So what you're saying is that they got it right by accident?

Not just that but the Mayans actually have predictions going way past 2012. They just don't have specific dates. They just say things like "in 7000 some odd years there will be a explosion or something"

I keep trying to tell my students that, cause god knows you can't have a college composition class without some idiot bringing up 2012. It doesn't really work as well as I'd like.

Can you provide some evidence for what you're saying, Stanley? I only ask so I can better put down those who think 2012 is going to be like this movie.

I can't even pretend to be an expert on this subject, but as I understand it, the Mayans stopped calculating at 2012 not because it was the end of the world, but the end of an *era*, and if they tried to calculate anything past that, they would have to calculate an entire new era. I have no clue where exactly I picked that little tidbit up. Any input?

Camonk is a bouncer AND a teacher?

Everything you need to know is right here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3213449483968654266

It's true that 2012 was the end of the 5th age.
There is a lot of debate as to the meanings of many things said by the Mayans in regards to the 5th age (in which they lived) and the 4th age. Some interpret alot of their historical writings to imply that they thought the 4th age ended with great cataclysms and an upheaval of the world and, as a result, they feared 2012 might repeat that. But those interpretations are a stretch, at best. The Mayans wrote up the calendar in very factual detail and just said "Welp, here's the calendar." Anything read INTO it has been put there solely by people taking various scattered remarks made in other histories from other eras and trying to link them to the calendar and that the priest caste said "Oh man, some shit's going down in 2012" but it's all a case of how you decide to interpret a complex language that is still only about 80% translated and understandable. It's like people who co-opt Egyptian mysticism without really understanding exactly what it means to adorn yourself in Eyes of Horus' or Ankhs, etc...

Wanna know what I think? Here's what I think, I think this:

Let's all just go about our lives as normal and then come back to the question in three years on 12/22/2012.

Woo!

The Mayans did not stop calculating long count dates for the years after 2012. There are some dates in the very far distant future already set out in the long count; in fact if I remember correctly there are some for about 33, 000 years from now based on the convergences of two or three heavenly bodies. The important factor of the long count is that it is an accurate system with little time loss or gain, and it can therefore be used to predict the important astrological events important to the Mayan elites for a very long time to come.

I love this idea and I am stealing it for sure.

Will that work with The Passion of the Christ, too?

Yes, Roland Emmerich may actually be on to something here. H fights for us.

God, thank you. I'm always apprehensive of saying anything positive about this movie around my friends because they would never let me hear the end of it, but I liked Independence Day and even though this is not going to be good at ALL, I really want to see it.

It's called a "Leave your brain at home" movie.

Being a little drunk and/or high helps too.

Actually, you could just as well leave the melodramatic people in.

God this movie looks terrible terrible terrible.

The white house gets run over by a aircraft carrier.

THE WHITE HOUSE GETS RUN OVER BY A AIRCRAFT CARRIER.

I'm pretty sure that's California breaking off into the Pacific. Can't remember where I heard that spoiler however.

...If only...

Don't forget the tidal wave cresting over the Himalayas!

Stars for you.

I believe "Obama-pocalypse" is the portmanteau you seek.

(there was a time when I would have said Cusack deserves better billing than that, but that was before I saw him in the trailer for 2012)

Hahahahafuckyou