Apocalypse Insurance

mothernaturenetwork: CDC denies rumors of zombie apocalypseWith...

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 15:45:07 -0700

CDC denies rumors of zombie apocalypse
With reports of flesh-eating coming in from across the nation, rumors of a zombie outbreak are spreading on the Internet.

But can the CDC be trusted?

Covering the Apocalypse (via On The Media)

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:14:15 -0800

Covering the Apocalypse (via On The Media):

At a recent journalism pow-wow, the role of journalists in two apocalyptic scenarios — global pandemic and alien invasion — were discussed with funny and useful results.

Very interesting discussion here.

American Stonehenge: Monumental Instructions for the Post-Apocalypse

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 20:42:09 -0700

American Stonehenge: Monumental Instructions for the Post-Apocalypse:

spytap:

This has fascinated me for years. I’d like to see it some day.

Top 20 Ways the World Might End

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:08:17 -0700

Top 20 Ways the World Might End:

There are plenty of theories about how the world might end, but most have one thing in common: The ending.

No matter how the death knell occurs, the world as we know it will cease to exist someday. Either the planet will become unable to sustain life (possibly all life, possibly just current life) or our civilization will break down, leaving those humans who manage to survive limping along, less civilized than ever.

"Corporations are getting better and better at seducing us into thinking the way they think — of..."

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 10:56:21 -0700

“

Corporations are getting better and better at seducing us into thinking the way they think — of profits as the telos and responsibility as something to be enshrined in symbol and evaded in reality. Cleverness as opposed to wisdom. Wanting and having instead of thinking and making. We cannot stop it.

I suspect what’ll happen is that there will be some sort of disaster—depression, hyperinflation—and then it’ll be showtime: We’ll either wake up and retake our freedom or we’ll fall apart utterly. Like Rome — conqueror of its own people.

”

- David Foster Wallace, The Pale King (via nevver)

"Not much can replace the singular importance one feels from living in the end times. Perhaps that’s..."

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 13:07:59 -0700

“Not much can replace the singular importance one feels from living in the end times. Perhaps that’s why the end is always upon us.”

- Darren Fleet, “How To Negotiate The End Times” (via Adbusters)

Adbusters is a level-headed buzzkill when it comes to the impending apocalypse. So many quotable things in this article, so please go ahead and read it.

(via xkcd)

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 12:01:33 -0700

(via xkcd)

Is February "women-hating" month?

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 13:46:00 -0800

Is February "women-hating" month? :

headphonesnotrequired:

motherjones:

A Georgia bill would outlaw ALL abortion and any action that could possibly cause miscarriage.

I try to be mindful of my dystopian literary comparisons, because sometimes references to 1984 are overused, but if this isn’t foreshadowing for The Handmaid’s Tale, then what the fuck is it?

And this, friends, is what we mean by the apocalypse: futures like those we read about in our favorite dystopian novels.

thedeadline: “Save as many as you can.” Consider this...

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 11:49:00 -0800

thedeadline:

“Save as many as you can.”

Consider this training. If you survive, submit your stories and your pics.

How To Communicate if Your Government Shuts Off Your Internet (via Wired)

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:17:00 -0800

How To Communicate if Your Government Shuts Off Your Internet (via Wired):

While we’re seeing this article because of the situation over in Egypt right now, it seems prudent to start thinking about these things elsewhere as well, especially in the post-apocalyptic future we envision.

"If Comcast can destroy Net Neutrality, it can offer “tiered service” and make decisions about your..."

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 09:51:00 -0800

“If Comcast can destroy Net Neutrality, it can offer “tiered service” and make decisions about your access to the Internet, decisions that are completely separate from infrastructure limitations or bandwidth shaping. They want to do this because poor people simply aren’t paying enough money for the Internet. By any standard, the Internet has been made indispensable to poor people. They don’t always have the money for expensive desktops and LCD screens, but they do need the Internet to look for a job, address legal and financial problems, and to communicate with their families and communities in meaningful ways. But they simply are’t paying enough for the service. Comcast knows poor people have money for other things, Comcast can see poor people giving money to companies and entities that aren’t Comcast, and that enrages Comcast.”

- Net Neutrality, Keith Olbermann, and the Limits of Schadenfreude (via garlandgrey)

Relevant. Later on in the piece, Garland also adds:

Do you see how I can make a distinction between supporting a cause Olbermann supported and my full unrepentant condemnation of what Olbermann did while reporting on Assange? Do you see how I am actually able to despise and work against the creeping fascism of the corporate state and not forget that when society breaks down, women will be among the more vulnerable members of society, and thus must fight against rape culture and class warfare and the kudzu that is the surveillance arm of the United States Government in order to protect themselves? Do you know what it is like to mentally plan for the Apocalypse and know that your body will be turned into a commodity if you are captured by men looting the countryside? If you still think any of this was about a vendetta, or grandstanding, or the rage of marginalized groups who aren’t sophisticated enough to be sensitive to the political climate? If you honestly think we don’t know the ways in which the state is closing in order to effect an ersatz order where the least among us are required to be profitable in order to live? I mean Jesus, corporations have started taking out life insurance policies on their employees to make money off their deaths and offset the cost of replacing them. If you think that doesn’t make alarm bells go off in our heads, we who have read the dystopias and the post-apocalyptic fiction and know that all of the advances we’ve made could evaporate in a moment? You need to phase yourself out of the conversation.

Photo

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 16:14:36 -0800

volcanoes: Some lady approached me to ask if I’d heard about...

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 14:18:41 -0800

volcanoes:

Some lady approached me to ask if I’d heard about Judgment Day. Hell yes I’ve heard about Judgment Day, lady, but you’ve got it all wrong. According to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the date will be April 19 and it’s not God doing the world-ending, it’s the machines. Get it right.

Two Suns? Twin Stars Could Be Visible From Earth By 2012

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 19:24:45 -0800

the-madame-hatter:

corruptpolitics:

Earth could be getting a second sun, at least temporarily.

Dr. Brad Carter, Senior Lecturer of Physics at the University of Southern Queensland, outlined the scenario to news.com.au. Betelgeuse, one of the night sky’s brightest stars, is losing mass, indicating it is collapsing. It could run out of fuel and go super-nova at any time.

When that happens, for at least a few weeks, we’d see a second sun, Carter says. There may also be no night during that timeframe.

The Star Wars-esque scenario could happen by 2012, Carter says… or it could take longer. The explosion could also cause a neutron star or result in the formation of a black hole 1300 light years from Earth, reports news.com.au.

But doomsday sayers should be careful about speculation on this one. If the star does go super-nova, Earth will be showered with harmless particles, according to Carter. “They will flood through the Earth and bizarrely enough, even though the supernova we see visually will light up the night sky, 99 per cent of the energy in the supernova is released in these particles that will come through our bodies and through the Earth with absolutely no harm whatsoever,” he told news.com.au.

In fact, a neutrino shower could be beneficial to Earth. According to Carter this “star stuff” makes up the universe. “It literally makes things like gold, silver - all the heavy elements - even things like uranium….a star like Betelgeuse is instantly forming for us all sorts of heavy elements and atoms that our own Earth and our own bodies have from long past supernovi,” said Carter.

Is this real life?

Make of this news what you will.

While this is definitely NOT a blog about the Zombie Apocalypse,...

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 20:03:00 -0800

While this is definitely NOT a blog about the Zombie Apocalypse, this would ring true for plenty of people if you just took out the word “zombie.”

"Remember when you were all laughing at us for wearing skinny jeans, only to be reading about them in..."

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 09:01:49 -0800

“Remember when you were all laughing at us for wearing skinny jeans, only to be reading about them in the pages of Vogue the following year? Remember when the same thing happened with leggings, bangs and listening to Arcade Fire? Well this is like that, only with more fire and damnation.”

- Welcome to the Hipocalypse | The Awl

Rings oddly true for some reason…

(via misanthropologie)

U.S Bumble bee Population Implodes, Drops 96%

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 05:40:30 -0800

U.S Bumble bee Population Implodes, Drops 96%:

Colony collapse disorder has decimated honey bee populations. Now a census of bumble bees shows a 96% population collapse of 4 major U.S. species of bumble bees.

azspot: A Is for Armageddon: 12 Ways to Destroy the Planet

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 18:03:32 -0800

azspot:

A Is for Armageddon: 12 Ways to Destroy the Planet

"Every day, there’s news about our financial system or the environment collapsing or stories..."

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 14:55:05 -0800

“Every day, there’s news about our financial system or the environment collapsing or stories about nuclear proliferation […] We’re living under this black cloud of doom — everything’s spiraling out of control. The record is about all that […] We’re looking at Endgame from the perspective of, ‘What if this is a good thing? What if this grotesque world we created doesn’t deserve to go on? What if the place on the other of this transition is place we’d all rather be living in?’”

- Tim McIlrath of Rise Against on their new record, aptly titled Endgame

I suppose Rise Against could join our motley crew of musicians providing us with entertainment after the apocalypse.

You want statistics in order to make an informed decision on...

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 13:10:41 -0800

You want statistics in order to make an informed decision on whether or not to invest in Apocalypse Insurance? Then I have the chart for you!

Power consumption, temperature, endangered species, people killed by natural disasters (!), and earthquakes all increased in 2010 compared to 2000.