What was going on when I was born?

Interest rates rose sharply yesterday, with Treasury bill rates rising more than a quarter of a percentage point, while long-term Treasury bond prices fell more than two points. Government securities dealers said the price decline was due more to the absence of any good news than to any developments pointing to higher rates. Investor demand for Treasury issues was weak yesterday - as it was last week - and investment bankers said many potential buyers were waiting for new offerings in mid-December and in the first quarter that have not yet been announced. ''The market is suffering from indigestion and too much anticipation too soon of further drops in interest rates,'' commented one broker of Treasury securities.

The appointment of 19 new Court of Claims judges, most of them scheduled to hear criminal cases in New York City, has been blocked by a dispute over the appointment process, Governor Carey said yesterday. Mr. Carey said that he had been warned that the State Senate would not confirm any nominees for the court unless he named ''specified persons'' not found ''well qualified'' by a judicial screening panel. The Senate majority leader, Warren M. Anderson, Republican of Binghamton, said that the screening process had been ''corrupted by political influences,'' and that the panel had set up new standards in the middle of the screening process. 'Serious Negative Impact' The result, both sides agreed, is that a deadline of Dec. 31 set in legislation approved earlier could very likely pass without any action on the new judicial posts. The impasse could also block the scheduled reappointment of 15 Court of Claims judges.

What do you get when you turn out some lights, allow the weeds to grow and let someone else slice the meat and prune the trees? The City of New York is hoping to get $2.1 million in savings for this fiscal year and $4.6 million for the next from these actions. Amid talk of layoffs and tax ''menus'' and much-needed revenue from elsewhere, the city's financial plan shows some of the other ways that municipal agencies propose to balance the budget. The ideas come from different departments, and they were all proposed after the Koch administration asked for 2.25 percent reductions in spending this fiscal year and 4 percent in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. These proposals are something of a hedge against the need to reduce drastically the most vital services - reductions that may be unavoidable when the agencies look for further cuts, amounting to another 3.5 percent, in their 1984 budgets.

Population growth and development in rural areas has become so pervasive that neither sharp cuts in Federal funds nor the recession is likely to stop it in this decade, according to the authorities who have studied the phenomenon. Their assessment is borne out here in central Florida, where leaders have demonstrated ingenuity and even a willingness to raise local taxes to continue rapid growth going. The recent rise in new housing and other construction, after a year's slowdown because of high interest rates, is taken as a signal that more citrus groves, pine forests and palmetto fields must soon give way to homes, shopping centers, roads, schools and factories. To many who live here, the process, which went on without pause in most of the 1970's, now seems as predestined as tomorrow's sunrise.

Defense Department officials said today that Pakistan had refused to accept delivery of six F-16 jet fighterbombers from the United States because they lacked the most advanced American electronic warfare system. But late this afternoon, an official said that on the basis of talks conducted by diplomats at the United States Embassy in Islamabad with Pakistani Air Force officials, the dispute was on its way to being settled. ''I am 90 percent confident we'll have this resolved,'' he said. But he added that there would still be a delay in the delivery of the six planes, which were to have been sent to Pakistan this week. Pakistan has ordered 40 of the planes from the United States, and the six were the first to be offered for delivery.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz, charging the Soviet Union with a ''cynical disregard for international law,'' said today that the Russians and their allies were continuing chemical warfare activities in Laos, Cambodia and Afghanistan. In a detailed report submitted to Congress and the United Nations, Mr. Shultz said new evidence of use of chemical and toxin weapons by Soviet client forces ''can only have serious implications for the security of the world community, particularly for the security of smaller nations, like those whose people are being attacked. ''If such basic elements of human rights can be so fundamentally ignored, how can we believe any pledges to respect human rights?'' asked Mr. Shultz. ''The world cannot be silent in the face of such human suffering.''

WASHINGTON SCIENTISTS are moving far faster than is widely recogized to investigate the riddle of Agent Orange, a herbicide that was sprayed over perhaps 20 percent of South Vietnam to defoliate trees and kill crops, and is now blamed by many veterans for a host of health problems. At latest count, the Federal Government was conducting or sponsoring more than 50 studies related to Agent Orange, ranging from very large health examinations of thousands of veterans to small tests of how the chemicals affect laboratory animals, at a cost that will exceed $100 million. Several important studies are due to announce initial findings by the end of 1983. But whether any of these studies will resolve the acrimonious and emotional debate over Agent Orange is problematic. Few scientists expect the studies to produce unequivocal results or provide a clear guide to public policy. It is gradually becoming clear that there is a vast gulf between the expectations of veterans who believe they were harmed by the herbicide and the informed judgments of many scientists charged with investigating their complaints.

The stock market has never been a placid place. But in recent months, the normally hectic tempo has turned furious, with day after day of swings of 10, 20 and even 30 and 40 points in the Dow Jones industrial average and similar moves in other market indexes. ''Market moves that used to take place in a year now occur over just two or three months,'' said Stanley B. Shopkorn, the managing director at Salomon Brothers in charge of equity trading. ''Volatility in the stock market has been up markedly since August; there's a lot of confusion now,'' added Roger G. Ibbotson, a professor of finance at the University of Chicago and executive director of the Center for Research in Securities Prices. ''It's very hard for the market to judge whether President Reagan has really knocked inflation out of the economy or whether it will come back after the recession ends.''

VENEZUELA ACTS TO AVOID FAILURE OF BIGGEST BANK CARACAS, Venezuela, Nov. 29 (Reuters) - The Venezuelan Government said today that it had taken control of the Banco de los Trabajadores, the nation's largest bank, to keep it from failing. An official communique, issued under instructions from President Luis Herrera Campins, urged depositors to remain calm and cooperate with Government plans to save the bank. The Government said it had placed its officials in the bank to watch its financial position. The Government attributed the bank's problems to excessive growth. Between August 1980 and August 1982, assets of the Banco de los Trabajadores rose by 75 percent, to $5.78 billion.

Governor Kean's proposals to close a projected $150 million deficit in the current state budget failed in their first legislative test today. Mr. Kean, a Republican, is seeking a 5 percent surtax on gasoline and increases in liquor taxes. He called the special session last week to try to gain tax revenue so that more cuts would not be needed to balance the budget. ''The gas tax is a dead issue right now,'' said Assembly minority leader Dean A. Gallo, Republican of Parsippany, after hours of meetings with Democratic leaders and aides to Mr. Kean. ''I'm disappointed and frustrated,'' he said. ''There is a definite need for new revenue and if we don't find it, the Governor will have no alternative but to cut the budget further.''

DESPITE earlier skepticism, Soviet and American researchers believe they have found that, in a number of mountain villages in the Caucasus, people remain vigorous into years when most Americans are in nursing homes. They attribute this in large measure to the special status that the elderly enjoy in their communities. These findings, based on the work of more than 100 Soviet ethnographers and other specialists, with some American collaboration, were described at the Second Soviet-American Symposium on Longevity Research in the Caucasus, held this month at Columbia University. The research is focused on Abkhazia, a small, mountainous Soviet republic wedged between the Black Sea and the High Caucasus, where it has long been reported that residents live to remarkably old age. Some American participants in the meeting came away convinced that unusual longevity had been demonstrated.

President Reagan contends that neither his tax cuts nor his large increase in military spending is the cause of the rising Federal budget deficit. ''A propaganda campaign would have you believe these deficits are caused by our so-called massive tax cut and defense buildup,'' the President said earlier this month in New Orleans. ''Well, that's a real dipsy-doodle.'' The President's argument attributes the deficit to the rise in domestic spending, especially Social Security and other entitlement programs.