Hurtling Toward the Apocalypse

(Here we are just one more full weekend away from Christmas, and we as a nation have just endured the most gut-wrenching weekend in many years.  But, as they say, life goes on, so we're going to attempt at this time to shoulder our way to the front of our emotions and get back to as near as normal as possible.  On a personal note, my steady march toward infirmity was aided this last week with the extraction of 4 of my teeth.  Three of them had broken off at some point or another, and the fourth one was cracked and painful.  Now I'm in the midst of my retirement I no longer have dental insurance, so I've informed the family that Christmas will be a bit tight this year.  This news was met with stony silence.  Oh well, at least the pain meds were good.  The weather report for western Oregon and Lane County this morning calls for lowering freezing levels for the rest of the day, with the snow level to reach 500 feet tomorrow morning.  That should put those of us up here in the hills at about 6 inches of white stuff.  I'll be stocking the larder with wood stove pellets and brandy today.  Batten the hatches!  But I digress ...)

• If you depend on the Mayan calendar and not the one with the cute pictures of dogs hanging on your refrigerator, you're probably aware that the apocalypse is scheduled for this coming Friday.  So what's this apocalypse going to be like?  Zombies?  Cataclysmic earthquakes, floods, hurricanes?  Meteors?  Christian Raptures?  Mark Morford says we have it all wrong.  He also says it's not going to be some sort of New Age Grand Awakening.  "Bad news, Marin county: We are not on the cusp of some sort of collective consciousness shift, whereby those who are already vibrating at some higher-pitched thrum are somehow 'ready' to transcend this ugly plane and plop over into another happier, shinier dimension with better coffee and longer orgasms, and then sigh a patronizing sigh back at the rest of us because they were 'enlightened' enough to have the right kind of crystals and the right meditation apps on their iPhone." Read more.
• Word on the street this morning is that President Obama has decided to nominate Senator John Kerry as Secretary of State to replace Hillary Clinton, who is stepping down.  We think it's a good choice.  Kerry has come a long way since he was a Vietnam War protester in the early 70's.
• Here's a depressing statistic: Approximately 700 homeless people die every year due to exposure to the elements.  The solution, one would think, is simple.  If you're homeless and the weather is life threatening, get yourself to a shelter.  But there's apparently a problem with that.  Here's 10 reasons Why Homeless People Sleep in the Cold - and Die, by Piper Hoffman.
• Former Governor, current FOX commentator, and creepy Jesus-Freak Mike Huckabee said of the recent news:   "We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?"  But somehow Mike received a sign from his aforementioned God, and now he's trying to back-pedal on that ridiculous remark.  Read more.
• The Pulitzer Prize-winning falsehood fact-checkers over at PolitiFact.com put their famed Truth-O-Meter™ to work to root out the biggest untruths of the year, and invited its readers to weigh in.  So what was the biggest political lie of 2012?  We were rooting for our favorite big fat liar Rush Limbaugh, who said "Obamacare is the biggest tax increase in the history of the world."  But alas, he only came close.  So here's the winner.