This is the day the world ends?

Might as well end – no ice hockey this year.

This morning I got up and someone called me, and they said that they had tried to call a few minutes before and my PHONE DIDN’T WORK! I mean, it worked the second time, but it didn’t work the first time. I think that means something. I think I read on a blog about an article written by a guy who talked to a professor who knows someone who was at the ACTUAL Mayan ruins, and I think he said that intermittent phone service is how the apocalypse begins.

Anyway, I’m not taking any chances. It’s the bunker for me.

Grover Norquist giving in isn’t so much a surprise seeing as it’s tied to the reality that when push comes to shove on government spending Republicans are usually just as eager as their Democrat allies to push and shove the average American into the muck and mire.

Today certainly must be the end of the world. Dan Kempin is funnier than SKPeterson.

End of the world? Hmmm. Only if the semantic field of “world” is co-extensive with the pernicious rise in my taxes through government bumbling, stumbling, and gridlock while simultaneously eviscerating my 401k.

This Christmas is an especially GOOD time to be a Lutheran (Go Missouri).

1. A mighty fortress is our God,
a bulwark never failing;
our helper he amid the flood
of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe
doth seek to work us woe;
his craft and power are great,
and armed with cruel hate,
on earth is not his equal.

2. Did we in our own strength confide,
our striving would be losing,
were not the right man on our side,
the man of God’s own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is he;
Lord Sabaoth, his name,
from age to age the same,
and he must win the battle.

3. And though this world, with devils filled,
should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God hath willed
his truth to triumph through us.
The Prince of Darkness grim,
we tremble not for him;
his rage we can endure,
for lo, his doom is sure;
one little word shall fell him.

4. That word above all earthly powers,
no thanks to them, abideth;
the Spirit and the gifts are ours,
thru him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go,
this mortal life also;
the body they may kill;
God’s truth abideth still;
his kingdom is forever.

Today we see if the Mayans were right.

This whole thing is entirely non-Mayan:

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/mayan-end-of-world-prophesy-no-just-end-of-era-mayans-say/

Tom @ 4 – I did forget to wish you and yours a blessed end to Advent, and a hearty Joyeux Noel. Which goes for one and all!

How does it go? E’en so, Come Lord Jesus. Amen.

No fanfare here in Salt Lake? I was expecting Moroni trumpets as my alarm this morning!? Lazy idiot Mayan calandar makers!! Jeeez, I’m disappointed!

Update from Michigan:

I peeked out of my bunker (to get wifi so that I could check in with the Cranach blog), and a squirrel stopped to look at me for a moment. A BLACK squirrel. Now I don’t know the best way to describe this, but the squirrel’s look had MEANING. It was as if the squirrel could sense some sort of impending disaster, but at the same time had a sense of peace about it. Squirrel faces can be surprisingly expressive.

Anyway, the squirrels are definitely sensing something. Back to the bunker.

Thanks SK. May you and yours, Dr. Veith, and all here be blessed with a joyous Christmas!

That may have looked like a squirrel, Dan, but I’ll bet it was an alien scout. Stand outside if you want to catch a ride with the rest of us.

My power went out.

Tom,

You’re just saying that because you are a cat. (A BLACK cat!) Everyone knows that cats have no sense of the apocalypse.

I seen a video this morning of Rick Warren, in full poundage, promoting diet and exercise.

Yep it is coming to an end. Or should.

Okay, this is getting freaky. I came out of my bunker again because I remembered it was garbage day, and I noticed that the wind was really picking up here. As I listened to the sound of the wind through the trees, I could swear that I heard the word “Xibalba.” Ok, just wait. I looked it up*, and “Xibabla” is the Mayan word for “PLACE OF FEAR!”

I strongly recommend that if you are at work, you leave now. I’m going back underground.

*http://mayan-calendar.org/mayan-language/mayan-dictionary.html

Ugh.. strained my back planting a tree.

I just checked out the patheos blog path for Cranach and this is the only current post on the site. See here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/

Everything else is from 2008! And none of these thread comments are displayed! Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

And the post itself has been severely edited. Could just be a test run, but I doubt it, as the Cranach banner now appears in the Evangelical section of the blog menu.

Unlike the predictions of a Mayan apocalypse, my prediction (in another thread) was correct. The wacko-in-chief of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, blamed killings like those in Newtown on media, music, and videos – on everything, on anything, but the easy availability of guns and ammo. Conciliatory? Not in the least. LaPierre’s answer to the problem of shootings is shootouts – putting armed police in every school. And he said we should spend whatever it takes to do it, but it shouldn’t require massive spending.

Tom @ 19 – I heard that too.

So, there is about 100 000 public schools in the US (lets ignore private ones). So, 2 guards minimum per school. But in very school district you’d need 1 or 2 extra’s, to fill in for sick guards / people on leave etc. So lets make that “2.2″ guards per school. Or, 220 000 guards. And lets put their average salary at $30 000 p/a (not unreasonable, close to the current median). Also, the system is going to need administrators, overseers, trainers etc. So lets add another 15000 people, with an average salary of $40 000.

So, just in annual salaries, this will cost about 7.2 billion a year. Then you have to add weapons, ammunition, uniforms, transport, etc etc. Ah, but this means some gun & ammo manufacturer, aligned with the NRA, will make a fat amount of money. Off the taxpayer. So, once again, the solution to any problem plays into the hands of the military-industrial complex….

Hmmmm

Tom @ 19,

Tell me the last time somebody walked into a police station, a gun store, or a hunting/shooting club and started opening fire.

One must be subjected to a background check in order to get guns and ammo, and the fact that people like you hold the rest of us gun owners suspect because of a few loons is disappointing. Police have guns and ammo available to them, yet you don’t see them shooting places up (and btw, I’ve met more than a few cops who have struck me as less than mentally stable at times, so don’t give me the “oh-cops-are-above-all-that” line).

How about blaming BAD PEOPLE instead of guns? How about faulting people instead of inanimate objects? Why are guns the only things ever blamed? Nobody blames cars for car accidents, or baseball bats for bludgeon-related deaths, or knives for stabbings, yet whenever there’s a shooting, the gun just magically jumps off the counter, loads and chambers itself, and goes on a killing spree.

I take it personally and with hostility whenever people lump all guns and gun owners in with this wacko who shot up kids. It’s intellectually lazy and stereotyping to put all civilians on the same level with regard to this (kinda like saying all politically liberal people are pro-choice, gay-loving, socialist-worshipping, Obamabots, right Tom?)

J. Dean @ 22, so your theory, and LaPierre’s theory, and the theory of everyone else who blames gun-free zones, is that school killings happen because no one is armed. Where’s your evidence that a lack of guns is why mass killers target schools? Or, to put it another way, that mass killers specifically choose targets where they won’t get shot – when in every example they know of, the mass killer has indeed been shot, or ended up shooting himself? Your theory, your answer to the problem, is premised on the false assumption that mass killers don’t want to die, so they won’t attack schools with armed guards. Or that they won’t be able to do any/much damage if armed guards are present. I guess these mass killers, who are obviously smart enough (regardless of their insanity) to plan and carry out attacks against gun-free zones, won’t be smart enough to plan and carry out attacks that take armed guards into account. Yeah, right.

Besides, the gun rights people have made sure that the sort of guns and ammo that mass killers need to defeat armed guards are easily available.

I want a T-shirt that says I survived the end of the world X number of times. But I lost count long ago.

It’s clearly the end of the world. Someone might argue that because the Mayans couldn’t even invent the wheel (or for that matter preventing their own demise) their scientific dating acumen could be questioned. I say, balderdash. They just had better priorities, like fortelling the world’s end so they could be immortalized in 21st century pop-culture, like cheesy end of the world high budget flicks.

off thread-
Un-justly imprisoned MARINE to be released-Yeeha!
http://carolmsblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/jon-hammer-marine-un-justly-imprisoned.html
C-CS

AMEN to Dennis McFadden @5. And I’m giving him a high five!
Words of comfort and stability in the old hymn. Merry Christmas Everyone!

If I don’t get to say goodbye before Christmas (or the world ends), Merry Christmas everyone on the Cranach Forum!

The local NPR station asked me what I would want the state legislature to do, to stop massacres.
I told them, “Make care for the mentally ill available and affordable.”

I don’t think I’ll get quoted.

That does not mean that I think every ill person is dangerous any more than I think every gun owner is dangerous. (Although I might wonder a little about PTM?) KIDDING! I hope.

We’ve still got a fourth Advent candle left, all you eager people.

I’ll start celebrating Christmas on Monday… (although I think I’ve had all my presents, because they came unwrapped in UPS (perishable) pkgs and Amazon envelopes (totally unexpected).

No Mayan end of the world, but in a related event, Traitorobama nominated Traitorkerry for Secretary of State.

Ha, check it out, this was one of the first few posts on the Patheos version: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2008/06/new-date-for-the-end-times/

Why is this so all important to those who know that no knows when Christ will return?

Then adding, all the jokes about gifts Christs birth, and everything about Christmas. It was established LONG AGO, that no knew the time Jesus Christ was born -

J. Dean asked (@22):

Tell me the last time somebody walked into a police station, a gun store, or a hunting/shooting club and started opening fire.

Well, some truly lazy Googling suggests that the answer is about a month ago, maybe. But one can easily find other instances of shootings in or outside a police department.

And most of the Google results about people opening fire at a gun show involve people accidentally shooting themselves or others. Apparently that happens a lot.

It’s the 22nd. Thank God we’ll never again have to listen to any end-of-the-world nonsense about the Mayans and December 21st, 2012.

Oh, and Dan, you can come out now.

Tom @37:

We may not be out of the woods yet (with the Mayans):

“A recent Reuters poll found that one in seven people around the world think that the world will come to an end during their lifetimes, and that 10 percent believe it could happen in 2012 as predicted by the Mayan calendar.

If this is their fear, they should sit comfortable in knowing that the Mayan calendar accounts for many, many years to come.”

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/12/as-everyone-knows-by-now.html

You mean we may not be out of the jungle yet. Doomsday promoters are pretty good at coming up with reasons why the end didn’t happen, and resetting the date for the following year. Plus the people involved in guiding tours to, and holding ceremonies at, the various sacred sites around the world aren’t about to let the pilgrimage dollars stop. Plus there’s still a market out there for hundreds of more books about the coming of a new age. Stay tuned (in).

“Stay tuned (in).” No, thank you. Matthew 24.

Yes, that’s probably wisest.

Thanks for the all clear, Tom.

After spending all of Friday in my specialized improvised bunker composed of couch cushions and bean bag chairs, I emerged to answer a knock at the door, which turned out to be a couple of Jehova’s Witnesses. I was still confused by the existence of the world, so I kept the conversation brief, but after they left it all fell into place.

Here’s what I think happened:

The end of the world DID come, only it came . . . secretly!

No, really, that explains everything. The world DID end on Friday, but in a way that only a few people knew about–well, and squirrels too, apparently–but the rest of the people are just going on without even knowing. (I know, right? It’s like a gigantic version of “The Sixth Sense!)

Of course, I haven’t worked out what it all means, but at least it is a relief to know that my preparations were not wasted.

There is a sinful fallen world all about us. They believe in god’s that don’t exist. They are lost souls.

Rather then make up ‘disgusting mindless stories about them, why don’t you pray for those who are lost ? – those who don’t believe, have no faith, in our living LORD Jesus Christ.

It’s a sad world we live in, the LORD Jesus told us to preach the Gospel, HE didn’t tell us to make jokes of the lost, and ridicule their egnorance.

My post above @44, should have read:

“It’s a sad world we live in, the LORD Jesus told us to preach the Gospel, HE didn’t tell us to make jokes of the lost, and ridicule their ignorance.

Grace, we’re always happy to provide you with an opportunity to prove you’re a better Christian than we are. Happy holidays to you anyways.

Gladelig Jul

Froeliche Weinachten!

Blessed Christmas all y’all!

Responding to home fires in the town of Webster, NY today, two firefighters have been killed, and two have been wounded, by an unidentified sniper. The NRA is expected* to hold a news conference calling for armed guards in every American neighborhood.

*By me.