Cracked.com, in "The 6 Best 2012 Apocalypse Theories"
"You may have noticed a recent trend of trying to fit every hackneyed doomsday prophecy into the same red-letter year of 2012. The theories are obtuse, their connections are flimsy and the perceived consequences are completely unsubstantiated.
Unsurprisingly, these prophecies are enormously popular."
Whereupon they proceed to explain, and deliver a major New Age ass-whuppin' to, each and every one of them. It's kind of like having a set of 6 hippies thrown into a Wrestlemania cage match.
Which, by the way, I'd pay good money to see...
I love it! I'm often having debates with co-workers who drink this particular sort of Kool-aid. It doesn't help that the History Channel gives airtime to such nonsense, between their "documentaries" on ghosts, monsters, UFOs, TEOTWAWKI porn, and other mental junk food.
"As for the winter solstice thing, that's just when the Sun is at its greatest distance from Earth."
NO!!!!!!!!
No indeed. If that was the true explanation, why would summer in the Northern Hemisphere be winter in the Southern Hemisphere, and vice versa?
It's human nature to slip like this. We're more likely to be careless with our facts and thinking when we're mocking the foolishness of others.
The trade-off is well worth it in these pieces from CRACKED.COM. They're funny and instructive too. You only need to take them with a few grains of salt and they're good.
But that's why I prefer to have serious moral, technical and political discussions with a minimum of snark and rhetorical scalp-taking.