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.''