems less likely that we'll have 2 "Superpowers" battling it out, but rather a very brief terrorist-like attack which will be much more localized.
• Encounter with a rogue planet/large asteroid.  Theia-2.  Possible, but this is a very rare phenomenon, especially on a scale that would cause a global catastrophe.
• Encounter with a Rogue Star.  The Milky Way appears to be quite dynamic, plus other galaxies are constantly being merged with the Milky Way.  However, there are no stars close to Earth, or on a Sun/Earth collision course in the near future.  One of the current puzzles in Astronomy is accounting for the spiral-arm structures in galaxies which could mean periodic jumps between arms with star-dense regions and low density regions.
• Ice Age.  Not really the fiery end, but still a possibility.  If you are looking at risk factors though, one might attribute, say 50% over the next 10,000 years which might be higher than other potential ends of the world.  It wouldn't truly be the end of the world, but it could be devastating to the global human population.
• Resource Depletion.  This would be gradual.  Predictions are that the Earth has coal and oil reserves of a few hundred years.  A few generations, then they will be gone.  We certainly would be in tough shape if the oil was shut off today.  This wouldn't be a "fire and ice" ending that one might expect from Armageddon, but the effects might be just as devastating.

[Geezer]

Well sheehit! I just spoke to Mrs G on the phone. She's in Scotland and, it was 11 pm there!

I'm going to demand a refund from Harold Camping.

[JimBob]

Hey, I  just got home. Did I miss something?

[CliffordK (OP)]

Perhaps it is all a question of faith...  And we've been following the wrong deity.

Perhaps we should make a golden calf and pray to the golden calf. 
Then if we're here tomorrow...  then we'll know that it was the golden calf statue that saved us 

[Bored chemist]

I don't want to worry anybody, but all my Satanist friends seem to have disappeared since early yesterday evening.

[grizelda]

If I had a dime for every time somebody cried "overpopulation" ... well, I'd still be bankrupt. Anyway, I tell everyone I meet that the Higg's particle will destroy the universe, and no one sends me any money. Life isn't fair.

[Geezer]

I don't want to worry anybody, but all my Satanist friends seem to have disappeared since early yesterday evening.

That explains it! I was wondering why this forum suddenly went so quiet.

[CliffordK (OP)]

Whew!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dodged another bullet.

I survived the Hale-Bopp comet.
I survived the Millennium.
I survived May 21, 2011.

No end of the world yet.

Now...  all I have to do is survive 2012, and then I'll be home free...   

Until the next Doomsday Prediction.   []

[Geezer]

They should have known better. Camping's church is a nonprophet.