Humanity Insists on Disappointing Me

Last week, NASA found water on the moon. Not the trace amounts they had noticed before, but gallons of water. This is revolutionary! This single discovery could advance science, and have unforeseen effects on humanity's ability to travel outside of our atmosphere.

But what did NASA scientists have to waste their time on last week, instead of devoting further study to something that could have a monumental impact on our entire planet? Assuaging the fears of people who firmly believe that the world is going to end on December 21, 2012.

As part of the promotion for the recently released fictional (repeat FICTIONAL) film 2012, websites were set up touting the theory that the world's demise was predicted by the Mayans to occur on December 21, 2012. These sites joined others already in existence, making similar claims.

Here's the problem. The Mayans did not (repeat NOT) predict the end of the world. Nowhere on the Mayan calendar does it ever mention anything resembling a worldwide apocalypse; and the idea that it does arrived in the 1960s (centuries after the Mayans' demise) through a horrible mistranslation perpetrated by someone who clearly didn't know any better.

Despite this, the idea that the Mayans accurately foresaw our doom in little over three years has persisted, helped by a large viral campaign for the film and plenty of crackpots. This campaign included internet sites that feature "scientific" articles defending theories and bringing forward "evidence" of the world's end, and even a site where one could join a lottery that promises one the chance of surviving the oncoming cataclysm.

Sadly, there are lot of people who believe all of this nonsense. Enough people, that NASA scientists finally had to start publicly responding to the worried letters and even threats they've received in recent weeks (one person even wrote NASA to inform them that he planned to take both his own and HIS CHILDREN'S lives before 2012 to save them from whatever he thinks is coming). So, NASA has started addressing each of the various paranoid fears for the world's end, while also assuring the general public that they are not part of a massive government cover-up.

To sum up, NASA, after finding something that could have an impact for years to come, has had to waste time, money, and effort to assure STUPID people (my sister says the correct word is gullible, but I'm sticking with STUPID) that they will not be forced to survive some geothermal, magnetic, dark matter, cosmic energy-caused crisis in three years.

Oh, and the film made over 60 million. Really people, how dumb can you get?