Pageant of Earth's Evolution (in 24hr) part two

Since my introduction was so long I posted it separately.

FourCornersFreePress, December 2019

In the first half of this look at Earth’s 4.6 billion year old pageant of Evolution, scaled down to 24 hours, Earth’s first enduring Life took about 4 hours to claw together an existence within very tiny, very simple, very protective sacks, against an extremely harsh environment.

After that, Evolution progressed very slowly.  Why?  Because Earth’s hostile environment provided limited means, this stifled further development.  Which brings us to a key early scientific breakthrough in perspective, namely that an organism cannot be understood without also understanding the environment it lives within.

Pageant of Earth Evolution (in 24hr) part one

A nice thing about having my own blog is that I get to do what I want and since I've finally completed the big project I assigned myself this past summer - I'm going to repost the first half of my Pageant of Evolution in 24 hours before sharing the finale in the next post.  

Four Corners Free Press, August 2019

In last month’s celebration of Earth’s Pageant of Evolution I touched on the interplay of tectonics, geochemistry and archaic life. The intimate love-making of Earth's geology and biology - to put it poetically rather than scientifically. 

Getting back to the science, scientists have learned about the why and how of various ocean bottom structures that provide the catalyst between geochemistry and biochemistry, by helping bind basic molecules into complex organic building blocks of life.

This month to convey the immensity of Deep Time I’m scaling down Earth’s 4.6 billion years to 24 hours. A billion years take 5 hours plus change, 3.2 million years tick by every minute. Our human story fits into Earth’s past 4-5 seconds. Imagine that. 

Introduction to "Cc's Pageant of Evolution"

They say a true test of how well you've learned about something is how well you can explain it to others and in its essence this months long Pageant of Earth’s Evolution project has been that sort of a self-evaluation for me.  Both to see how well I understand it and to see if I could convey the story in a way that might resonate with people.  

Why is that important to me?  Because I believe clearly appreciating Earth and her story is one of human society’s greatest failures - and greatest challenge for enabling any sort of future functional human society, since our avarice has pretty well condemned this globally connected modern society we depend on.  

I keep struggling with; How could intelligent people allow such self-destructive disregard to the need of the life support system that sustains your society?  I mean seriously, never accepting that our long term economy depends on a healthy biosphere no matter how much we’ve learned about it?  

Proudly proclaiming that endless growth was our economic priority and that Greed was Good and Too Much Was Never Enough.  From my perspective it’s always been nothing less than sociopathic self-interest and faith-induced-blindness.  Along with being absolutely self-destructive.  As those who dare to open their eye and minds can see when surveying the growing carnage covering our planet.  But I digress.

House Intelligence Committee December 3, 2019, Impeachment Draft Report

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., 
holds a news conference after his committee released their impeachment report.

Streamed live December 3, 2019  |  NBC News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZXrm51yfgA

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The Rachel Maddow Show 12/03/19 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmLuvEAFqtI

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House Intelligence Committee Releases Draft Report As Part of Impeachment Inquiry

Report To Be Voted on This Evening

Washington, December 3, 2019

https://intelligence.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=890

Washington, DC – Today, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released the draft report – “The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report” – to all Members and the public.

C-SPAN's Trump Impeachment Inquiry Collection - November 2019

Here's a collection of C-SPAN videos covering November's House Impeachment Inquiry Hearings.  I'm also including the time signature notes Make-Make has been posting as comments.  I think Make-Make has done a wonderful service worth sharing.  These notes can be helpful when trying to navigate the hours worth of questions, answers and GOP's rhetorical fancy dancing and diversions, (not to mention their god-awful normalization of out and out criminality and even treasonous behavior).  But I digress, this is about creating my own record of what was actually said. As a personal bonus, it would be cool if some others can find it helpful.  Feel free to copy and share.

Rev POLITICAL TRANSCRIPTS

https://www.rev.com/blog/category/political-transcripts

For Impeachment Hearing Transcripts link to: 

November 13: Bill Taylor, George Kent Testimony Transcript

November 15: Marie Yovanovitch Testimony Transcript

November 19 AM: Alexander Vindman, Jennifer Williams Testimony Transcript

November 19 PM: Kurt Volker, Tim Morrison Testimony Transcript

November 20: Gordon Sondland Testimony Trancript

November 21: Fiona Hill, David Holmes Testimony Transcript

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Streamed live on Nov 13, 2019, by C-SPAN

House Impeachment Inquiry, Hearing Day 1 - Taylor and Kent Testimony

Ambassador William Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent testify on Impeach Inquiry before House Intelligence Committee. Go to 34:02 for gavel start of hearing. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdXAhuHhqUY

also notes from Matthew Caplan and Make-Make

Matt Kiser - Impeachment Watch - WhatTheFuckJustHappenedToday.com

I'm always amazed at how the days and weeks speed by, between having to spend time getting caught up on pre-winter and now early-winter chores (we do live in the country and our little cabin is heated by wood) so there's work that needs to be done.   Plus the 500 mile trip down to spend a week with family and our young grandson.  Too much going on.  Enough time to get caught up on news, vent by starting yet more potential projects, while not enough to concentrate on getting any of them finished.  Now it's time to get back to it.

The following is a collection of links to resources provided by Matt and friends over at the blog, What The Fuck Just Happened Today, which has been tracking and compiling Trump news since day one, so that We The People have a record to learn from, to use and retain for future reference.  And me?, it simply seems like a patriotic duty to share and hopefully help spread this information.

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Impeachment Watch: Day 4.0 (and Day 3.0)

https://talk.whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/t/impeachment-watch-day-4-0/5338

Matt Kiser

WTF Community Leader

1/ The U.S. ambassador to the European Union testified that he and senior administration officials “followed the president’s orders” to work with Rudy Giuliani to pressure Ukraine into announcing investigations into Joe Biden and the discredited conspiracy theory that the country helped Democrats in the 2016 election. Gordon Sondland testified that he, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and special envoy Kurt Volker coordinated with Giuliani at the “at the express direction of the president of the United States” to pressure Ukraine into launching investigations. 

Sondland said he directly communicated the “quid pro quo” arrangement to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Sondland also provided House impeachment investigators with emails and texts showing that acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Perry, and others were all aware that Trump conditioned a White House meeting for Zelensky on his willingness to launch investigations. “They knew what we were doing and why,” Sondland said. “Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret.” 

(New York Times / Washington Post / Politico 1 / Wall Street Journal / NBC News / Bloomberg / CNN

• Quotables: Gordon Sondland.
• “Again, everyone was in the loop.”
• “Was there a quid pro quo? … YES.”
• “… we knew these investigations were important to the president.”
• “… we followed the president’s orders.”
• “I followed the directions of the president.”
• ANALYSIS: 4 things we learned from Gordon Sondland
• ANALYSIS: 5 takeaways from Gordon Sondland’s testimony
• READ: Gordon Sondland’s opening statement
• Live blogs: New York Times / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg / NBC News / CNN

2/ Sondland testified that he told Pence before his Sept. 1 meeting with Zelensky that he “had concerns that the delay in aid had become tied to the issue of investigations.”

(CNN / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal)