The Mayan Calendar is not ending June 3-4, 2016

This terrible article claims that “scholars” have released the REAL Mayan calendar end date and it’s June 3 or 4, because leap years!  (full screen print below; don't reward ignorance with clicks and page views)
Can we just stop it?
An actual expert is quoted, and he says actual correct things about the Long Count, and notice that no where in his statement does he say that erroneous leap-year based calculations cause the end to change: 
“As far as we know, the people of Mesoamerica, the Maya included, didn’t care about leap years,” Anthony Aveni, an expert in ancient Mesoamerican astronomy at Colgate University told the National Geographic.
“Our philosophy about leap year is a complicated scheme to make the seasons jibe with the calendar,” Aveni said. “They were more concerned that time should be unbroken, not interfered with, and that the count of time should have continuity.”
Exactly. The Long Count Calendar counts DAYS.  It doesn’t count years.  It doesn’t care about leap years. 
Even if you assume that the Long Count is only 13 Baktuns long (I’m not in that group, but I respect the thinking of those who are; 20 Baktuns makes way more sense to me)…it’s still way past 13 Baktuns.   The new chosen date, June 3, 2016, is 13.0.3.9.0 3-Zotz 3-Ahau.  Ahau is indeed the end of a cycle—a 20 day one.  Every 20 days there’s an Ahau date.
Notice that the Long Count date starts with 13.  That’s because Baktun 13 started in 2012, right on schedule, 1,872,000 days after it began.  It doesn’t matter if you correlate it with the Jewish calendar, the Islamic calendar, the Egyptian calendar (which the article does mention, who knows why).  It counts DAYS not YEARS and it is not a solar calendar.  A day is a day is a day.   The correlation between the Mayan calendars and the Gregorian calendar (our calendar) changes by a day every leap year (that’s why it’s so hard to calculate).
(Also, the concept of a "leap year" wasn't invented until 45 BC, 3000+ years after the beginning of the Long Count.)
Dragging the 365-day Haab calendar into the mix is just obfuscation and ignorance (and the Haab also doesn’t have leap years).  The Haab isn’t contained within the structure of the Long Count the way the Tzolkin is and doesn’t synch up with it.  Instead, the Long Count has the Tun period, which is 18 20-day Uinal periods to approximate a year. But again, the point of the Long Count was to count DAYS not YEARS.  It’s an odometer where most sections are 0-19 (except the Tun, which is 0-17), created by people who used base-20 instead of base-10.
Bringing in a Western astrology chart is also obfuscation, because Western and Mesoamerican astrology are not related in any way.
The 1260 day difference is because… it’s been 1260 days since 13.0.0.0.0.
Stop spreading lies through ignorance, please.

11/11/11 Welcome to the 11th gate

Today is the 11th gate, the "big one" we've all been waiting for since the series of gates started on 1/1/1 (which seems so long ago).  There are two more gates, of course, 12/12/12 and the final 12/21/2012 which initiates Baktun 13 in the Mayan Long Count calendar.
In numerology, 11 is a master number.  It signifies you plus God (whoever you think God is).  So today is a godly day, multiplied. (22 is also a master number, and in some numerology systems so are 33 and 44, but we only have 13 gates so it won't get that high!  Maybe on 02/22/2022 something will happen.)
It's a time of global and personal activation, of energy upgrades.  Take everything in and transform.
This series of 13 gates is unique because usually a galactic gate opens and then closes.  In 1999 there was one that opened between 2 blue moons (opened on the first one, closed on the second one) and the energy was crazy--but temporary.  These gates, however, are permanent.   Each one builds on the energies and changes of the one(s) that came before.
So even if you don't think you feel anything, or don't understand what's going on, that's okay.  You won't miss anything--it's happening even if you don't know it.  The crazy occupy wall street thing? I'm sure that's part of the changes. 
(image source & more information on 11:11)

The Long Count & 2012

Here's some basic information on the Long Count and 2012 that I just put together for an answer at Askville.
The people of Meso-America had a series of elaborate calendars. One of them was the Long Count, which is simply a count of days since what they think was the beginning of the world (~3113 BCE). It's like an odomoter. A Long Count date is a series of 5 numbers--today's date is 12.19.16.2.14, for instance (March 6, 2009).
Basically that means it has been (12x144,000)+(19x7,200)+(16x360)+(2x20)+(14x1) days since they think the world began. (1,728,000)+(136,800)+(5760)+(40)+(14)=1,870,614 days-- or almost 5125 years.
On 12-21-2012, the Long Count date will be 13.00.00.00.00. This is in NO WAY the end of the Long Count--it can go up to 19 and then another set of numbers would be added (1.00.00.00.00.00, but that's thousands of years away).
Although 13 was a sacred number to the Maya, and they celebrated any turning of the Baktuns (we'll be going from Baktun 12 to Baktun 13), they did not believe the world was ending.
Some authors have popularized the concept of a "galactic alignment" on that date, but there is no evidence that the Maya recognized this alignment or knew about it or indeed planned the Long Count so that the first day of Baktun 13 would fall at the time of the alignment.
The alignment itself is nebulous--the winter solstice sunrise coming up in a certain area of the sky. Although it takes 26,000 years for this alignment to happen again, the sky rotates so slow (precession of the equinoxes) that we could have assigned the actual "alignment" to be any winter solstice for the last few (or next few) years. The human eye can't detect precession without instruments.
The theory behind this alignment is that because the Maya thought that area of the Milky Way (where the sun will be that morning) was the birthplace of stars, and the sun (a star) is rising through it, that means the sun is being reborn and a new world age is becoming.

today is the 8th gate

Today (08/08/08) is the 8th gate in a series of 13, which began on January 1, 2001. Each of these gates brings in different energy. We have 13 months to integrate each surge (except after the penultimate gate) and adjust ourselves to our changing world.
The 12th gate is December 12, 2012, and the 13th is, of course, the first day of the 13th Baktun (12-21-2012) of the Mayan Long Count calendar. Although this day does NOT mark the end of the calendar (as many believe) or the end of the world (as many believe), it does mark a period of change, especially when one considers the galactic alignment of the Sun and the Milky Way at dawn (7:14 a.m., not 11:11-- 11:11 is the exact moment of the solstice, not the alignment).

Sunspot activity to peak in 2011-2012

12.19.14.4.14 5 Ix 2 Uo

I find this interesting because of the whole "2012 thing" (as I so artfully call it; when I do actually want to sound insightful I call it the "2012 event").
A lot of people correlate metaphysical energy/activity with sunspots and solar eruptions. (Steve Rother of Lightworker.com, for one.)
CNN.com says:
The peak of the next sunspot cycle is expected in late 2011 or mid-2012 -- potentially affecting airline flights, communications satellites and electrical transmissions.....
Half of the specialists predicted a moderately strong cycle of 140 sunspots expected to peak in October of 2011, while the rest called for a moderately weak cycle of 90 sunspots peaking in August of 2012.
Of course, there's one school of Mayan-apocalyptic thought which claims the "end date" is October 2011, lead by Carl Calleman. (Read the debunking of this false end date by John Major Jenkins here.) I'm sure CC will use this to prop up his saggy theory. (Part of his theory, about cycles, is very interesting indeed. It's the end-date that throws it all off. He can't take into account that the cycles he's located might be a little bit fuzzy when you look at thousands of years. He also ignores the Long Count's 13th Baktun start date even though his theory is supposed based on the Long Count. Sigh.)
Back to CNN.com
During an active solar period, violent eruptions occur more often on the sun, the agency said. Solar flares and vast explosions, known as coronal mass ejections, shoot highly charged matter toward Earth.
This crazy amount of solar activity can cause, among other things:

• Airlines flying over the pole face loss of communications that could force them to use a different, longer route at an added cost of as much as $100,000 per flight.


• The Global Positioning System is immensely important to commerce and can be disrupted by solar activity.


• Operating floating oil rigs in the ocean requires keeping them positioned within a few inches to prevent damaging drilling gear. "They have to know when GPS is going to be accurate."


• There is an increased radiation risk to humans in space.


• Currents can be induced in long electrical transmission lines, causing blackouts.

and

• The solar storms also can heat the Earth's upper atmosphere, causing it to expand. This increases drag on satellites, slowing them down. It also affects the position of the space debris encircling the planet, and it is essential to keep track of that debris for the safety of space flight.

All very nice indeed for those who think the year 2012 will be the end of the world.
Which I don't believe, but I'm starting to get discouraged explaining WHY.

13 0 0 0 0

12.19.14.3.17 5 Pop 1 Caban
Today when I left the gym, I looked at my dashboard and saw that my odometer was at 130,000 miles (My vehicle's from 1994) ...or, in Long Count time...13.0.0.0.0, which of course made me think of the whole 12-21-2012 debacle, which I spend WAY too much trying to debunk on Yahoo Answers, to no avail. I swear every time I answer a question and explain that the calendar isn't ending, it's rolling over, it's an energetic change, yadda yadda, five more questions pop up asking the same stupid thing.
I actually have a picture of my Long-Count odometer--I took it with my camera phone and emailed it to myself, but it takes a long time for the emails to arrive, and who knows if I did it correctly. When it arrives, I'll add it to this post. UPDATE: 05-12-2007 (12.19.14.5.10 18 Uo 8 Oc)--I gave up on messaging the photo to my email and signed up for Pix Place at Verizon. Here it is.)

---

I will say it again, here, in plain English.
On 12-20-2012, the date in the Mayan Long Count calendar will be 12.19.19.17.19. (the next to last count is 0-17, not 0-19). The next day, every count goes up one, to 13.00.00.00.00. It is absurd to believe that the Baktun count only goes to 13 and then resets to zero. Who decided this?
In fact, on Wikipedia, someone wrote:
"It has been suggested in many New Age articles and books that this [12-21-2012] will be the end of this creation, the next pole shift or something else entirely. However, the Maya abbreviated their long counts to just the last five vigesimal places.....This is confirmed by a date from Palenque, which projects forward in time to 1.0.0.0.0.0, which will occur on October 13, 4772. This date cannot occur with the correct Calendar Round unless b'ak'tuns 14 through 19 also occur. The Classic Period Maya likely did not believe that the end of this age would occur in 2012. According to the Maya, there will be a b'ak'tun ending in 2012, a significant event being the end of the 13th 400 year period, but not the end of the world." (Emphasis mine.)
How much plainer does it have to be? The baktuns aren't resetting until 4772, over two thousand years from now. And you know what? some idiot will be saying at that time, "The Mayan calendar predicts the world will end on 10-13-2772."
Sheesh.

Precession, 2012 and confusing math

12.19.13.14.8 8 Lamat 1 Cen
I'm writing my NaNoWriMo novel, which involves (in no particular order), Deep Ones, a meteorite crashing into Earth, 2012, the Mayan/Aztec calendar, magical stones from outer space, Grand Cayman, Salem, New Haven, and a little more. (Hey, they say write about what you know)
I took a break to do some Mayan calendar calculations for a discussion two characters are having about the Long Count. (I'm SUCH a geek)
Now the 13th Baktun is supposed to signal a new world age.
Depending on who you ask (which culture) we've been through a varying amount of world ages, each one destroyed different (flood, fire, jaguars, etc). The 12-21-2012 end date points to another destruction of earth. (Which I don't believe, but for hte purpose of my novel I do.)
The beginning date of the first baktun is way back in 3114 BCE, in either September or August depending on which calendar you use, Gregorian or Julian. That's 5125 years ago.
Now the 2012 sun rising through the Milky Way and being reborn thing, as laid out in Maya Cosmogenesis by John Major Jenkins, postulates, as the earth wobbles (precession, a 26,000 year cycle) the sun will rise through the Milky Way 4 times, once on each Equinox and Solstice. This, being the Winter Solstice, marks a new beginning.
That's great. Except that 5125 times FOUR isn't 26,000. It's 20,500 5125 times FIVE is closer to 26000 (25625)--the actual precessional cycle, according to Wikipedia, is about 25,800 years.
So it's great that the 5125 fits so neatly into precession....however....it doesn't fit into the whole solstice/equinox thing. Either the ages are born every time the sun rises through the milky way on one of those four dates, making 4 ages per precessional cycle, or there are five ages per precessional cycle, which means the galactic alignment of 2012 means absolutely nothing.
This is troubling to me. I may go back and skim JMJ's book and see what he says; if he doesn't note the discrepancy I'm going to write to him. My friend John has his email address. (c)