December 21

I guess it's too late to build an underground bunker or book passage to Pic de Bugarach to catch a departing flying saucer. But with my birthday the next day, I need to know.

Some believe the Mayan long count calendar, which "ends" December 21, 2012, predicts a twelveth planet named Niburu will collide with earth and destroy us all. Others predict an alignment of the sun, the earth, other planets and far off black holes, resulting in galactic cataclysm. Hollywood has already cashed in on the phenomenon with movies like 2012, Melancholia and Another Earth, to name a few.

Some people take this pretty seriously and have gone to great lengths to make their case in books and on the internet. Others do their best to debunk it all, and I mean all of it, like www.2012hoax.org.

Thank goodness for rational people like Neil Degrasse Tyson. A sense of humor helps.