Interesting story about the Mayans, no doubt, but total nonsense.
The Mayans and Aztecs used a totally different system to compile their calendars. We are now so used to dealing with our own 60,60,24,7,12,365 calendars that we seldom accept any alternative.
For example, knowing there are many Europeans here who aren't fortunate enough to instead be British, you probably can't understand why we British use Imperial rather than metric measurements (pint, yard, old £)- yet to us it is as simple as can be (from our maritime heritage for those who don't know).
The point to that? A system that is so vastly different from your own can often make no sense until you understand the reasons for it. Likewise the Mayans had their own counting system (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_Long_Count_calendar )
That the prediction the world would end this year is about as credible as the suggestion that the planet would end 23:59.59 31/12/1999- just because that's when our own calendars run out.
One final thing is that the convenience of 20/12/2012... for whatever reason people are obsessed with palandromic dates. However, the Mayans could not have foreseen the adoption of the Gregorian calendar or even the Julian calendar- which effectively started at a purely arbitary time.
Still, if anyone still believes it, feel free to wire me your bank balance as you won't be needing it.
