The Aztec and Mayan Calendars and December 2012

[gwillybj]

In "Future of Religion" post #26 DarkCloud wrote:
More likely is the Aztec calendar ending in 2012 coinciding with massive solar flares that take out satellites... and set back technology...
or a magnetic pole flip in 2012 coinciding with the Aztec calendar- which would fry most computers.

This topic carries no little fascination for me. A quick search turned up a site, World Mysteries - Strange Artifacts - Mayan and Aztec Calendars, a nicely put together discussion of these timepieces. At the end of the section on the Mayan Calendar, there is a neat little Date Conversion Applet.
Any interest, thoughts, observations?
Will the end of this cycle be The End of the World; the end of the world as we know it; or a non-event, a simple turning to 13-0-0-0-0 (compare to the non-event 2000 AD)?
edit: Today is 12.19.16.9.2.

[Elok]

The Aztecs also thought the world would end every 52 years unless the Gods got an enormous supply of fresh human hearts to keep their strength up.

So, none of the above.

[TheStinger]

And they couldn't even use the wheel properly.

Then again they've got more cerdibility than scientologists

[Elok]

The wheel thing probably had to do with a lack of animals suitable for cart-pulling, though given their attitude towards human life they might have just used teams of slaves.

I'm not sure about having more credibility than Scientologists WRT the world ending. Certainly they have more than the Jehovah's Witnesses, who've predicted the apocalypse roughly fifty times IIRC.

[Nikolai]

Science do tell us that the switching of Earth's magnetic poles is well over due, and the Mayans' description could suit, but I'm far from trusting them. Interesting theory though. I came over it on the internet around a decade ago, on this weirdo site some Sami pseudo-shaman had going at the time. I think the site's still available actually.

[Wernazuma III]

OK, there is the end of a 5000+ years cycles of one of the most complex and original calendars, and it is interesting to live that day (just as it was cool to live in the year 2000).
Everything else is complete fabrication and idiocy, assuming a coinciding "real world" scientific disaster "just because". And since nothing seems to really indicate that there will be disaster, let's cling to far-fetched theories like polar shifting, CERN and other worm holes...
I take the disaster in 3100BC was the Great Deluge...