Duh man - the major stress of the late 70's early 80's over population.

Old age?

The Tram?

The new Max line?

Mt. Adams awakens?

E coli?

There ya go -- overpopulation. Actually, that's still a bad one. Someone told me the other day that they've figured out that the ozone hole is caused by -- gulp -- agriculture. There are just too many dang people. It will be highly interesting when the "green, sustainable" people square off with the "reproductive rights" people over that one.

PGE Park MLS scam....

Political Parties

Death and taxes go hand in hand.

Government-run health care. At least according to the R's.

The solar system moves like a dolphin in a long orbit around the center of the galaxy that's supposed to take 226 million years.

One theory has it that when it crosses the galactic plane all hell breaks loose. Guess what it's about to cross in 2012?

I've read that it last did this 65 million years ago although the rate that this happens is in dispute. If you believe this stuff, then you already know that 65 million years ago a lot of heavy stuff went down.

Apparently the added gravity stresses and more crowded space leads to problems.

And by problems, I mean this will not be a blogging event.

But why sweat it? At least we won't have to worry about the national debt.

Bill, why didn't you tell me sooner? Now I'm feeling better about the convention center hotel.

Don't relax yet. If you think earthquake codes add to the cost of construction, wait 'til you see the asteroid codes.

You forgot the nuclear winter that was suppose to follow the nuclear war. There was global cooling before there was global warming/climate change.

However I think John is right, it will be the government healthcare. John was kidding, I'm not.

And to tie it all together, Mikhail Gorbachev is an honorary member of The Club of Rome.

Killer bees. Good christ, but those had me terrified as a child. I envisioned a future when leaving the house would be all but impossible.

Let's not forget trying to turn Portland intio Amsterdam. Would love to see how many of those fair weather bike riders are still out on the streets in December/January. My guess is about 30%.

Zombies. You forgot the zombies. They terrify me.

Asteroids? Don't they have routine surgery for that?

Iraq and Afghanistan.

We need more stuff to keep the voting population distracted from real issues like schools.

If you were a little older like me, you would have remembered Polio. We must take our naps and no running in the sprinklers, otherwise you could end up in an iron lung.

I think Y2K can be removed from the list.

However, you can replace it with Y2K38, which affects systems that store their time as the number of seconds since January 1, 1970 (UNIX Epoch) in a 32-bit signed integer.

It won't be some grand think like Y2K where everyone can count down to destruction of civilization with Dick Clark though, as this actually will happen at 03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, 19 January 2038 (Monday, January 18, 7:14:07p PST).

You're welcome!

Yeah, 2012 is the date set by:

The Mayans

Moore's Law, which predicts that the graph of the curve plotting the rate of change of information rises perpendicular to the x axis in 2012. It goes to ∞

Bill, if such a phenomenon was indeed in store for 2012, we would already be history, IMO. Stuff doesn't happen that fast.

Oh F! Moore's Law!

I don't see Right-Wing Conspiracies on your list!

Y2K38

That's for PCs - maybe Apple will have won out by then, and will save us all.

Well, judging by previous examples, leave the meteorites on the list, but take off Communism and Y2K and replace them with "hipsters and Daleks". Zombies are sooooo 2008.

Very seriously, anybody honestly believing the 2012 hype needs to have their heads examined, if only to make sure that there isn't something rattling around in all that vacuum. Yes, the Maya calendar is ending its current cycle soon, but the idea of time being a linear progression is a uniquely Western phenomenon. The Maya calendar was designed to be a cyclic chronology, and worrying about its end is like going into a panic because you're going to have to replace this year's Hello Kitty calendar with another. We're still in roughly the same place in the galaxy we've been for the last few million years, and we aren't coming up on any phenomena that might threaten our current place in Earth's fauna. In other words, you have a lot to worry about, but worrying about 2012 is just like freaking out over the Moronic Convergence in 1987.

Now, if you still want to panic, you have all sorts of lunatics who'll be glad to take you as an acolyte in hopes that you'll be taken aboard the evacuation saucers when the planet is blasted into asteroidal debris. Speaking from experience in these matters, I'd recommend going with a reasonably stable group of nutters, like the Seventh Day Adventists, for whom impending catastrophe has been their motto since the early 1800s. You don't want to get caught up in somebody like the Heaven's Gate crew, now do you?

The Japanese economic machine was supposed to swamp us in the 90s, as I recall. "Rising Sun," anyone? Now it's China.

"Outsourcing" was a scourge a couple of years ago, threatening to wipe out the American economy.

Illegal immigrants have been a popular topic used to generate Mrs. Lovejoy-level hysterics for years.

The metric system - I was raised within sight of Canada. But I don't understand Canada as well as Sarah Palin understands Russia, so perhaps my fear was unfounded.

Low-fiber diets no longer scare us, thanks to Colon Blow cereal.

"..are there any I should add"

Yes: Tax Increment Financing

Aliens
Jungle music
Rock 'n' Roll
Floride
"Weeds"
Bugs
Sitting too close to the TV
Pornography
Corvairs
Race wars
AIDS
Freon
Neutrons
Ebola & other hemorrhagic diseases
Asteroids
Radon
Volcanic cataclysms
Space junk
Cholesterol
UV rays
Low (but AMA's "normal") thyroid function
Cell phones
White sugar
Microwaves
PM 2.5
Religious fanaticism
National fanaticism
Economic fanaticsim
Any combination of those three
Flesh-eating bacteria
Video games
Exotic pests
Electromagnetic fields (EMFs)
Hormone therapy
Ultra Low-frequency (ULF) sound
Mad cow disease
Stress
Depression
Insurance companies
Road rage
MBTE
Vitamin D deficiencies (too much inside work & play)
Mercury poisoning
Information Overload
Nano pollution (internal & external)
Single-payer health care
Ennui.

CCD: Colony Collapse Disorder

This is the one that has all the bees dying and nothing left to pollinate any flowering plants. Pollinate every flower by hand or starve to death - your choice.

I am well aware of the cyclic nature of the Mayan calendar. Also Mayan history and their unfortunate reading of the cycle's meaning. They predicted to the day the landing of Cortez and welcomed him as a returning god. That was, to be mild. unfortunate.

Cortez even had a feather in his helmet, underscoring the expectation of the Plumed Serpent Quetzalcoatl, who was expected that day.

Cortez landed on Good Friday.

So be sure not to misread the signs.

"The prophetic calendars of the Maya are based on non-physical cycles. They are non-astronomical cycles based on the inherent creative energies of time itself. The Dreamspell/Thirteen Moon calendar is instead built around the particular astronomical cycle of our planet around the sun of 365.25 (at the current time 365.2422) days. The traditional Mayan calendar system is valid for the whole universe and goes back to the so-called Big Bang about 15 billion years ago when the universe was born and no solar systems with their particular cycles even existed. This is according to modern physicists and the Mayan calendar alike. Since the Traditional Mayan calendar is not limited to our own planet or solar system it is not subordinated to its particular astronomical cycles, such as the solar year. It reflects a cosmic process of creation, where our own particular solar system is just a small part. In fact, the Traditional Mayan calendar system would be equally valid on Mars or Venus or any other planet in the cosmos as it is on earth, despite the fact that the periods of revolution of these planets would be very different from ours. In this, it differs from all other calendars in the world that are geocentric and based on the parameters of our own particular planet.
It thus seems that the purpose of the Dreamspell and the Mayan calendar is very different. While the Dreamspell calendar aspires to present a new way of dividing the solar year into months, the traditional calendar describes an ongoing cosmic process of creation that has no interruptions. In technical terms the main differences between the two calendars are the ones summarized in points 1-4 above. These differences between the Dreamspell/Thirteen Moon and the Mayan calendar are too rarely pointed out and debated, with the consequence that it is not always easy for people, especially not for those new to Mayan calendrics, to make an informed choice about what calendar to choose. Yet, of course, what is important are not the technical differences, but the spiritual consequences. The Calendar of Quetzalcoatl needs to provide guidance for the path of humanity towards Enlightenment and in the upcoming turbulent times only such a calendar will serve humanity."
Source(s):
http://sundin.web.surftown.se/mayacal/content/articles/differences.htm

Good one dg!

Bee Genome Study Reveals "Cause" of Colony Collapse Disorder
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2009/2009-08-25-093.asp

Just thought of another one: antibiotic resistant microorganisms. You're better off staying out of the hospital even if you really need to go in.

This is fun...

coronal mass ejections

Ah, yes. Mortality. Just the thought of it.

In the natural (human nature) phase of things the deathly implications of our liveliness occurs (to mind) by turns, in bouts, at ages 28, 56, & 84. The chronicles of Saturn, (aka Father Time, aka Chronos); saturnine bouts, or 'life lessons' lasting a week or a month or a year (more or less), preoccupying our personal conscious thoughts, (communications, dreams), fleetingly or forcefully, depending on 1) the configured sway of planets stirring the fatalistic air of our personal first breath on Earth, 2) the mental conduct and propensities of the mind doing the conscious thinking, ('not all God's children got rhythm'), and/or 3) what's in the News remarked that week, month, year.

As opposed to growing up wising slowest (by the auspices of Saturn: the farthest and therefor slowest planet seen with natural and naked eye), the other sort of humankind obeys the maturation of the Moon, (nearest, fastest moving celestial signal, aka Luna, aka Selene), living in the fashion of the moment's opportunity, precocious ones of the sort who get the worms or manna, early, facile, gravitating tidal ones who self-reflect 'the meaning of it all' by turns, in bouts, at ages 29, 58, & 87.

(So performing Arts sometimes designates life's 3 stages: thesis - antithesis - synthesis.)

The rest of us array in ways between the slow and fast extremes. Some days we eat the bear. Some days the bear eats us. Depending on the shifting signifiers in between our Saturn and our Moon, patterned in proportional harmonies and discords.

Not all us fruits on the tree of life ripen the same day. Our time is set by busy pollinating bees (and bugs), in the situation when we 'give it up' to them which take our profound vital essence then digested into honey.

Generally speaking, in the natural order of things, from our cradle we foresee our grave brought in focus by the forces concentrated in the human gene pool around ages 28, 56, & 84, plus or minus individually ... if we live that long, barring unforeseen circumstances, accidents, good lord willing and the creek don't rise.

I understand you're in year 56, Jack, right on time keeping rhythm in the Chronicles of Blog. So this may concern you.

Commenting on your list of several lethalities, some might hear me say, "in the face of all aridity ... Give up!" You are a fluke of the Universe / You have no right to be here / And whether you can hear it or not / The Universe is laughing behind your back.
( -- lyrics.wikia.com/lyrics/National_Lampoon:Deteriorata )

Serving segue to my larger lasting Deep Thought of this day. In our days. Derived thusly:

How much despair can you, one person bear? If enough calamity might come to mind, and information reached you which touched your very soul and compressed your will to live with some force of situation gravity into a black hole of oblivion inside yourself ..., if you witnessed your whole family -- ancestors, friends, spouse and descendants maimed and raped and murdered and your home and occupation desolated right before your eyes -- could you get mentally deranged enough ("facing all aridity"), to give up?

What if all such tragic things occurred to you to know, and you learned of them while you were high on psychoactive drugs deforming your perceptions? And what if you had not slept and dreamed, for a week or month or year, and in the meantime had been naked and humiliated publicly, in camera, and while being waterboarded, choked, perversely pained into the loss of consciousness, repeatedly, up to the morning you are driven in a vehicle, the door confining opens, and voices shout, "Now, quick! Your freedom is inside that mosque you see in front of you. Go there. Now!"
Would you pause to think about the 2-pound belt around your burnoose before running to the light? Kerblooey! Radio remote-control detonation and explosion. Who you gonna tell when you are so relieved and blown to bits?

So is made the 'mind' of suicide bombers. One hour out of Abu Ghraib.

Where all these things have happened and go on. Rendered extra ordinary.

The CIA has always coveted control within the mind. Google: MKULTRA; and see: Manchurian Candidate -- notice both began in 1954. And go on.

What? You thought moslems all were suicidal? less than human? without will to live? Be careful little minds what you think. Don't go beaming in your pastimes under radio control with all your thoughts supplied by voices shouting. "Run! Run for your lives! Gun! Gun for your freedom! Fun! Fun for all ... and oil!" But:

We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology
What might save us me and you
Is that the Russians love their children too

I'm sure every 'enemy' loves their children, too. Love will abide.
Not suicide.

* microwaves

* electromagnetic currents from power lines ("Currents of Death" says Paul Brodeur)

* gene drift from genetic engineering

* Teletubbies & The Gay Agenda

* Secular Humanism

* Darwinism

* Spontaneous human combustion

* Satanism/ritual child sacrifices (usu. in day care centers)

* Day-care-reared children

Moore's Law is often quoted completely incorrectly, as it is in this thread.

Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel with Andy Grove, stated that the number of transistors in microprocessors will double every 18 months.

He has yet to be wrong.

However, that law says nothing about growth of information, growth of computing power, etc.; though those are usually a function of the transistor density of a microprocessor. It's important to know that those functions do not scale in a 1:1 ratio to the number of transistors.

People who quote Ayn Rand.

I am in complete awe of the people that post here. Of course I believe everything I read (and Bill McDonald scares me)but y'all are some real intelligent people.: )

As a fairly famous relative of mine once said,"There is nothing more dangerous than someone with a strongly held opinion"

Urban renewal.

Fear capitalism.

Its inflated price of living puts you out of the market.