Dire Predictions 2007! John Townley AstroCocktail Last December, our "Dire Predictions 2006" pinned the meters, as an unexpected flood came to find out what was expected. This year's harvest of frightening futures is even more outlandish than the last, as reality has made future-casters stretch the envelope just to surpass the current news. Since chaos, madness, and a world spinning into reckless destruction have become dinnertime TV, the urge to descry something even more compelling has propelled predictions to new levels of intensity. Almost every linked end-of-the-world forecast below has a harvest of other links, ad infinitum, so even if you live in a parallel universe, it's likely that one's about to end, too. The cornucopia of coming catastrophes falls into four rough categories: Old Themes For The New Age. Armageddon is still definitely scheduled for 2007, in the Middle East of course, though that just seems so yesterday - or, in real terms, today, because it appears to be already happening. But despite some traditional end-of-the-worlders getting a thumpin' at the ballot box, there are still plenty of Biblically-proportioned endings on the table... New Themes From The Old Age. But maybe that's also why someone so traditional as Mel Gibson has brought us not an Easter update but Apocalypto instead. The Mayans predicted the end of the world for 2012, but they managed it for themselves centuries earlier. For them, it's come and gone, so maybe they know something we don't. But then, it's so hip to be already history there's a gamesite about it... Deadly Databases. Since the end of the world is more popular than ever, it gets more analysis than ever. From ticking doomsday clocks to laying endgame bets, a good dose of discussion may throw light (or darkness, as may be) on the matter. You needn't consult fringe fortunetellers, either, when hard science is chock full of doom, from killer asteroids to the Sixth Great Extinction... (that's us!)... Unique Perspectives. There are still individual entrepreneurs who, like Nostradamus, seek to trump them all. Why reduce yourself to simple surveys, traditional terrors, or fallible fads when you can tune into personal disaster dreams, perhaps vote for your favorite, or even take charge and publish your own revelation... Ultimately, when you know the end is near, it's time to have fun with it. Last year we picked the K-rave party in Toronto, but for this New Year's Eve we say with terminal conviction: radio fans especially, get yourself to Chicago...

Flashback: Wanted: man to land on killer asteroid and gently nudge it from path to Earth David Adam Friday November 17, 2006 The Guardian It is the stuff of nightmares and, until now, Hollywood thrillers. A huge asteroid is on a catastrophic collision course with Earth and mankind is poised to go the way of the dinosaurs. To save the day, Nasa now plans to go where only Bruce Willis has gone before. The US space agency is drawing up plans to land an astronaut on an asteroid hurtling through space at more than 30,000 mph. It wants to know whether humans could master techniques needed to deflect such a doomsday object when it is eventually identified. The proposals are at an early stage, and a spacecraft needed just to send an astronaut that far into space exists only on the drawing board, but they are deadly serious. A smallish asteroid called Apophis has already been identified as a possible threat to Earth in 2036. Chris McKay of the Nasa Johnson Space Centre in Houston told the website Space.com: "There's a lot of public resonance with the notion that Nasa ought to be doing something about killer asteroids ... to be able to send serious equipment to an asteroid. "The public wants us to have mastered the problem of dealing with asteroids. So being able to have astronauts go out there and sort of poke one with a stick would be scientifically valuable as well as demonstrate human capabilities." A 1bn tonne asteroid just 1km across striking the Earth at a 45 degree angle could generate the equivalent of a 50,000 megatonne thermonuclear explosion. Attempting to break it up with an atomic warhead might only generate thousands of smaller objects on a similar course, which could have time to reform. Scientists agree the best approach, given enough warning, would be to gently nudge the object into a safer orbit. "A human mission to a near Earth asteroid would be scientifically worthwhile," Dr McKay said. "There could be testing of various approaches. We don't know enough about asteroids right now to know the best strategy for mitigation." Matt Genge, a space researcher at Imperial College, London, has calculated that something with the mass, acceleration and thrust of a small car could push an asteroid weighing a billion tonnes out of the path of Earth in just 75 days. Gianmarco Radice, an asteroid expert at Glasgow University, said the best approach would be to land a device to dig into the object. "You could place something on the surface to eject material that would push the asteroid in the other direction." Mirrors, lights and even paint could change the way the object absorbed light and heat enough to shift its direction over 20 years or so. With less notice, mankind could be forced to take more drastic measures, such as setting off a massive explosion on or near the object to change its course. In 2005, Nasa's Deep Impact mission tested a different technique when it placed an object into the path of a comet. Dr Radice said robots could do the job just as well, doing away with the need for a risky and expensive manned mission. Last year Japan showed with its Hayabusa probe that a remote spacecraft can land on an asteroid. But with manned missions to the moon and possibly Mars on its to-do list again, Nasa is keen to extend the reach of its astronauts. Dan Durda, a senior research scientist in the Department of Space Studies at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado said an asteroid landing mission would be a good way test the new Constellation programme spacecraft, the Apollo-style planned replacements for the space shuttle with which Nasa hopes to return to the moon. He told Space.com: "A very natural, early extension of the exploration capabilities of this new vehicle's architecture would be a "quick-dash" near-Earth asteroid rendezvous mission." Tom Jones, a former shuttle astronaut, said: "After a lunar visit, we face a long interval in Earth-Moon space while we build up experience and technology for a Mars mission. An asteroid mission could take us immediately into deep space, sustaining programme momentum, adding public excitement and reducing the risk of a later Mars mission." Europe has its own efforts to tackle asteroids. Its planned Don Quijote mission will launch two robot spacecraft, one to tilt at a harmless passing space rock, and a second to film the collision and watch for any deviation in the asteroid's path. 'Not if, but when...' Hits and near misses At Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in California, scientists monitor all "potentially hazardous asteroids" that might one day end up on a collision course with Earth. So far they number 831. The next close-ish shave - at a mere 17 times the distance from the Sun to the Earth - will be asteroid 2004QD14 on November 29. The Earth has a long history of asteroid strikes. Thirty five million years ago, a 5km-wide asteroid ploughed into what is now Chesapeake Bay, in the US, leaving an 80km crater. In 1908, an asteroid devastated swaths of Siberia when it exploded mid-air with the force of 1,000 Hiroshimas. The theory that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a huge asteroid striking Mexico 65m years ago is controversial since scientists uncovered rocks from the crater predating the extinction of the dinosaurs by 300,000 years. A near miss, when asteroid QW7 came within 4m km of Earth in September 2000, led Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik to declare: "It's not a case of if we will be hit, it is a question of when. Each of us is 750 times more likely to be killed by an asteroid than to win this weekend's lottery." In January 2002, the former science minister, David Sainsbury, announced the government's response to the threat from hurtling asteroids: a new information centre based in Leicester.

Flashback: The Pleistocene-Holocene Event: The Sixth Great Extinction by Dave Foreman The ReWilding Institute "Soon a millennium will end. With it will pass four billion years of evolutionary exuberance. Yes, some species will survive, particularly the smaller, tenacious ones living in places far too dry and cold for us to farm or graze. Yet we must face the fact that the Cenozoic, the Age of Mammals which has been in retreat since the catastrophic extinctions of the late Pleistocene is over, and that the Anthropozoic or Catastrophozoic has begun." --Michael Soulè (1996) [Extinction is the gravest conservation problem of our era. Indeed, it is the gravest problem humans face. The following discussion is adapted from Chapters 1, 2, and 4 of Dave Foreman's Rewilding North America.] Click Here For Full PDF Report... or read Summary below... The Crisis The most important-and gloomy-scientific discovery of the twentieth century was the extinction crisis. During the 1970s, field biologists grew more and more worried by population drops in thousands of species and by the loss of ecosystems of all kinds around the world. Tropical rainforests were falling to saw and torch. Wetlands were being drained for agriculture. Coral reefs were dying from god knows what. Ocean fish stocks were crashing. Elephants, rhinos, gorillas, tigers, polar bears, and other "charismatic megafauna" were being slaughtered. Frogs were vanishing. Even Leviathan-the great whales-were being hunted down in their last redoubts of the Antarctic and Arctic seas, and their end was in sight. These staggering losses were in oceans and on the highest peaks; they were in deserts and in rivers, in tropical rainforests and Arctic tundra alike. A few biologists-including geneticist Michael Soulè (who was later the founder of the Society for Conservation Biology) and Harvard's famed E. O. Wilson-put these worrisome anecdotes and bits of data together. They knew, through paleontological research by others, that in the 570 million years or so of the evolution of modern animal phyla there had been five great extinction events. The last happened 65 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous when dinosaurs became extinct. Wilson and company calculated that the current rate of extinction is one thousand to ten thousand times the background rate of extinction in the fossil record. That discovery hit with all the subtlety of an asteroid striking Earth: RIGHT NOW, TODAY, LIFE FACES THE SIXTH GREAT EXTINCTION EVENT IN EARTH HISTORY. The cause is just as unsettling and unprecedented: eating, manufacturing, traveling, warring, consuming, and breeding by six billion human beings. For the first time in the history of life on Earth, one species is killing countless others. For the first time, one species-Homo sapiens; that's us-is waging a war against Nature. The crisis we face is biological meltdown. Wilson (1992) warns that the proportion of species driven to extinction "might easily reach 20 percent by 2022 and rise as high as 50 percent or more thereafter." Soulè (1980) has said that soon the only large mammals left will be those we consciously choose to protect; that, "[The twentieth] century will see the end of significant evolution of large plants and terrestrial vertebrates in the tropics." He writes (1996), "The end of speciation for most large animals rivals the extinction crisis in significance for the future of living nature. As [Bruce Wilcox and I] said in 1980, 'Death is one thing, an end to birth is something else.'" Five Great Extinctions The fossil record reveals five great extinction episodes in the last half-billion years. They are: Ordovician-500 million years ago, 50 percent of animal families became extinct, including many trilobites (a dominant kind of marine organism that looked sort of like a horseshoe crab). Devonian-345 million years ago, 30 percent of animal families became extinct, including some types of early fishes. Permian-250 million years ago, 50 percent of animal families, 95 percent of marine species, many amphibians, and many trees became extinct. Triassic-180 million years ago, 35 percent of animal families became extinct, including many reptiles and marine mollusks. Cretaceous-65 million years ago, dinosaurs and many mollusks became extinct. The Three Waves of the Pleistocene-Holocene Extinction Event The First Wave: Spread of Modern Humans 40,000 years to 200 years BP Location Date Affected Species Europe and Northern Asia 40,000 to 13,000 BP Megafauna, including Homo neanderthalensis Australia and New Guinea 40,000 to 25,000 BP Large marsupials, reptiles, and birds North and South America 11,000 to 10,000 BP Megafauna Caribbean Islands 7,000 to 3,000 BP Giant ground sloths, monkeys, tortoises Mediterranean Islands 5,000 BP Dwarf megafauna, including elephants Wrangel Island (Siberian Arctic) 3,500 BP Mammoths Pacific Islands 3,000 to 200 BP (AD 1800) Birds New Zealand 1500 to 200 BP (AD 1800) Moas, other flightless birds Madagascar 1000 to 200 BP (AD 1800) Large birds, tortoises, lemurs, small hippos The Second Wave: Spread of Europeans 500 BP (AD 1500) to 30 BP (AD 1970) Islands   Tortoises, birds, mammals Continents   Freshwater taxa, and steep population declines of remaining megafauna Oceans   Steep population declines of marine mammals, large fish, and other species The Third Wave: Overpopulation and Globalization AD 1970 to 2100 Everywhere   All taxa       The Causes And Processes Of Extinction Many things can push a species into the long, dark night of extinction. However, only a few things can cause mass extinction. For past mass extinctions, cataclysmic events-either terrestrial or extraterrestrial-so altered or harmed the biosphere that many species and whole groups of organisms died out. Scientists have found convincing evidence that the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago came suddenly (perhaps in a matter of days or weeks) when an asteroid struck Earth in a shallow sea where today's Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico lies. But what causes "normal" extinctions, the kind that make up the background rate between the few big catastrophes? A species can become "extinct" by evolving into a new species or several new species (speciation driven by natural selection), or a species can become extinct by dying out and not continuing its evolutionary experiment. The latter is real extinction. Extinction, or evolution into daughter species, is the fate of all species. Careful study of the fossil record of marine invertebrates shows that species usually last for one million to ten million years. What may cause species to become extinct? Michael Soulè lists the possible factors: rarity (low density); rarity (small, infrequent patches); limited dispersal ability; inbreeding; loss of heterozygosity (genetic diversity); founder effects; hybridization; successional loss of habitat; environmental variation; long-term environmental trends (such as climate change); catastrophe; extinction or reduction of mutualist populations; competition; predation; disease; hunting and collecting; habitat disturbance; and habitat destruction. Soulè (1983) points out that some of these factors "do not become operative until one or more of the other factors have reduced the local populations to a very small size." Note that he lumps the natural and human causes. Most of these factors are at play in today's mass extinction. Soulè warns, however, that "It is disappointing that we know so little about natural extinction." Why does modern science know so little about this fascinating subject? It is because "no biologist has documented the extinction of a continental species of a plant or animal caused solely by nonhuman agencies." The grim truth is that we humans are the cause of modern extinctions. How do we do it? Extinction expert David Wilcove and his colleagues list five anthropogenic causes of extinction in the United States, in order of current importance: habitat destruction; non-native (alien) species; pollution; overexploitation; disease. (Worldwide, however, overexploitation is far more important than in the United States today.) Here are a few examples of the ways humans cause extinction in each of these categories. Habitat Destruction. We reduce, modify, degrade, or transform natural habitat upon which species depend by burning, agricultural clearing, logging, mining, grazing by domestic animals, preventing natural fire, damming rivers, dewatering rivers through irrigation diversion, drying up springs and streams through groundwater pumping, eliminating keystone species like beaver and prairie dogs whose activities create habitat for other species, and urban and suburban development. Furthermore, we fragment habitat-thereby disrupting necessary patterns of movement of many species-through the above activities and by building roads, clearing power-line rights-of-way, and driving vehicles. Non-native (Alien) Species. As humans have spread into new lands, we have brought with us disruptive alien species that are generally well adapted to human disturbance and that outcompete native species, in part because their normal enemies, such as predators and diseases, are left behind. Such damaging invaders include plants and animals, both deliberately introduced species such as domestics or ornamentals, and accidentally introduced species such as weeds or pests. These non-native species include predators (cats, rats, pigs) and competitors (starlings, tamarisk, zebra mussels. Pollution. Pollution, whether localized or global (acid rain, greenhouse gases), can poison the waters and soils that are habitat for sensitive species, or leach away needed nutrients. Global warming and atmospheric ozone depletion-major threats to life forms worldwide-are caused largely by air pollution. Overexploitation. Hunting, fishing, trapping, collecting, and government "pest" eradication programs have caused the extinction of many species and seriously endanger others today. Disease. As humans have spread around the world, we have brought exotic diseases with us. Global trade is spreading many new diseases. An exotic disease caused the loss of the American chestnut in the wild. The black-footed ferret was nearly wiped out by canine distemper, a disease not native to the Americas. Ernst Mayr, perhaps the biological giant of the twentieth century, writes (2001): Background extinction and mass extinction are drastically different in most respects. Biological causes and natural selection are dominant in background extinction, whereas physical factors and chance are dominant in mass extinction. Species are involved in background extinction, and entire higher taxa in mass extinction. As the cause of today's mass extinction, we humans are no longer just a biological phenomenon, but are now a physical factor equivalent to an asteroid or continental drift in radically changing biological diversity. We are not exterminating only individual species, but "entire higher taxa." The Three Waves of Extinction We can see the Sixth Great Extinction occurring in three waves, each caused by new groups of humans armed with new technologies spreading over new lands. The First Wave, the Spread of Modern Humans, ran from 40,000 to about 3,500 years ago as skilled big game hunters first entered lands where Homo sapiens had not previously existed. It continued from 3,000 years ago until 200 years ago, as Stone Age farmers found previously unpeopled islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans. The Second Wave, the Spread of Europeans, began in 1500 and ended around 1970 as European colonial and then industrial civilization spread over the world. The Third Wave, Overpopulation and Globalization, began about 1970 as human population exploded and new technologies and business practices tied the world into one exponentially expanding agro-techno-economy. In the First Wave, extinctions were caused mostly by hunting, and perhaps by fire-setting and introductions of dogs and diseases into areas that had not previously experienced them. The victims were primarily large mammals, birds, and reptiles on continents and islands. In the second phase of the First Wave, Stone Age farmers settled Hawaii, New Zealand, Madagascar, and other islands, and extinctions were caused by agricultural clearing, fire-setting, hunting, and introductions of dogs, rats, pigs, goats, and diseases into areas that had not previously experienced them. The victims were primarily birds and reptiles. The Second Wave was caused by hunting with guns; large-scale fishing; massive habitat destruction by agriculture, forestry, and domestic livestock grazing; river damming and diversion; introduction of exotic predators, browsers, grazers, parasites, and diseases; and later by industrial pollution. Islands lost birds, giant tortoises, and small mammals. On continents, some birds, fish, and large mammals have been driven into extinction, but many more species of birds, freshwater fish, and large mammals have had their numbers drastically reduced to possibly nonviable remnants. In the oceans, sea mammals, shellfish, and many fish have been wastefully exploited so that their populations are mere shadows of what they were 400 years ago. The Third Wave has just begun. Its agents of extinction are those of the other waves, but now the human population explosion-from about 10 million 10,000 years ago to over six billion today-and a globalized agro-techno-economy spread over the whole Earth threaten everything from the last megafauna to plants to insects to coral reef ecosystems. In 40,000 years, fully modern humans have spread across the Earth three times, with devastating consequences for the rest of life. The Evidence For Mass Extinction Today Even if we grudgingly acknowledge past human-caused extinctions, what proof is there that a mass extinction continues today? We can take at least three different tacks in answering this question. First is the area-species relationship and the evidence of habitat destruction. Second is the decline of specific living species. Third is the accounting of our takeover of Earth's terrestrial and marine net primary productivity (NPP) and our overshooting of ecological carrying capacity. Species-Area Relationship Michael Soulè writes (1999-2000), "One of the principles of modern ecology is that the number of species that an area can support is directly proportional to its size. A corollary is that if area is reduced, the number of species shrinks." In 1980, John Terborgh and Blair Winter wrote that research showed that "extinction is strongly area dependent." The species-area relationship has been shown with birds, mammals, reptiles, and other kinds of animals on the Greater Sunda Islands (the Indonesian archipelago), Caribbean islands, and elsewhere. An ecological rule of thumb is that if a habitat is cut by 90 percent, it will lose 50 percent of its species, or, if 50 percent of the area is lost, 10 percent of the species will disappear. Known Loss of Species Another way of showing that mass extinction is real comes from looking at historic extinctions and the number of species that are in danger of extinction today. Let's just consider mammals. In 1997, Ross MacPhee and Clare Flemming of the American Museum of Natural History Department of Mammalogy published the results of their careful review of mammal extinctions since 1500 AD. They identified 90 species of mammals that have become extinct during the modern era of European expansion, although they think it likely that the number will be "revised upward to 110 or 115 confirmed losses" or "close to 2 percent of all mammal species on Earth." Using the highest estimate for the rate of natural or background extinction of one mammal species every 400 years, the loss of 90 species in 500 years is "a minimum 7,100 percent increase over the natural rate." What of the near future? In 1995, 22 of Earth's 30 surviving species of large mammalian carnivores were listed as "endangered by either the United States or the World Conservation Union." There are only some 2,000 breeding adult African wild dogs left in the wild, and the Ethiopian wolf is down "to fewer than 500 individuals." According to the World Wildlife Fund, there may be no more than 1,000 giant pandas left in the wild. BBC News reports that "India's Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment has warned that by 2007 'there would be no breeding elephants left in India...and the species would die out'" because of poaching, capturing, and habitat destruction. Ten percent of the 608 species and subspecies of primates are in grave and immediate danger of extinction. Cambridge University's primatologist David Chivers says, "I've spent 30 years on [primate conservation], and now we don't seem to be getting anywhere. It's ridiculous." Net Primary Productivity The third area of evidence for the reality of mass extinction is to add up humans' impact. But is it really possible to calculate the human impact on Earth? Actually, we can, and we can even put a number on it. A group at Stanford University, including Paul and Anne Erhlich, published the results of their research in BioScience that showed human beings were using about 40 percent of Earth's Net Primary Productivity (NPP) in 1986. This basic ecological measure is defined by Paul and Anne Ehrlich as "[a]ll the solar energy annually captured worldwide by photosynthesizers and not used by them to run their own lives." The Stanford group's calculations were strongly confirmed in 2001 by Stuart Pimm with his book, The World According to Pimm: a scientist audits the Earth. Pimm gives a detailed accounting of our appropriation of Net Primary Productivity. Forty percent is how much of NPP we are taking now with 6 billion humans. However, we continue to pile baby upon baby. The exponential growth of human population multiplied by rising affluence and more invasive technology is the main driver of the Third Wave of Extinction. Where will it all end? Many demographers predict that human population will stabilize at 11-12 billion-twice what it is today. If we double our population, and affluence and technology continue to increase as world leaders, corporate heads, and economists believe, what becomes of our taking of NPP? Double our population and we will take over 80 percent. This is conservative because it does not incorporate increasing affluence and technology. Is this sustainable? How many species could continue to exist on less than 20 percent of the Net Primary Productivity? Clearly an ecological crash will happen before we reach this point. (From Rewilding North America by Dave Foreman [chapters 1, 2, and 4]. Copyright © 2004 by the author.)

Armageddon Online! Biblical Prophecies (Don't Laugh, These People are Serious! And they sell books and videos, too!) Armageddon Online Predictions of the End of the World Many people believe that the Bible says the Battle of Armageddon, the Antichrist and the return of Jesus will occur in 2007. On this page I elaborate on this prediction and outline the reasons why. The Scenario The war will start in 2007. The antichrist will stand in the Jewish Temple of Jerusalem and declare that he is God. The Bible calls this the 'abomination of desolation'. Shortly after this the Arab nations will unite against Israel. Egypt will lead Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Jordan - every nation with a border with Israel - against it. Russia and its allies will join on the side of the Arabs. During the fight the US and Russia will use nuclear weapons against each other. The war will leave 2 billion dead. The Evidence Don't feel the need to read all of the passages, I've highlighted key quotes in bold. There are many other passages I could have used but these illustrate the point well. When will it happen? This is a quote from Mark 13:14-28: But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where it should not be then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. And let him who is on the housetop not go down, or enter in, to get anything out of his house; and let him who is in the field not turn back to get his cloak. But woe to those who are with child and to those who nurse babes in those days! But pray that it may not happen in the winter. For those days will be a time of tribulation such as has not occurred since the beginning of creation which God created, until now, and never shall. And unless the Lord had shortened those days, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect whom He chose, He shortened the days. And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here [is] Christ; or, lo, [he is] there; believe [him] not: For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if [it were] possible, even the elect. But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things. But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven. The 'abomination of desolation' is the antichrist. The 'elect whom He chose' is the return of Jesus. The reference to those in Judea fleeing is because of the invasion. Continued: Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near: So likewise ye, (Israel) when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. The fig tree is Israel. This is because in Jeremiah's prophecies he used 'Figs' as a symbol of the children of Israel. If figs are the children, Israel must be the father, the fig tree. 'When her branch Is yet tender' means that Israel will still be a new state (it was founded in May 1948). 'Putteth forth leaves' could mean when Israel recaptured all of Jerusalem in June 1967. 'Summer is nigh' means that the end of the world is near. So soon after Israel takes Jerusalem the end of the world will occur. It says 'this generation shall not pass till all these tings be fulfilled'. A generation in the Bible is 40 years, so the end of the world will be 40 years after 1967: 2007. How will the war start? This passage suggests that the return of Jesus will shortly follow the start of war on Israel. Read this from Luke 21:20-24 But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is at hand. Then let those in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are in the midst of the city depart, and let not those who are in the country enter the city; because these are the days of vengeance, in order that all things which are written may be fulfilled. Woe to those who nurse babes in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land, and wrath to this people, and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. This clearly refers to the destruction of Israel by 'surrounding armies'. Who will fight in the war? The attack is described in Daniel 11:40 And at the end of time the king of the South will collide with him, and the king of the North will storm against him with chariots, with horsemen, and with many ships; and he will enter countries, overflow them, and pass through. The 'King of the South' are the Arab nations, the 'King of the North' is Russia. 'Him' refers to Israel, so the passage clearly describes an attack by these forces on Israel. It also shows how the 'end of time' will occur after this war. The nations involved are describe in Ezekiel 38: 5-7 Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet: Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: [and] many people with thee. Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them. Persia is the site of Iran. Gomer and Togarmah are the sites of Turkey. All of these nations are Arab. What will the war be like? Revelation 9:13-16 states that the war will involve '200 million soldiers' and 'slay the third part of men.' This means that 2 billion (1/3 of the Earth's population) would die - a conceivable figure for a nuclear war. Such a war could use 200 million men. This is a key passage - Ezekiel 39: 1-6: Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I [am] against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts, and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel: And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand. Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the people that [is] with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and [to] the beasts of the field to be devoured. Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken [it], saith the Lord GOD. And I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I [am] the LORD. It says all but a 'sixth part' of the invading army will be destroyed. Israel's army could not do this, but Israel is known to have nuclear weapons so these could be used against an invading force. Magog is Rusia. 'Fire on Magog' could easily be a nuclear strike. Those that 'dwell carelessly in the isles' could be referring to the US, as it is isolated geographically from other countries. This then suggests that there could be nuclear war between Russia and America. Many scriptures describe the sun and moon becoming dark shortly after the war, eg: Joel 3:14-15: The sun and the moon grow dark, and the stars lose their brightness Matthew 24:29 The sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky Mark 13:24 But in those days, after that tribulation, The sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven This refers to the end of the world. The references to the sun going dark could be describing the Nuclear Winter scenario, where dust from nuclear wars blocks out the sun. Conclusion So that is the evidence. In 2007 the Battle of Armageddon will take place, there will be nuclear war and Jesus will return. However, some of these interpretations of the text are fairly loose, so if in doubt read through them again and make your own mind up. Whether you believe in this or not is largely a matter of faith, and either way, we will know in 6 years. I've opened the Armageddon Store selling great books, videos and DVDs related to the end of the world.

The Early 21st Century: 2007 Prophecies newprophecy.net These predictions are all hyperlinked so go to the ORIGINAL to check it out. Warning: This is mostly silly, but if you want a little entertainment, go for it! MOST RECENT PREDICTION(S): Russian Military Re-invades Afghanistan - New prediction dated November 30, 2006. Russia Invades Turkey - New prediction dated November 30, 2006. Monster Tsunami Strikes Off West Coast of Alaska or Canada - New prediction dated November 26, 2006. US Warship Attacked and Bombed in Persian Gulf - New prediction dated November 9, 2006. The First in a Series of Mega-Fireballs - New prediction dated October 4, 2006. Fire or explosion on Russian sub or naval vessel in Gulf of Bothnia - New prediction dated September 6, 2006. "The King of Babylon" Comes (or Returns) To Power - New prediction dated September 2, 2006. New Middle East Peace Accord Is Attempted - New prediction dated June 2, 2006. International Space Station Crashes to Earth - New prediction dated May 3, 2006. Terrorist Attack or Plane or Boat Accident Kills Member of Royal Family - New prediction dated April 28, 2006. Actress or Supermodel Tragedy - New prediction dated June 12, 2005. Arrival of "The Great Comet" - New prediction dated June 11, 2005. EZEKIEL'S WAR OF GOG, LAND OF MAGOG: Russia Re-Invades Middle East, Attacks Israel - New prediction dated April 24, 2005.