Now i know how you lot feel about the doomsday folk and their 2012 rumblings but the mayan calender does draw to an end at this particular point in time and coincides with the 26000 year axis wobble shift,
the mayans understood the rhythms of the earth from their observations and associated the various timeshifts with particular phases of misfortune/goodfortune- and if we can presume that their cultures timekeeping was taking place for a few tens of thousands of years previously, seeing as its a 26000 year calender its not a big leap really,
now i know you are astronomers but put a geology hat on for a minute and take a look down a timeline of the earths history over the past 100,000 years frinstance 26000 years ago- we entered a mini ice age,
57500 years ago- major volcanic ash cloud
72000 years ago was the toba mass extinction event,
the mayan calender just happens to coincide with its cycle beggining at the mini ice age and culminating now (manmade global warming may not be the only reason all that white stuffs melting is all im saying) and if the milankovitch wobble were to be a possible cause of a gravitational lensing effect that gave us more tension in our already quite active tectonic plates then the mayans would have done a pretty good bloody job of predicting the end of the world!
you are very dismissive of a warning put in place thousands of years ago by a people with an understanding that is very different to your own, cos you dont get it
and admit it, it makes you slightly nervous go 0on just a little what with yellowstone maybe being due a blowup too,(2.1millionyrsago,1.2millionyrsago,0.6milliony rsago makes me nervous anyhoo. any of you lot ever been near a volcano? its warm i tell you.
we are in a very priveleged window of easy living on this ball of fireworks and we should all be aware that ice ages come on pretty quick.
and come off it you not see that <edit> comet <edit> jupiter right in its hurricane in 97? you dont see many of them every aeon do you?
summats going on all the ice is melting and the weathers gone mad, the mayans predicted destruction and that kinda looks like what were getting manmade or no, so they were right and your planetary alignment musings are moot.