It's also worth noting that the sun aligns with the center of the galaxy EVERY December 21st. The only difference is the alignment of the known planets in this solar system. As far as the Mayan Calander goes... Nobody seems to have stopped to comment on how prepared they seemed to have been... What with preparing for some date 300 years ahead of time. It took us till the last second to prepare for y2k, and even then failed in many places. How do we know that they didn't stop there simply because it was as far ahead as they needed to plan. An alignment of planets seems about as definite of a "rounding" date as you can get with a stellar calendar. Similarly, if you know the ending date, and you know the speed which planets orbit, you can also figure some sort of beginning date... But nobody seems to pay attention to THAT question since it already happened. Although there is evidence of past polar shifts in the sea floor, they've been hinting that one would be happening soon for well over 50 years now... They even have a Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon (old school, as in the stuff that was played in theaters) that mentions it. I believe that the last time it happened, humans were around, and there wasn't any sort of mass-extinction (other than what was caused by humans). It might temporarily disrupt powered devices, but shouldn't cause anything too severe even if it does happen. Unfortunately, disaster scenarios are what keeps people interested, as anyone watching the history channel can tell, and nobody seems to be doing any real GOOD science on the subject, or atleast talking about it. actually, when a polar shift occurs, the earths poles disappear for an unknown time. Leaving the earth open to the harshness of atomic radiation from our sun and from deep space. SO there most likely would be a mass extinction, as the irradiated particles hitting us would kill most all plant and animal life and basically bake the earth with radiation.
