NASA says world won't end in 2012 despite Mayan calendar … We're less than a month away from the so-called end of the world, but NASA says you don't have anything to worry about. Earlier this month, NASA posted a list of frequently asked questions about why the world won't end in 2012, like some believe the Mayans calendar indicates. The post explained that Earth has been getting along fine for the last 4 billion years and there is no threat to our planet this year. – NewsNet5

Dominant Social Theme: NASA wants you to know that things are going to be okay.

Free-Market Analysis: The voice of reason speaks. There are plenty of things wrong with NASA, which is a boondoggle of an agency any way you define it. Now NASA is speaking out on end-of-world prophecies.

In fact, one could characterize NASA as a kind of elite meme all by itself. Its simple existence as the government entity that has sent people to the moon and robots to Mars puts the lie to the idea that government is inefficient.

We're firmly on record as doubting some of NASA's accomplishments. In fact, in a way we believe NASA is nothing but a big hype machine. Some of its actions defy belief. The agency has never explained how a piece of petrified wood turned up in its collection of "moon rocks." And the retouching of recordings of humanity's seemingly most significant moment, when astronauts walked on the moon, remains an unbelievable occurrence. Here's an excerpt from a Reuters article mid-2009:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The original recordings of the first humans landing on the moon 40 years ago were erased and re-used, but newly restored copies of the original broadcast look even better, NASA officials said on Thursday.

NASA released the first glimpses of a complete digital make-over of the original landing footage that clarifies the blurry and grainy images of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the surface of the moon.

The full set of recordings, being cleaned up by Burbank, California-based Lowry Digital, will be released in September.

Now NASA speaks in comforting tones regarding the end of the world, as reported by NewsNet5:

"The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012 and linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012 – hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012," NASA said.

But just as your desk calendar ends on Dec. 31 and world keeps going on, the same goes for the Mayan calendar, NASA explained. Just before [sic] you run out of pages doesn't mean life as we know it will cease to exist.

"For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, where is the science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and for all the fictional assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, we cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012," NASA said.

You see? NASA is the calm voice of scientific reason. The logical folks at NASA count on you forgetting that they erased and retouched the recordings of humanity's most incredible achievement (or so it is said).

Hey, NASA, as long as you're explaining, please explain about the petrified wood.

Editor's Note: We should point out that NASA has come up with an explantion for the petrified wood in the moon rock collection, as follows (via Wikipedia):

An investigation showed that United States Ambassador J. William Middendorf II had presented Drees with the "moon rock" on October 9, 1969. The Apollo 11 astronauts were visiting the Netherlands at that time on a goodwill tour. Drees' grandson speculates that his grandfather formed the mistaken impression that the "moon rock" he received was from the Apollo 11 mission. When Drees' "moon rock" was received by the Rijksmuseum in 1992, the museum phoned NASA to verify its provenance and was told over the phone, without seeing the piece, that it was "possible" it was a moon rock.

So the explantion is that the sample was a "moon rock," but not a NASA moon rock. Now NASA should explain why it lost the tapes of men landing on the moon, then found them again and then declared it had retouched them …