22. "Calm yourself, Iago."

I'm not sure when it happened, but at some point in my adult life, I realized that intelligence is less a product of education, and more the learned and/or inherent ability to separate the bad information from the good. What is reasonable; what can be corroborated; and what takes one gander at the prospect of honest scrutiny and shrivels up like a salted slug.

Ew.

Throughout the ages, many have touted claims to knowledge about how things will unfold -- claims that any reasonable individual would recognize as improbable, if not outright impossible. A prime example of "bad information". The End of Days is a common theme for these predictions, and an ever-growing population of the religious and non-religious alike are tying this theme to a particular date. I like to think that anyone who may hop into this little closet-o-mine is far too intelligent to be lured in by this sort of (largely) internet-hysteria. But in the unlikelihood that you (or someone you know) may believe that 2012 will bring about the end of pot-smokers, monks, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Farscape reference, booya!), and Earth-ridden life as we know it, I give you NASA's official response to these heinous allegations.

"Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012... [This] story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012. Then these two fables were linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012 -- hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012... Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then -- just as your calendar begins again on January 1 -- another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar."