The summer is right around the corner, but when exactly does the summer start? The first summer day in North America is Wednesday, June 21, 2023. The length of the astronomical seasons varies between 89 and 93 days, while the length of the meteorological seasons is less variable and is fixed at 90 days for winter in a non-leap year (91 days in a leap year), 92 days for spring, and summer, and 91 days for autumn.
You are probably planning to travel and go to different festivals. If so, you have a lot of time because the summer will last until Saturday, September 23, 2023.
June 21 will be the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, and the summer solstice.
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Solstices and equinoxes mark the key stages in the astronomical cycle of the Earth and, as such, aren’t fixed. There are two equinoxes. Spring, autumn, and two solstices. Summer, and winter. The summer solstice often invites many superstitions, and traditional pagan ceremonies, including gatherings at Stonehenge.
I`m so fascinated by the Stonehenge. Who in the world built it? And how? Stonehenge is one of the most famous landmarks in the United Kingdom, and it`s regarded as a British cultural icon.
Archaeologists believe that Stonehenge was constructed from around 3000 BC to 2000BC., and the surrounding circular earth bank, and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC.
Radiocarbon dating suggests that the first bluestones were raised between 2400, and 2200 BC, although they may have been at the site as early as 3000 BC.
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, two miles west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around 13 feet (4,0 m) high, seven feet (2,1 m) wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones.
25 tons? Who built it, and what tools did they use about 3000 years ago?
Former president Donald Trump was a commander-in-chief, but the Hate Media attacked him every single day. No matter what he did or say. The same cannot be said about President Joe Biden. Media loves him. No matter what he say or does.
A commander-in-chief or supreme commander is the person who exercise supreme command and control over an armed forces or a military branch. As a technical term, it refers to military competencies that recides in a country`s executive leadership, a head of state or a head of government.
Trump confronted China, defeated ISIS and depleted Iran. He did this because he wanted to protect the United States of America. Trump also created security at the boarder with Mexico, while Biden made a lot of chaos, but the Hate Media doesn`t talk much about that.
Steve Hilton think Trump was a strong leader with a peace of strength leadership, but Biden and the failed establishment is nothing but chaos through weakness. Rep Jackie Speier said on CNBC that the chaos is an «Intelligence failure.»
On July 8, Biden was questioned over intel before Afganistan collapsed. «Your own intelligence community has assessed that the Afghan government will likely collapse,» a journalist said. «That`s not true,» Biden said. Experts are claiming Biden lied and the Democrats is trying to shift the blame on the Intelligence community.
Wait a minute. This is similar to the chaos former president Bush created. He said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and went to war on that. But it was all a big lie. The chaos started after the attack on twin towers, 9/11, 2001.
For all I know, Bush has never been in Iraq. So, who told him that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction?
We all know the chaos in Afghanistan, but who is talking about the leadership that created it? Very few, but Steve Hilton does, and he is angry. President Biden gave the government to Taliban only days before the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
This is a war England lost. This is also a war that Russia lost. They got bankruptsy in 1998 because of the war in Afghanistan. Now, the US gives up too. Billions is lost. Thousands of soldiers are killed, and there is nothing left.
This is embarrassing and Taliban declares the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. It seems like the democracy in Afghanistan is working, if democracy is «control of an organization or group by the majority of its members.»
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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Shinybull.com. The author has made every effort to ensure the accuracy of the information provided; however, neither Shinybull.com nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in precious metal products, commodities, securities, or other financial instruments. Shinybull.com and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
The nationalist trend continues in Europe. Similar to the United States under president Trump. A poll on Friday last week revealed that Chancellor Angela Merkel`s party CDU dropped from 21,7 percent to «only» 12 percent. What a bombshell.
Only a few days later, we have a new bombshell. This time it is in Ireland were Sinn Fèin are celebrating a historic result. Sinn Fèin won 37 seats which is an increase of 14 on the 2016 election. Fianna Fàil lost 6 seats, but is the largest party with 38 seats. Only one more.
The IRA`s former political wing Sinn Fèin`s leader Mary Lou McDonald said the outcome was «something of a revolution in the ballot box». Sinn Fèin used to be a political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which fought for Irish unity during the decades-long sectarian conflict known as “the troubles.”
This election has been different from others and the main issues has been housing, healthcare and childcare. The answer to that is the nationalist party Sinn Fèin which is not a left-wing party but a nationalist party. A party more like a pragmatic party according to specialists.
This is a complicated phenomen because the party was changed to Sinn Fèin – The Worker`s Party in 1977 and then to the Workers’ Party in 1982. The party has been closely associated with the IRA. Natable organisations that derived from it include Democratic Left and the Irish Republic Socialist Party.
Before the split with the terrorist organisation IRA in 1969-1970, the Workers’ Party was a Marxist-Leninist political party. But the Marxist outlook became unpopular with many of the more traditionalist republicans, and the party/army leadership was criticised for failing to defend northern Catholic enclaves from loyalist attachs.
(These debates took place against the background of the violent beginning of what would become «The Troubles»).
Mr. Varadkar`s center-right party Fine Gael slumped in opinion polls amid crisis in housing and healthcare. They have been trading power for decades along with another center-right party Fianna Fail. A duopol that is now coming to an end.
Both center-right parties had ruled out an alliance with Sinn Fèin during the campaign, and Mr Varadkar said Sinn Fèin was «not a normal party.»
Sinn Fèin support a policy of «critical engagement with the EU», and have a «principled opposition» to a European superstate. It opposes an EU constitution because it would reduce the sovereignty of the member-states.
It also criticises the EU on grounds of neoliberalism. Sinn Fèin MEP Matt Carthy says the «European Union must become a cooperative union of nation states committed to working together on issus such as climate change, migration, trade, and using our common strengths to improve the lives of citizens.
If it does not, EU disintegration becomes a real possibility.
The phrase «Sinn Fèin» is Irish for «Ourselves» or «We Ourselves».The name is an assertion of Irish national soverignity and self-determination; i.e., the Irish people governing themselves, rather than being part of a political union with Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) under the Westminister Parliament.
Sinn Fèin is the largest Irish republican party, and a republican document of the early 1980`s stated: «Both Sinn Fèin and the IRA play different but converging roles in the war of national liberation. The Irish Republican Army wages an armed campaign….. Sinn Fèin maintains the propaganda war and is the public and political voice of the movement.
The British government stated in 2005 that «we had always said all the way through we believed that Sinn Fèin and the IRA were inextricably linked and that had obvious implications at leadership level.»
«This is not a protest vote», leader of Sinn Fèin Mary Lou McDonald said on national TV yesterday. Why people voted for Sinn Fèin is their deep dissatisfaction with the traditional big two parties in Ireland. What people ask for is an alternative party for government. Huh…sounds like AfD in Germany. Another alternative party.
The risk now is a destabilisation of the Good Friday Agreement. The Belfast Agreement is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of the Troubles. A political conflict in Northern Ireland that had been going on since the 1960`s.
It was a peace agreement between the British and Irish governemtns, and most of the political parties in Northern Irealand, on how Northern Ireland should be governed.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Shiny bull. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Shiny bull nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in precious metal products, commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Shiny bull and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
MEP`s (Members og the European Parlieament) voted overwhelmingly to approve the withdrawal agreement today. MEP`s ratified the Brexit Withdrawel Agreement by 621 votes to 49 following an emotional debate in Brussels today.
The UK will leave the EU on Friday night this week, and Nigel Farage is the happiest man in the world right now.
Nigel Farage had a speech in the parliament today and said the EU is anti-democratic, while most British MEP`s who spoke expressed deep sadness about Brexit. Many of them predicted that the UK will return to EU some times in the future.
Picture: The UK out of the EU
The Brexit party leader said this earlier today: «I`m hoping this begins the end of this project. It`s a bad project, it isn`t just undemocratic it`s anti-democratic…..
There is a historic battle going on now across the West. In Europe, America and elswhere. It is globalism against populism. And you may loathe populism, but I`ll tell you a funny thing – it`s becoming very popular.
And it has great benefits. No more financial contributions, no more European Court of Justice, no more common fisheries policy, no more being talked down to, no more being bullied, no more Guy Verhofstadt.»
Guy Verhofstadt is a Belgian politician who was the leader of the Allicance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe from 2009 to 2019. He has been a MEP from Belgium since 2009. He was also a Prime Minister of Beligium from 1999 to 2008.
He led the Allicance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group (ALDE) from 2009 to 2019, and founded the inter-parliamentarian federalist Spinelli Group. He has been the European Parliament`s Brexit Coordinator and Chair of the Brexit Steering Group since 2016.
Verhofstadt is an advocate for federalisation of the European Union, and earlier today he said this; «What is in fact threatening Britain`s sovereignty most – the rules of our single market or the fact that tomorrow they may be planting Chinese 5G masts in the British islands?…..
It is sad to see a country leaving that twice liberated us, has twice given its blood to liberate Europe…
In the last couple of days I have received hundreds of mails from British citizens saying they desperately want to stay or return….. So this vote is not an adieu, this vote, in my opinion, is only an au revoir.»
Verhofstadt and Farage know the history of the United Kingdom. What`s happening today is similar to the era of Henry VIII who broke England`s ties with the Roman Catholic Church, becoming the sole head of the English Church. It was time for the English Reformation.
The English Reformation was a series of events in 16th – century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church.
These events were, in part, associated with the wider European Protestant Reformation, a religious and political movement that affected the practice of Christianity across western and central Europe.
Caused included the invention of the printing press and increased circulation of the Bible, and the transmission of new knowledge and ideas among scholars, the upper and middle classes and readers in general.
However, the various phases of the English Reformation, which also covered Wales and Ireland, were largely driven by changes in government policy, to which public opinion gradually accommodated itself.
The English Reformation was at the outset more of a political affair than a theological dispute. The reality of political differences between Rome and England allowed growing theological disputes to come to the force.
Until the break with Rome, it was the Pope and general councils of the church that declared doctrine. Church law was governed by canon law with final jurisdiction in Rome. Church taxes were paid straight to Rome, and the Pope had the final word in the appointment of bishops.
The break with Rome was effected by a series of acts of Parliament passed between 1532 and 1534, among the 1534 Act of Supremacy, which declared that Henry was the «Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England».
But this title was renounced by Mary I in 1553. Under Mary, the whole process was reversed and the Church of England was again placed under papal jurisdiction. Soon after, Elizabeth reintroduced the Protestant faith but in a more moderate manner.
The structure and theology of the church was a matter of fierce dispute for generations.
Picture: The Pope
The violent aspect of these disputes, manifested in the English Civil Wars, ended when the last Roman Catholic monarch, James II was desposed, and Parliament asked William III and Mary II to rule jointly in conjunction with the English Bill of Rights in 1688 (in the «Glorious Revolution»), from which emerged a church polity with an establshed church and a number of non-conformist churches whose members at first suffered various civil disabilities that were removed ove time.
The legacy of the previous Roman Catholic heritage and establishment as the state church remained an issue for some time and still exists today. A Substantial but dwindling minority from the late 16th to early 19th centuries remained Roman Catholic in England. Their chuch organisation remained illegal until the Relief Act of 1829.
The Reformation was a clash of two opposed schemes of salvation. The Catholic Church taught that the contrite person could cooperate with God towards their salvation by performing good works. Medieval Catholic worship was centered on the Mass, the church’s offering of the sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood.
The Mass was also an offering of prayer by which the living could help souls in purgatory. Protestants taught that fallen humanity was helpless and under condemnation until gien the grace of God trhough faith.
They believed the Chatholic emphasis on purgatory was an obstacle to true faith in God and the identification of the Mass with Christ’s sacrifice a blasphemous perversion of the Eucharist. In place of the Mass, Protestant worship was centered on the Bible, to them the only road to faith in Christ, either read or presented in sermons.
More calls for reform came from Renaissance humanists, such as Erasmus. Humanists downplayed the role of rites and ceremonies in achieving salvation and criticised the superstitious veneration of relics.
Erasmus and John Colet emphasised a simple, personal piety and a return ad fones («back to the sources») of Christian faith. Colet’s commentaries on the Pauline epistles emphasized double predestination and the worthlessness of human works.
Anne Boleyn’s own religious views were shaped by French humanists such as Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, whose 1512 commentaries on Paul’s epistles stated that human works were irrelevant to salvation five years before Luther publiched the same views.
Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples was a French theologian and humanist. He was a precursor of the Protestant movement in France, and a friend of Erasmus. He anticipated some ideas that were important to the Protestant Reformation.
Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples remained a Roman Catholic throughout his life, and sought to reform the Church without seperating from it. Several of his books were condemned as heretical, and he spent some time in exile. He was, however, a favorite of the king of France, Francis I, and enjoyed his protection.
Picture: Martin Luther (Protestant)
By the early 1520’s, the views of German reformer Martin Luther were known and disputed in England. The main plank of Luther’s theology was justification by faith alone rather than by good works. In this view, only faith, itself a gift from God, can secure the grace of God.
Justfication by faith alone threatened the whole basis of the Roman Catholic penitential system with its doctrine of purgatory, prayer for the death, indulgences, and the sacrifice character of the Mass.
Early Protestans portrayed Catholic practices such as confession to priests, clerical celibacy, and requirements to fast and kepp vows as burdensome and spiritually oppressive. Not only did purgatory lack any biblical basis according to Protestants, but the clergy were accused of using fear of purgatory to makke money from prayers and masses.
Catholics countered that justification by faith alone was a «licence to sin».
English Catholicism was strong and popular in the early 1500’s, and those who held Protestant sympathies would remain a religious minority until political events intervened. Protestant ideas were popular among some parts of the English population, especially among academics and merchants with connections to continental Europe.
Martin Luther was a German professor of theology, composer, priest, monk, and a ceminal figure in the protestant Reformation. Another word is the European Reformation, and it was a movement within Western Christianity in the sixteenth-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Roman Catholic Church and papal authority in particuar.
It started with Luther’s Ninety-five Thesis in 1517. About 500 years ago. There was no schism between the Catholic Church and the nascent Luther until the 1521 Edict of Worms. The edict condemned Luther and officially banned citizens of the Holy Roman Empire from defending or prpagating his ideas.
The end of the Reformation era is disputed: it could be considered to end with the enactment of the confessions of faith which began the Age of Orthodoxy.
Other suggested ending years relate to the Counter-Reformation, the Peace of Westphalia, or that it never ende since there are still Protesters today.
Those who identify with Luther`s wider teachings, are called Lutherans, though Luther insisted on Christian or Evangelical as the only acceptable names for individuals who professed Christ.
In two of his later works, Martin Luther expressed antagonistic, violent views toward Jews, and called for the burning of their synagogues and their deaths. His rhetoric was not directed at Jews alone, but also towards Roman Catholics, Anabaptists, and nontrinitarian Christians.
Luther was the most widely read author of his generation, and within Germany he acquired the status of a prophet. According to the prevailing opinion among historians, his anti-Jewish rhetoric contributed significantly to the development of antisemitism in Germany, and in the 1930’s and 1940’s provided an «ideal underpinning» for the Nazis’ attacks on Jews.
Reinhold Lewin writes that anybody who «wrote against the Jews for whatever reason believed he had the right to justify himself by triumphantly referring to Luther.»
According to Michael, just about every anti-Jewish book printed in the Third Reich contained references to and quotations from Luther.
Picture: Books printed in the Third Reich contained references to and quotations from Martin Luther
The leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany, Heinrich Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of the Holocaust. He formed the Einsatzgruppen and built extermination camps.
Himmler directed the killing of some six million Jews, between 200,000 and 500,000 Romani people, and other victims. The total number of civilians killed by the Nazi regime is estimated at eleven to fourteen million people Most of them Polish and Soviet citizens.
Heinrich Himmler (albeit never a Lutheran, having been brought up Catholic) wrote admiringly of his writing and sermons on the Jews in 1940. Professor Richard Geary noted, based on his research, that the Nazi Party received disproportionately more votes from Protestants than Catholic areas of Germany.
Chruch historian Martin Brecht said; «There is a world of difference between his belief in salvation and a racial ideology. Neverthless, his misguided agitation had the evil result that Luther fatefully became one of the «church fathers» of anti-semitism and thus provided material for the modern hatred of the Jews, cloaking it with the authority of the Reformer.»
Luther saw the Turks as a scourgge sent by God to punish Christians, as agents of the Biblical apocalypse that would destroy the Antichrist, whom Luther believed to be the papacy, and the Roman Church.
He went on to produce several critical pamphlets on Islam, which he called «Mohammedanism» or «the Turk». Though Luther saw the Muslim faith as a tool of the devil, he was indifferent to its practice: «Let the Turk believe and live as he will, just as one lets the papacy and others false Christians live».
Henry VIII broke England`s ties with the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church hundreds of year ago and said goodbye. Church taxes were paid straight to Rome, but not anymore. The Pope had the final word in the appointment of bishops, but that also came to an end. So is it today. The UK will no longer pay to the EU, and the EU has nothing they can say.
But they didn`t say goodbye to Europe, and so is it today. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the United Kingdom is leaving the club European Union, but they are still a part of Europe.
The UK isn`t leaving Europe but a trading club that provides several non-rival but excludable goods to its members. Now, they want free trade and to be a member of another club like EU. We can assume the United States is on top of that list.
This is the end of the relationship with EU, but it is also the beginning of a new era for those who are building Europe. The UK is leaving the EU because EU is the problem. Not the UK. Therefore, the European Union must change.
The old European model is dead. So is the globalisation as we know it. It`s tragic for those in charge of building Europe not to see that this is a great opportunity to build a new one.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Shiny bull. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Shiny bull nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in precious metal products, commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Shiny bull and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
Califorias economy is bigger than the United Kingdom. If California were a country, it would be the fifth largest economy in the world. Wow! That is pretty impressive. California is home to four of the worlds ten richest people.
Its also home to four of the worlds ten largest companies by market cap. California has nearly 40 million residents and is the most populous state in the United States. Its GDP rose by $127 billion from 2016 to 2017, and their GDP surpassed $2,7 billion, according to federal data.
The United Kingdom has 65 million residents. Thats 25 million more than California, but interestingly it has a smaller GDP. The UKs capital and largest city is London, a global city and financial centre with an urban are the population of 10,3 million.
Californias economic juggernaut is concentrated in coastal metropolises around San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego. It has 12 percent of the U.S population but contributed 16 percent of the countrys job growth between 2012 and 2017.
California`s strong economic performance relative to other industrialized economies is driven by worker productivity.
All economic sectors in California is growing, except agriculture, and financial services and real estate are the best sectors. Second is the information sector, which includes many technology companies.
California is known for being rich in gold and pearls, and the gold rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom.
That`s 170 years ago.
Now, you can clearly see another boom; a tech boom. California has a thriving technology sector in Silicon Valley. The worlds smartest tech brains are there. So are the biggest tech companies. But the worlds entertainment capital can also be found in Hollywood, California.
All this makes California a global trendsetter in popular culture, innovation and politics. It is the origin of the film industry, the hippie counterculture, the internet and the personal computer, among others.
The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are widely seen as the centers of the global technology and entertainment industries. Many of the richest people live in San Francisco and the nation`s highest GDP per capita in 2016 was $94,000.
We have a revolution going on. So was it 150 years ago. The industrial revolution started in England. It was the name given to the first factory automation initially in the manufacture of Textiles. At that time, many current US state capitals did not exist.
At that time, London was the biggest city in the world, and England was the biggest trading nation. England produced more steel than the rest of the world put together, and steam engine driven trains were rapidly taking over long distance travel.
150 years ago saw a prolific range of inventions around electricity, culminating in the inventions of the electric light bulb and the electric motor.
Inventors in this field at this time were; Frenchmen Volta (1800 the Volt) and then Ampere (the Amp) followed by Oersted, Faraday and Maxwell. These inventors in Europe were followed by the American Edison probably the most prolific inventor of all time (1847 – 1931).
Edison produced the electric light bulb, the first public supply of electricity, the gramophone, the movies and the thermionic valve-later the triode.
English physicist Sir Joseph Wilson Swan also independently invented the electric light bulb (1860). He also invented Bromide paper (1876) still used today for photographic prints.
150 years ago telephone technology was invented. Initially the transmission of coded text messages over copper wire between England and France by Morse Code and then in the US Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone to carry voice over the same wires in 1875.
Englishman Charles Darwin publishes his theory of «Origin of Species by means of natural selection» (Now of course supported by genetics. Then dangerous and revolutionary thinking flying in the face of the accepted «Creation» in the Bible.
Now, California and Silicon Valley is the place to be. A place with economic growth which is higher than the United Kingdom. This is an evolution.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Shiny bull. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Shiny bull nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in precious metal products, commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Shiny bull and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
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