There is absolutely no scientific support for any 2012 scenarios,

Major sudden changes in the earth's rotation axis could only be caused by a massive object coming very close, not in any way by alignments of distant objects.

An object big enough and close enough to have a lot more effect on the Earth than the Sun or Moon would look correspondingly larger than those bodies in the sky, unless it was a neutron start or black hole. IOW, there is no known visible object remotely close enough, or likely to come close enough by the magic date, to do that.

Remote objects at the center of the Galaxy are completely ruled out.

I predict the start of the 14^th B'ak'tun.

Other than that, meh.

I sure wish people would spend the time and effort that they spend on these absurd notions on something like educating themselves.

Wait. You actually believe that?! I thought it was just a movie.

Alright guys, don't worry, let me settle your fears right now.

Asteroid, Solar Flares, Planetary Alignment, etc. Let me answer those now.

1. Asteroid...Come on. If there was truly an asteroid heading towards earth that could destroy us, we have the technology to detect it and would've already realized that crap, maybe we're in a bit of trouble here. We have the Hubble Telescope and suddenly there is this invisible asteroid that we will only see when it is too late? (Note: No the government does not know about it because there is nothing to know, so stop being an idiot and go to bed)

2. Solar Flares. The sun has been the calmest it's been in millions of years. Nothing has happened 100 millions years ago, and I doubt anything is going to happen anytime soon. Scientist would have been able to predict solar flares, you don't just have sudden bursts of radiation strong enough to kill us without some kind of HUGE warning sign, it just doesn't happen folks.

3. Planetary Alignment. Websites dedicated to this topic will tell you that the planets will align with the rest of the galaxy, and cause shifts and chaos. The alignment story is true, it is true. What they don't tell you is that this happens December 12 every year. Yes folks, every year, and we are still here. The planets have aligned every year and no one noticed even a little shock or something? Odd....wouldn't you agree?

4. Science has not confirmed 2012 as a doomsday. Science has not even bothered to take the idea into its brain; why? Because they realize it is all a bunch of BS. Scientists dismiss it with a wave of their hand because this is all made up by some crackpot who thought it would be funny to scare the shit out of superstitious idiots.

5. The Mayans got the beginning of the earth off by just a few billion years, I highly doubt that they will get the end of the earth right either. Their calendar ended you say? It was on a damn circle of wood, they had to run out of space sometime.

So what do we conclude from this? The most logical and completely correct conclusion is this is all just another piece of bullshit religious propaganda that people eagerly sucked in and clever people wrote and filmed about to make money. Please, please, please, remember this one thing. The movie 2012 is not a documentary. It is a sad excuse for a movie playing on people's fear of everything that confuses them the slightest. So yes, its all fake, just like the bible, the tooth fairy, Santa, and unicorns. So why must we discuss this? Because ignorant people with nothing better to do with their lives twist the simplest things into horrible religious propaganda.

The poles usually shift every 300,000 to 400,000 years.  The last pole shift was around 700,000 years ago, but there's no need to worry, because the shift takes thousands of years to complete.  During that time there will be various poles around the world, maybe even near the equator.  Minor risks are involved, like increased radiation, but no evidence exists of a mass extinction associated with a pole reversal. 

There are benefits to being in the process of a pole shift.  During the millenia between the shift, people can witness Auroras in unusual places... maybe in New York City or Washington, D.C.

The only thing that supports the 2012 doomsday date is the Mayan colander...nothing else does "except a few money grubbing end times evangelist".
I take this 2012 date with a grain of salt....
The Mayan were advanced and predicted astronomical things and had awesome buildings etc..but the calender stops at 2012... Who knows maybe it was an end of an age??
I think life will go on after 2012.

Not to be picky, but this isn't necessarily an accurate analogy.  Modern calendars have no superstitious meaning attached to the beginning and end of our cycles.  The mayans attached significant superstitions to their cycles.  Also, our cycle is indefinite.  The mayan calendar was not.  What they had at the end was literally what they believed to either be the end of the world, or such a significant change that any continuation of the calendar would be pointless.

Even so, it is all based on superstition and astrology.  Nothing to be worried about.

^ Seconded.

The date of 2012 is related to precession of equinoxes. The spring equinox point rotates with the ecliptics of Earth, and it rotates along the constellations of zodiac. It will soon leave the constellation of Pisces and enter the constellation of Aquarius.

However, my dad researched it and came to a bit different conclusion. The shift in "ages" should happen in august, 2011. Why?

The zodiac begins at 0° of Aries. But where is it? How can we measure it precisely, when everything in the galaxy is moving? We need a solid point. That solid point is logically a star, which is close to the imaginary disc of ecliptics of our solar system. From that start, we can count an appropriate number of degrees to the beginning of Aries.
Our solar system moves towards the constellation of Leo, at the speed of about 370 or 390 m/s. Specifically, right towards the star of Regulus (little king), which lies almost exactly on the ecliptics and is the first star of Leo. It's an ideal solid point for measurement, because it has no relative movement to us. If our solar system is like a train, then everything else around moves quickly like trees to left and right of railway, but not Regulus. It is called a radial speed. Regulus has the smallest radial speed of all stars on ecliptics. Ancient nations measured the sky according to Regulus.

But then came the age, when spring equinox point entered the Taurus constellation. Cultures got exchanged, kings and priests as well, and the powerful men said: "We have the Taurus age now, why should we measure the sky according to Leo? Let's pick a star in the Taurus constellation! Also, let's start some bull worshipping cults, it's gonna be fun!" And so they did. They picked the star of Aldebaran (the eye of a bull), and exactly across the zodiac, in Scorpio constellation the star of Antares. And so it was until today.
The problems are two. Firstly, both Taurus and Scorpio are to right and left from Leo, therefore they have the greatest radial speed, and the smallest precision of measurement. By time, they change position.
Secondly, not all constellations are equally big. Taurus is a very big constellation, and if we will take always 30° per constellation, then we should not take Taurus - 120° as the beginning of Aries, because it will be wrong.
There is absolutely no intelligent reason to use Aldebaran instead of Regulus. It's only a dumb historical convention. But majority of astrologers still use it, and so they can even make mistakes like placing the shift to Aquarius age 200 years to the future. So my dad took these things into account, got a new debugged version of his astrologic software (ZET 8, I think) and computed the beginning of Aquarian age to the middle of 2011.

By the way, according to my information, nothing significant should happen in 2012. There will be some major political, cultural and economic changes before and after that, but nothing with global catastrophes, not more than usual.
 

harold campion on family radio believes the rapture will come in may 2011 and has everyone rallied (of course he also had 88 reasons the end of the world would be in 1988...and several others since then.....cant be right every time I guess....so its 50/50 then....either 2011 or 2012......good to know)

yeah I dont know how they do it....its like a school cafeteria killing the flavor of all meat....seems impossible..but they do it....so terribly bland.....

Um dude, I don't know where you are getting your information from but it happens to be wrong.

I will grant you that radial velocity is motion towards (or away from) but as far as that goes, every star has a number associated with it and they are all measured spectroscopically. In any case, it would not provide much of a fixed point for measuring anything.

What you need to figure on is proper motion, which is how stars shift position in relation to each other. Your ancient cultures may have had an idea about that as it has been found in some ancient works and for about half a dozen or so stars, the numbers from old books actually does agree fairly well with modern observations.

Um, that “prediction” is even more vague than my newspaper horoscope. Which, it should be noted, is automatically wrong because all the astrologers on this side of the world use the Babylonian system.

                       Think of the bills we all have to pay now,  damn 'effin' Mayans.