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THE SIGNIFICANCE of the WINTER SOLSTICE of 2012
The 2012 Winter Solstice Non-event"...believed that the cycle will come to an end, amid
global destruction, on [...] 23 December 2012 ..."
This, and similar writings, is possibly one of the triggers for a whole load of ill-considered speculation on the subject. Some people have played with planetarium programs around that date, and noticed that the winter solstice (December 21) Sun of 2012 aligns with part of the Cygnus Rift, a dark part of the Milky Way:
and have attached some significance to this date as a result.
What these people fail to recognise is that the winter solstice Sun will 'fall into' the Cygnus Rift every year for over a Century:
| 1955: |  |
| 2100: |  |
and (I hesitate to write this, suspecting that it will trigger some related 2030 lunacy) that the winter solstice Sun is more central to the Cygnus Rift in 2030:
An alternative bit of related nonsense, e.g. here, states that the winter solstice Sun is in conjunction with the galactic equator in 2012. Not quite. This conjunction has already occurred in 1998 (the blue line is the galactic equator):
and precession is now moving the winter solstice Sun further from the galactic equator. The author of this nonsense also seems to find it noteworthy that the Sun is on the ecliptic at this time (!!!), and erroneously gives the time of the solstice as "exactly 11am GMT".
2004 May 09 I have received a couple of emails from a "John Major Jenkins" who asserts that he is the original source of this 2012 stuff, and who alleges that the author of the immediately preceding nonsense has plagiarised him, albeit inaccurately. Jenkins objects that my comments above reflect badly on him. Jenkins (and anyone else) should be aware that (a) I was commenting on what was actually written on the site to which I referred, not to Jenkins' writings (I do not comment on stuff that I have never read) and (b) objections to alleged plagiarism should be addressed to the alleged plagiariser, not to a third party.
Update, 2006 February 14:
(These comments refer to content in Jenkins's web pages as at 2006 February 13.)
Jenkins, in various pages on his web site, has attempted to refute criticism, from here and elsewhere, of his astrocrud. I am not going to attempt to go into detail with respect to all of his attempted refutations. Some are based on Mayan history which I am incompetent to comment upon; there are so many that they almost qualify as a complex question fallacy and, to quote them all would mean quoting such a high proportion of Jenkins's web site that it would be way beyond what is permitted by Fair Use clauses of copyright legislation (which I prefer to abide by, even if Jenkins -- by quoting, in full and without permission, my private correspondence to him -- evidently does not).
- "By mid-1999 I had received a statement from an astronomer at Johns Hopkins University to the effect that 'it is not possible that the Maya could see the Galactic Center.' My general response to this opinion is that the region of the Galactic Center should be more generally identified as the "nuclear bulge" which can be noticed with naked eye observation because the Milky Way is wider in that region and there are more bright stars there."
- Note the "to the effect that " ; i.e. he does not state what the actual objections were in order that we can see if he is actually addressign them.
- "there are more bright stars there". Note that Jenkins is deliberately vague: he fails to specify what he means by "bright" or "here" or to what he is comparing "more". This sort of vagueness is characteristic of pseudoscience:it makes it far more difficult to critically examine the claims. However, there is a greater density of naked-eye visible (magnitude 6.5 and brighter) stars in several other regions of sky (e.g. Cass/And/Lac region, Cyg region) than there is in the region of the galactic centre.
- The "nuclear bulge" as a rather large region. This (see later) introduces such a wide error-bar into his 2012 pseudo-hypothesis that it becomes even more meaningless.
- "the Milky Way was conceived as a Great Goddess and the dark-rift was her birth canal. This demonstrates that the Maya understood the region of the Galactic Center as a source-point or birth place." .
- This ("source point") is contradicted by his argument and his diagram #2 on this page. (See later)
- "Ancient Maya knowledge of the precession of the equinoxes is the hitch that most skeptical scholars invoke to discredit my work. The evidence for precessional knowledge is found in the academic data, (...) Citations to the work of Brotherston, Tedlock, Schele, Smiley, Hunt, Aveni, and others are available upon request (electronically) and are also contained in my book. "
- But these citations are not provided with the assertions on his web page, so this is a clear case of failure to specify.
- "These assumptions or critiques are easily addressed:"
- Then why does he not address them?
- He states on the same page "check back in a week", but to date the page is unaltered since 2004 May 29. Some of the "easily addressed" objections have languished there since May 2003!)
- In response to this statement: "True statement: "The solstice sun is in conjunction with the galactic equator in 2012."" and the sun is half a degree wide and therefore your statement is factually wrong. (...) You should use the more accurate term "solstice colure" (...) It's a question of linguistic accuracy; or, in your use, a misleading misuse of a term."
- A classic case of proof by redefinition of words! Jenkins seems somewhat reluctant to accept the astronomical definition of Conjunction. Perhaps his own definition is that used in astrology or in pseudoastronomy; I'm not competent to say. However, if he wants to be taken seriously by astronomers, he might wish to start using astronomical terms correctly.
- When he made that statement about the colure, Jenkins seemed to be blithely unaware that solstitial colure always crosses the galactic equator (at two points), and does not only do so just at the 2012 winter solstice! The point above about correct use of astronomical terms applies.
- I have no doubt that the likes of Jenkins will continue to bluster against the preceding comments so, for the sake of argument, let us see where Jenkins's "[Tonkin] overlooks the fact that the sun itself is one-half of a degree wide, and will in fact be touching the galactic equator on all winter solstices between 1980 and 2016 (which is 1998 plus/minus 18 years; 36 years = one-half (...) What he is doing is invoking a precise level of accuracy that is inappropriate to the real situation." and "the region of the Galactic Center should be more generally identified as the "nuclear bulge" which can be noticed with naked eye observation" take us, i.e. let us see the consequences of what Jenkins himself insists to be the case.
Jenkins insisted that it is "inappropriate" to use the real conjunction of the Sun with the galactic equator, and that we should really consider the entire disc of the Sun. Presumably we must then take an equally "fuzzy" view of the galactic equator, i.e. we must regard it as a band of at least 30 arcmin wide (same angular size as the Sun). So, if we are no longer concerned with the precision of what Jenkins falsely terms "abstractions", i.e. the centre of the Sun and the galactic equator, and allow ourselves to consider the entire disc of the Sun and the region of the "nuclear bulge", the period of "conjunction" is a great deal more than Jenkins's ±18 years; it is at least double this. In other words, the consequence of Jenkins's attempt to, although he does not appear to have said so, is that the period during which the disc of the winter solstice Sun is in geocentric line-of-sight contact with the middle region of the "nuclear bulge" takes at least 70 years! His 36 year error bar was imprecise enough; a 70 year error bar is ridiculuous. With either error bar he has so great a margin of error that any prediction is meaningless and is essentially untestable; i.e.Jenkins's argument falls even deeper into the classification of pseudoscience.
So why is he so insistent on 2012 and not 1962 or 2034 or any of the other intervening years? How about 2030, the year when the Sun is most central in the Cygnus Rift, thus allowing us to combine two bits of astrocrud into one? There is no way to get to 2012 without either circular argument or argument by scenario and affirming the consequent.Whatever his reasons, they clearly have no basis in astronomy, be it proper astronomy or Jenkins's preferred species of pseudoastronomy.
In other words, this is just another example of astrocrud.
This commentary will focus on the least known – but most important – reason for the exaggerated fascination with the Winter Solstice of 2012 (WS2012). But first I want to correct two misconceptions.
Though there is still a smattering of scholarly disagreement over whether the end-date of the Mayan Long Count calendar (LCC) accurately converts to 2011 or 2012 (1) - the majority of experts agrees that it ends on or about WS2012. But - contrary to popular belief - the LCC doesn’t actually end – it simply starts over again from the beginning. In other words, once 13.0.0.0.0 bak’tun is reached - the LCC begins anew at 0.0.0.0.1 bak’tun – repeating once again the celestial-oriented 5125-year cycle.
The second misconception is that WS2012 signals the occurrence of a very unique (once every 26,000 years) galactic alignment. Not to put a damper on future celebrations but this particular galactic alignment occurred during the past 28 WSs and will also occur during the next eight.
According to the many experts in this area - the LCC highlights a rare astronomical alignment determined by precession.(2) The alignment occurs when the Winter Solstice sun conjuncts the crossing point of Milky Way and ecliptic in Sagittarius.
As you can see from the above illustration(3), this alignment - involving the Winter Solstice Sun and the center of our galaxy - actually began on WS1980 and will continue each WS until 2016. Interestingly, WS2012 isn't even the center point of the 36-year period - but instead is close to its end.
Assuming once again that the majority of experts are accurate in proclaiming that 13.0.0.0.0 bak’tun accurately converts to December 21, 2012 - why did the Maya select that date and ignore the beginning, center, and end of the alignment? I believe it is because the Maya are not just drawing our attention to the galactic alignment – but are instead asking us to focus in on a specific cosmic event that will be occurring at the exact moment of WS2012. How the Maya knew that several thousand years from then a civilization would be using a Gregorian calendar or that the 2012WS would be at exactly 11:11 is beyond my understanding – but evidently they did.
WS2012 has become part of our consensus reality – and for good reason. In my opinion WS2012 does not directly relate to the entire 36-year period of the 26,000-year galactic alignment but instead refers to a particular point in time and space when a very unusual event will occur. I refer to that point as the “cosmic coordinate.”
Irrespective of whether the Mayan calendar actually ends on WS2012, or whether the date heralds a shift in consciousness, or the end of the world, the incontrovertible fact is that WS2012 - like no other Winter Solstice in recorded history - occurs at exactly 11:11 UT.(4)
There are a growing number of scientists who believe that our holographic reality is actually an intelligently created “simulation” (5) – though I prefer the term: “Cosmic Computer Program (CCP).” I believe our CCP utilizes digital codes for various purposes – several of which I describe below. WS2012 occurs on the 21st day of December at exactly 11:11 Universal Time. The digital equivalent is: 11112112012. Assuming time is an artificial construct in which numbers tell us where we are at any given moment within our program, then it is reasonable to assume that specific numerical combinations and sequences would form genetically encoded digital “time prompts”(6) which assist us along life’s pre-programmed path.
11:11 is considered by many to be such a time prompt (7) – due to the thousands of people experiencing what is referred to as the “11:11 Phenomenon.”(8) 11:11 also symbolizes the various cycles that manifest and re-manifest physical reality as if following a cosmic blueprint.(9) Most synchronistic is the fact that both 2012 and 11:11 are numerical metaphors for the end of one cycle and the beginning of the next. Could 21122012 be cosmic shareware with 11:11 the cosmic equivalent of “exe”?
11:11 also has another symbolic meaning - one involving a “cosmic portal.”(10) I doubt that it is just an insignificant coincidence that during the aforementioned galactic alignment the Maya believed that a portal would materialize within the dark rift at the center of our galaxy.(11)
Two other 11:11–2012 synchronicities involve the Sun’s magnetic field and the galactic center – areas that are also intimately connected to Mayan mythology, its calendar and the galactic alignment. The first involves our Sun. Not only is the Sun the winter solstice centerpiece of the galactic alignment, its magnetic field operates a cycle of polarity reversals averaging 11.11 years in length.(12) The next peak of this cycle happens to be in the year 2012 and has been predicted by some astrophysicists to likely be a very active maximum notwithstanding the Sun’s present catatonic state. The second coincidence is just as revealing: The entire mass of the black hole at the center of our galaxy spins once every 11 minutes.(13)
I don’t know whether gin is as enjoyable without tonic, or whether each Jonas brother could be successful alone, or whether we would have enjoyed James Kirk as much as we did without Spock to interact with – but I am certain that without 11:11 as its digital partner, WS2012 would just be another cold and uneventful day in December – at least in the Northern Hemisphere.
In conclusion I believe that at the cosmic coordinate 111121122012 a cosmic portal will materialize – if only briefly. This is what the Maya are still trying to tell us. To those of you who have actually experienced the 11:11 phenomenon, I believe that the digital codes are also saying something else: “Pay attention!” Our time is drawing close.
Is this guy behind all this 2012 stuff.. 'the general opinion of people were that he was an alien..lol
Balloonists playground
Hayen Island Oregon
Peninsula Park Portland Oregon
Hindenburg
Shock jocks suck! that is my opinion and I am sticking to it.. Howard Stern was cool to a point.. and Rush you could have listened to him in his heyday in the mid 90's. He was entertaining then...he is just boring now..Over the years these clowns have had to, do and say more and more outrages stuff and come up with stupid dribble to keep their ratings up and listener-ship enthralled and growing...Currently we are in the era of Glen Beck ! Gawd..
Recently I came across a guy who listens to Coast to Coast AM Radio.. for entertainment value.. this station is fun. They are the guys who talk about UFO sightings and all kinds of crazy shit...I kid you not...but anyway this dude who calls himself Dr. Leonard Coldwell, a frequent radio show host, had this to say on his web site, and this article is about my I refuting his whole premise.
You will not like these facts but if you have been frustrated as to why people don’t get mad as hell and revolt against government, I have written this to explain it. It is so obvious that I will be surprised to receive any intelligent disagreements. Hang on…
50% of adults work for government at a local, county, state or federal level, or for a corporation that has a contract with the federal government. None will bite the hand that feeds them.
10% are unemployed and will not bite the hand that feeds them.
15% are on welfare and will never ever bite the hand that feeds them.
20% are getting or within a few years be getting social security and will never bite the hand that feeds them.
That leaves 5% that are not being fed by government and are used to feed the other 95%. However, due to social norms and media spin along with the fear that it would only get worse if they do rise up against government, they too will never revolt against government. The only chance for these 5% to become unburdened, is for a worldwide economic collapse in which the other 95% die off and loose their ability to control a system that funds their free ride on the back of the few. So, ask yourself—- how bad do you want to be free Jack? I say, absolutely free.
My comment goes like this....
You sir, are dead wrong. You are playing with numbers and words here..and perpetuating a myth. American people are the most , resilient, resourceful and crafty bunch of people who are ready for almost anything…The people of the USA and its Government will endure and will always be ahead of the game. I will tell you why in a minute?….but first let me ask you....
What nation of free thinking individuals who have come from all over the world have to gain by revolting against their government?…What is there to be gained? Replace tyranny with tyranny?
And please don’t insult people with the usual the "founding fathers meant this in the declaration of Independence stuff or Tea Party crap". No one is going unseat the US Government of the day with protests in street, handguns or muskets...Don't kid yourself, at the first site of trouble, your government will clamp down on those who try to sow descent. Remember the G20 Seattle riots in 2001? and what about Kent State in 1970, if you don't, please check this out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
Not a nice thing, but its true.. The Govt. and its will not hesitate to kill its citizens for whatever reason....Don't kid yourself....Its a fact of life...
continuing on..
The 1970 US Census determined there were 203 Million residents in the US. The unofficial figure for the 2010 census is 308 million. Where did you think the increase came from? Most came from failed nation states from all over the world.. These people will never try to revolt against what they consider to be a fair and benevolent US Govt.
So you would be asking a lot from the other 2/3 the population who are caught up in the "system". Mortgages and credit ratings, the justice system and the just the thought of losing their jobs puts them in abject fear of losing it all. Leave alone revolt they will not take a day off work take part in simple protest march. And that is why my dear friend the people will not revolt. And its not because of the reasons outlined by you or any other shock jock of the day.
You mat find a good read about the Population Profile of the United States at this address. http://www.census.gov/population/www/pop-profile/natproj.html
Almost all Americans love America. From the Mayflower descendent old money types to native Americans, African, Italians, Tejanos, Mexicans, Phillipinos, Pueto Ricans, Cubans or what have you. That is the crazy thing about this country is, once they come here, with its flaws and all people know America is the best place to stake your claim. They all love this place.
Americans are patriotic to a fault and they will never revolt. Because they know they can weed out some of the bad apples in goverment by using their ballot. We all belive in this crazy notion called Democrazy.
Its got nothing to with any 5% of the population feeding the rest of country. Is preposterous to say such a thing when you know its wrong.
5% that are feeding 95%? Now here are some numbers that were cut and pasted from ‘Daily Paul’, Ron Paul’s web site. http://www.dailypaul.com/node/111232
US wealth distribution: 10% of US citizens own 70.9% of all US assets.
And it gets much uglier as you proceed downward. Bottom 40% of population has 0.2% of all wealth.
And while at this, let me debunk another myth you guys seem to like to talk about a lot..
The whole American – “Our taxpayer dollars” thing…Especially the conservative concept of a "taxpayer" it sounds good but its a fallacy.
There is no such thing as 'taxpayer dollars' well there is, but not in the all encompassing superior, holier than thou way conservative people like to address this topic.…With just taxpayer dollars only the US Govt will not be able to do shit..Its all about balance of payments..Its about power and being able to borrow based on your potential And that hold true for Governments too....Ask any college economics professor and he will put you right… The US govt is the most powerful single entity in the whole wide world.. It does not need taxpayer dollars to function…It lets people think it does.. because its expedient…Its not that the Govt. is trying to get into your pockets, People have to pay for its services. And most of the population are cool with that...We feel we are still getting a good deal, compared to others...
Its got nothing to do with anything other than ‘power’..The permanent power players in the US Govt., have tenure..You can put of a few famous ones into perspective..latest being Dick Cheney…career Govt. power hack who never actually ran for office really except as VP. There are hundreds of people like him who are policy makers in the Govt. …like Kissinger and the likes of McNamara or Bill Bennett for that matter…whom we have heard about..for each of these guysthere are thousands of power player decision makers in the US Govt., we have never heard about..
This whole notion of taxpayers feeding non taxpayers is so ridiculous, people from other affluent nations just wag their heads in wonderment when they hear this crap. It is not that the poor are a burden to the rich but the other way around. The rich ride on backs of he poor…the poor are getting poorer by being taxed more..The poor are spending a mean 70% their income on basic necessities which are heavily taxed at the cash register or town hall or wherever which are controlled by the rich.…While the 5% of the so called who are taxpayers who arecontinually thinking of ways of dodging what little they pay Uncle Sam and trying their damn-est to get rebates and refunds on their investments and the taxes they actually paid, while the poor pump in trillions of dollars out of their disposable income in indirect taxes on everything they use from electricity, gas, property taxes and the like..If you guys who are in the so called 5% who are taxpayers pooled all the taxes you paid each you would not feed a country as small as Switzerland.
And some want you to believe that America is broke..It is not.. Sure there is less to go around right now. But America is rich beyond anyone’s wildest imaginative guess. There are reserves in Oil & Gas, Coal, Iron, Wheat, Corn which the rest of the developing world needs badly and are willing to pay a premium just because its American..
America owns and closely guards most of the world’s advanced technology in terms of Engineering design and fabricating in many important sectors, from farm machinery to microbiology to neuroscience to advanced materials used in specific industries like the military or space travel or medicine..All these technological advances and its applications will always be sought after by other nation states of the world and they usually pay big to get a hold of this stuff.
The Japanese have to sell a whole bunch of Toyotas or Subarus to make up for the cost of one military jet or and Apache Helicopter or a Boeing Dreamliner or an MRI machine...If Boeing were build a couple of thousand Dreamliners, the Chinese, Japanese, the Koreans, Indonesians will be lining up to buy them and the rest of the developing will line up to buy our second hand technology in a heartbeat. So this scare that our deficit is going to enslave our children is another myth propagated by the conservative hacks for more air play and nothing more. Like I said earlier,…Its a game after all. The puppet master is always been in charge of the show really. And don’t kid yourself Mr 5%er! You are not that important.
Welcome to the Punch & Judy Show... 2010 style..
www.whereisjeff.com
Jeff (last name unknown): about 5'5" 160 lbs. white, medium length hair, has arthritis in both hands. Friendly, talkative, just a regular guy has been missing since July 2010.
Last known whereabouts: Longview, WA and Vancouver WA. Moved in with a woman (name maybe Jill).......in the Longview area.. and was making plans to get married and honeymoon along the Oregon Coast in June/July of 2010. He has not been seen or heard of since by his co-workers. He used to drive a late model Black VW Jetta, and has also been seen driving in gold color 2002 model Chrysler LHS. His last known place of work was at ..Auto Warehousing Company at the port of Vancouver WA. If you have seen him.. Please call 503 427 8430. His co-workers are concerned about him...
...by the way in the original proposal made to then President George Bush on the invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the name recommended by the author of the document was Operation Endeavor. Which would have been the perfect name for the Iraq War... However President Bush in his infinite wisdom upon reading the report crossed out Endeavor and penciled in Enduring Freedom, which has been questioned as to wherever it was an appropriate name for obvious reasons. He was the President after the all and if it made him feel good, they just let him he could call it anything he wanted...and that's was one of the few things he was allowed to do in that theater of operations really....Now that is Govt. for you....And most have this notion of Govt. as pure as the driven snow as outlined in the documents drafted by the founding fathers? What a crock!
Hayen Island Oregon
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