I guess that I didn't get the memo either.

 Now there's a show on Discovery called "The Nostrodamus Effect" also some shows claiming that many cultures predict 2012 as the year.

 There's one problem I have with these theories, many claim that more disasters will happen when this time is coming and then start to show all the disasters that have happened recently is proof of this. But what they never consider is this: We didn't have mass media and live reports from around the world until recently (in world history time), so of course it's going to appear that more disasters are happening.  We didn't have the resources in those times to know about killer Hurricanes, volcanoes and earthquakes killing thousands of people.  I mean, there are probably disasters that have happened in parts of the world that killed many people that we still don't know happened, because it wasn't recorded except maybe in legends.

 It's like the global warming effect, I DO know we are affecting the climate at this time and maybe we can get it under control, but this year in our area, it has been a cooler summer overall than the norm.  Sure this is a micro-climate statistic, there are areas that have had warmer summers like the NorthEast I believe.. But this summer hasn't really been one of those ones where we have had the call for used air-conditioner units and fans to be donated other than the beginning of the summer precautions for those cities where killer heat waves have happened, like Chicago some years back.  But yet we have glaciers receding and large blocks of ice breaking off of ice sheets at both poles, so something is going on and with what we are doing to the world, cutting down forests and using fossil fuels pumping more CO2 and other pollutants into the air, plus all the cattle passing gas <cough> adding extra methane to the mix, REALLY, this has been brought up!, we are going to affect the world climate, this does worry me.

 But will the world end in 2012? We shall see, but using the idea that more disasters are happening, is really bugging me because no one has brought up the mass media effect.  With news outlets in every corner of the world now, of course we are going to learn about more disasters.  If the tsunami that hit Indonesia a few years back had been in the 1500's, would we know about it today?  I kind of doubt it, and that was a lot of people who lost their lives.  The Chinese were probably the best at keeping records of what happened in their area, but I would say an earthquake or flooding event that took a lot of lives might have been missed by the scholars.  I look forward to the link on all the dates the world was supposed to end in the link Revanant posted, also don't people realize that maybe that's as far as the Mayans got in making their calendar before their civilization collapsed?  I mean, they were really detailed in how accurate their calendar was, this takes a lot of work, especially with the tools they had back then to study the skies, I mean they even found the lunar cycle (the one where the moon passes up and down through the Earth's equatorial plane) not the new moon to full moon cycle. So we do have to give them a good deal of credit and respect, despite their sacrificial habits, so maybe they just didn't get past 2012 before things broke down and got hairy for them.  This is something I would have to research.

 But Bah Humbug on the using "more disasters are happening these days" It's just more are recorded and told world-wide.  I've always wanted to vent this, and since it's fringe science and already made into a topic, what the fedge…. :-)

I don't really believe 2012 is th eend of the world. Not to be religious here, but i think in the bible that Jesus says No man knows the hour of my coming.We don't know when the world will end.

Even when the Virgin Mary appeared at Fatima she never gave a day or time for the Second Coming of Jesus.

She spoke about people repenting their sins and honoring Jesus and being kind to others,but nothing about when Judgement Day would happen.Even though she mentioned there would be wars and various troubles in the world, there was still hope for mankind if we prayed and were truly sorry for our sins.

In the middle ages during the Black Death that took many in Europe, you had the flagelentes who went around from town to town whipping themselves because they believedthe world was going to end becuase God sent the bubonic plague as a punishment.In the movie,The Seventh Seal with Max von Sydow, there is a scene where these people come to this town,whipping themselves.

In the US you had I think they were called the Campbellites or Millerites who believed in the end of the world.

Lots of people preach about, but it hasn't happend yet.

Millerites..

Also, flagellation is still practiced in parts of the world, by Catholic sects in parts of Europe.  Even a sect of Muslims practice flagellation (Shiite) during a celebration of Martyrdom of one of their holy men.

 I believe I also saw it in the Philippines during an Easter celebration where some members actually crucify themselves.

 And I believe the Mayans had the wheel, I know they had the number 0, which even the Romans didn't have.  It would have been pretty tough to build those mounuments, even if they used tree trunks as rollers, might be considered a crude wheel. The pyramids in Egypt were also made without the wheel, intelligence is relative, isn't it?  I have to say this because I'm Native American, and even the Anasazi, had a simple spiral and rocks positioned to make a very sophisticated (in what it could do) solar observatory in Chaco Canyon.  There's also the Medicine Wheel in Montana or Wyoming.

 But my point was the disasters, mass media has made the amount of disaster staggering in just the last 130 years or so, whenever the telegraph was invented, at least that made same land mass news viable to wherever there were wires, no trans-atlantic or pacific cables yet.  Then Marconi's radio…but live television brought the area of disasters every day into our living rooms.  Of course people are going to think there are more.

When I was a kid, Time Life books had a "Mysteries of the Unknown" series that contained a volume about the prophecies of Nostradamus. With that volume there was a sealed envelope that had a very stern warning on it about not opening it unless you really wanted to know the date of the end of the world. So of course, I opened it. The card stated the world would be ending in May of 1984. I got the book probably in '82 or '83, can't really remember. So when 1984 rolls around (I was 13/14 that year) I remember being paranoid all year waiting for the end! Even after May was over, I kept thinking "Well, maybe the month was just wrong!"  Imagine my shock on New Years Day, 1985…

I'm excited for the end of the world. We'll all be able to watch the world explode from our homes on the moon, and we'll eat popcorn with our martian buddies! It'll be a party! Who wants to bring the potato salad?  

<In Thurston Howell III's voice:> "Lovie, do bring the martinis", "Gilligan, put the lawn chairs over there, old chap" "Bravo, Boy!"