So, the Mayans were probably wrong–the world isn’t coming to an end in 2012. That being said, we arn’t *that* far away from global destruction. Here are the top ten reasons why the world might actually come to an end in the year 2012.

10. Vladimir Putin

After the dissolution of the USSR, Russia has longed to recreate it, albeit a more successful and effective one. They will never publicly state this, but believe me, it’s on all of their minds. Masterminding the restoration of the “evil empire” is Vladimir Putin. Sure he’s no longer the “President,” instead taking the backseat of Prime Minister, Chairman of the United Russia, and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union State, but he’s still running things. His sucessor, Nikolai Medvedev, is nothing more than Putin’s personal puppet. Bitch.

Now if you’re not afraid of the five-feet of ex-KGB muscle that is Putin, just look at the picture featured above. Just kidding–there are some real reasons why you should watch out for this guy.

A) His airforce is more technologically advanced than the United States’. (Sure, for the last five years the United States has been chasing some Reagan-era-esque fantasy and developing high-powered lasers mounted on fighter jets to combat the superior Russian airforce, but no matter how badly Star Wars fans want it to work, it will NEVER pan out.)

B) The post-USSR economy is still vibrant and influential. It is the eighth largest economy in the world.

C) Putin has demonstrated he is quite to flex his nation’s muscles and invade any sovereign nation that he thinks belongs to Russia. Sure it’s only Georgia now, but on a long enough timeline it will become the world.

9. Alan Greenspan

If there is one man you should truly hate, it is Alan Greenspan. Sure he’s long since resigned/been fired/been replaced as Chief of the Federal Reserve, but his legacy of global economic collapse will live on. For years this complete moron campaigned the glory of economic deregulation, and for a time, things were good. The United States and the world were having a grand old time jumping from a plane without a parachute, and naturally they were having a lot of fun until they hit the bottom. This incompetent jacka** continually reassured them that they were headed in the right direction.

Economic disaster leads to poverty. Poverty leads to widespread violence. Widespread violence leads to global societal collapse. Men like Hitler emerged from economically-struggling societies (NO, I’m not implying that Obama is the next Hitler). Without a stable economy, the world is in peril, and this man is to thank.

8. and 7. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il

It’s pretty hard to decide who’s a bigger threat to global security between these two, so I just lumped them together. Sure, their respective coutries don’t rival Russia or China, but they’re ten times as insane (Ahmadinejad actively denies the Holocaust and wants to eradicate Israel; Kim Jong Il once kidnapped a South Korean actress and director and forced them to film a movie in which he starred) and we live in a world of nuclear weapons. ‘Nuff said.

6. Sarah Palin and the following five coming soon…