I often make this point when apocalypse soon threads present themselves. It's an academic exercise perhaps, but I think it's
an important one to make. Some people take almost orgiastic glee at the prospect of such huge, horrible things
happening. They all huddle together and excite each other with, "Ooooh, it's all gonna go down in terrible fashion
and then we get to rebuild" celebrations. The same thing happened during the whole Y2K thing, the same thing happened
(here locally) when we went through a cluster of earthquakes a number of years ago (people on message boards assured
each other the end was near and happily, almost enthusiastically prepared for it). The same thing happens here ...
there must be five different apocalypse soon themes that have cropped up here, with many of the same participants,
over the last few years. When such claims are challenged, the participants angrily fight back, as if their dreams of
utter destruction are being threatened.

Y2K came and went, we survived ... the cluster of earthquakes led to the greatest period of seismic inactivity in the
region in years ... and almost all of the scenarios we've stressed about have never come to pass. Now absolutely, one
of them may, and then like the hypochondriac who dies we can write on our tomb, "I told you I was sick".

You folk may get pumped up at such dire scenarios, but there are many people reading this board who are clinically
depressed. I was trying to make the point to y'all, that those people would read this thread having those thoughts.
You have responded with your own reasons, but those are the reasons of people who are not clinically depressed. That's
why I make the points I do. Should you not say these things? Of course you should, if you think them. But not everyone
sees a huge disaster as this exciting challenge. They don't necessarily make the associations you do that we'll get
through it. They see only the end.

This is why I make the point -- we will get through it, we will survive, we will prevail. Bush and Co. will be brought
to justice, if only by the hatred of history. And all those countries rubbing their hands together with glee at the
prospect of our utter destruction just may see us come back even bigger, even better. And the Anglo Aristocracy to blame
for our destruction (the Neocons and their brothers in the Henry Jackson Society in the UK and elsewhere ... poor Scoop
has had his name appropriated as camouflage, nothing more) may well find millions of deeply pissed off Americans, once
the young people figure out what has happened to us over the last forty years. Then I feel sorry for the innocents who
will be in the way of their rage, but such is the way of history.

I was just dotting the i's and crossing the t's that weren't being made in your posts. Not everyone goes from challenge to
solution. A lot of people see only the end. I don't think any of us want to trigger somebody's suicide, simply because
we're celebrating the opportunities of the apocalypse. lol

That is all ... I'll hesh now.