What is a "Leap Year"? It's just that a day isn't really 24 hours long, so after a while (four years) we have lost so much time that we need to jump a day. Just one day. But where to add it? We can extend Black History Month by a day? It's the least we can do until reparations set in and we achieve something like the beginning of parity or at least equal opportunity since it looks like we're not really interested in equality as a country. WHEN is Leap Year? That's easy. It's every year there's a presidential election, when we all finally sing with the WHO, "Meet the new boss same as the old boss." The more things change, the more they stay the same, right? Left, right, left, right, lockstep, onward we march into oblivion or world domination like the CIA and Pentagon salivate to finally do.
(Brandon Spektor/rd.com)New Year’s is nice, but there’s an unofficial holiday, too: Leap Day (that occurs every Leap Year). Why? One "solar year" (i.e., the time it takes Tierra to rotate around Sol) is roughly 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds long. That extra time nobody talks about is precisely why we have leap years. The 366-day years occur every four years. The holiday includes encouraging women to propose to men. Sadie Hawkins anyone? It also makes celebrating birthdays very confusing for 1/1,461th of the population. Happy birthday, me.
Nazis Won WW II? (Stephen Quayle)
The CIA, after all, was built by the German Nazis after the world because Americans in Washington, DC, envied their accomplishments so very much. Operation Paperclip allowed lots of Nazis to not only escape prison or the death penalty, but all was forgiven if they would do for us what they did for Hitler. Even Hitler was allowed to escape to Neu Schwabenland and neighboring Argentina.
Alternative history is a blast. These are not actually controversial statements. Historians know them. But the average American knows next to nothing, not even the standard fairytales we teach in school, how much less anything of what actually happened in the country's past to get us here at the precipice of putting a gun to every other country's head and forcing them to submit to our full spectrum dominance? Look it up.
We're not Shining City on the Hill we say we are?
Or attend classes at West Point. Even that elitist war college was willing to teach Pres. Bush that we, the 13 colonies, were largely responsible for piracy in the Caribbean, plundering British ships to enrich ourselves and revolt. Yet, somehow, we hold the modern coast of Africa and the old Ottoman Empire to a higher standard, paint ourselves the victims and heroic overcomers of empire, colonial revolutionaries spreading a hypocritical version of Hillary Clinton-style "democracy." Overthehillary infamously lamented that before we forced a country to hold democratic elections, we should have rigged the results to best suit our plans.
Beloved spiritual teacher Marianne Williamson wins with Delaney coming in second then Bernie then Buttigeig. Yawn. Looks like four more years of Trump at this rate...unless tomorrow night is better.
We had an exciting first round of matches. Julian Castro won, and Tulsi Gabbard shot out of obscurity, helped by rightwing popularizers who want an easy-to-defeat opponent for Trump. Cory Booker couldn't close his eyes or calm down enough to make a positive impression, though he was more impressive than he had previously been in obscurity. Black Native American Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor with rightwing methods that the right would like more than the nominal left, try to take creepy old man Biden. That got her some notice. Marianne Williamson spoke truth to power, or at least pitched New Age tropes that will likely come to nothing in the political arena, but that Course in Miracles brought her this far. Gay millennial candidate Pete Buttigieg (Buddha-judge? Butt-I-judge?) had better make his best pitch, or he is likely to start polling somewhere behind Beto O'Rourke.
(ABC News) Democratic Debate II (2019) Pre-, Post-Coverage: Watch live analysis of the second presidential debate. Watch the Democratic debate ABC News pre-show live from Detroit, and get the latest coverage here: abcn.ws/2K7ji4R.
"Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's Loaded is like a blast of fresh air. She is no fan of guns or of our absurdly permissive laws surrounding them. But she does not merely take the liberal side of the familiar debate."
--Adam Hochschild, The New York Review of Books
"If...anyone at all really wants to 'get to the root causes of gun violence in America, ' [he or she] will need to start by coming to terms with even a fraction of what Loaded proposes."
--Los Angeles Review of Books
"Her analysis, erudite and unrelenting, exposes blind spots not just among conservatives, but, crucially, among liberals as well....As a portrait of the deepest structures of American violence, Loaded is an indispensable book."
--The New Republic
With Pres. Don Trump suggesting that teachers arm themselves, with the NRA portrayed as a group of "patriots" helping to Make America Great Again, with high school students across the country demanding a solution to the crisis, everyone in America needs to engage in the discussion about our future with an informed, historical perspective on the role of guns in our society. America is at a critical turning point. What is the future for our children?
BOOK Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment is a deeply researched -- and deeply disturbing -- history of guns and gun laws in the United States, from the original colonization of the country to the present. As historian and educator Dunbar-Ortiz explains, in order to understand the current obstacles to gun control, we must understand the history of U.S. guns, from their role in the "settling of America" and the early formation of the new nation, and continuing up to the present.
Praise for Loaded
"Dunbar-Ortiz's argument will be disturbing and unfamiliar to most readers, but her evidence is significant and should not be ignored."
--Publishers Weekly
"...gun love is as American as apple pie -- and that those guns have often been in the hands of a powerful white majority to subjugate minority natives, slaves, or others who might stand in the way of the broadest definition of Manifest Destiny."
--Kirkus Reviews
"Trigger warning This is a superb and subtle book, not an intellectual safe space for confirming your preconceptions -- whatever those might be -- but rather a deeply necessary provocation."
--Christian Parenti, author of Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis
(QuantumActivist.com) Prepare to take a dis-continuous leap. There is a revolution going on in science, a genuine paradigm shift. While the mainstream remains materialist, a substantial number of scientists are supporting and developing a new paradigm based on the primacy of consciousness.
Dr. AmitGoswami is a pioneer of this revolutionary new perspective within science. He shares his vision of the unlimited potential of consciousness as the ground of all being -- and how this revelation helps us live better. Recognized as one of the world's brilliant minds, Amit has recently appeared in the movies "What the Bleep Do We Know?" as well as "The Dalai Lama Renaissance" and authored over a dozen books from textbooks on quantum mechanics to consciousness and the New Science.
We trace Goswami from his early years in India. Away from the religious teachings of his childhood, he sought his path through nuclear physics. He has now come full circle through quantum insight to the very religious axioms of his youth. With daring style, the "Quantum Activist" presents wisdom with humor, recounting Amit's journey, the message, and what it means to us all.
Yes. Therefore, there is no time to delay. Enlightenment (the realization of the Truth that sets one free) is easy. It can be accomplished in three steps:
Freedom from remorse (blamelessness, ahimsa, sila)
Concentration (samadhi in terms of jhana) based on a clear conscience
Insight (examining rupa-nama: ultimate materiality and mentality)
This path to freedom from suffering -- nirvana, liberation, emancipation, salvation -- is possible because the Dharma still exists in the world. It is extremely rare that the Dharma is present here at all. How much time does anyone have?
Time
(Pink Floyd)
.
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
.
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
.
So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
.
Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
.
Thought I'd something more to say.
"Scientists prolong 2008 with 'leap second'"
AT THE GREENWICH PRIME MERIDIAN, England – Eager to say goodbye to the worst economic year since the Great Depression? You'll have to wait a second.
That's because the custodians of time are preparing to tack a "leap second" onto the clock on Wednesday to account for the minute slowing of the Earth's rotation — meaning champagne toasts and Auld Lang Synes will have to come a second late.
The leap second has been used sporadically at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich since 1972, an adjustment that has kept Greenwich Mean Time the internationally agreed time standard. More>>
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