The "end" of the Mayan calandar has been discussed in several threads before. I'll link to them if others don't beat me to it. My understanding is that it isn't the END in the aspect that there's nothing beyond it. It's just the start of a new cycle. Sort of like a car with a 5 digit odometer rolling over to all 0's after 100,000 miles. The car doesn't automatically fall apart at that point (although it sometimes seems that way ). Any "alignments" in 2012 are probably in the mind of the person proposing them and will have as little effect on the earth as any of the last three or four have.

My guess is that it's all a conspiracy by businesses that got left with a lot of survivalist equipment inventory after Y2K. They needed something to get the public to buy their junk, and this conveniently arose. Boy, that is easy to do. 8)

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"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind." - William Thompson, 1st Baron Lord Kelvin

"If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" - Tweedledee

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. - Wolfgang Pauli