Out there in south florida, I heard more than a couple guys talking about how the earth was going to experience a cataclysmic event that would destroy civilization as we know it, and it's going to be caused by the sun.  The evidence? Nostradamus' predictions supposedly stop in 2012, and so does the Mayan calendar, and since the Mayans worshipped the sun, it must be BECAUSE of the sun that the world will end, or some such nonsense.

Unfortunately, I like to make my arguments based on fact, reason, science, and the things that any normal, reasonable person would agree to, but frankly, I just don't know much about the paranoia surrounding 2012.  I know that Nostradamus was a kook, and if you gave me a few thousand years to "wait it out" I could very nearly predict the future with extremely vague almost-poems, and I also know that the Mayans were so advanced that they didn't quite make it to the 21st century, at least not as a civilization.  The spanish, though, did, and didn't write anything about 2012.  Do the math.

Anyway, apparently, I don't HAVE to know much about 2012 to make my arguments, and I can still use good solid reason and science to do it, just like Ian O'Niell did.  He gives a little background on the phenomena involved and some perspective on the scale aside from validating my questions about why we're worried about a solar flare killing everyone when it seems to have been comets and asteroids throughout science class (the answer is that we AREN'T).

Check it out for a quick read and a couple of tools to work on the 2012 kooks.