2012 solar storms -- we're gonna DIE!

Maybe we all need to read Terri Blackstock's Restoration series, it featured grid crash for a similar reason.

"2012 solar storms -- we're gonna DIE!"

With that headline, Rod Dreher has come at last into his man-in-full comedic own in playing "Rod Dreher" - much as the host of The Colbert Report on Comedy Central plays the character "Stephen Colbert".

One difference: Colbert's alter ego is pure fiction in spoofing others; Dreher's is based, to the life, on himself, the True and Onlie Begetter of the panting-mime "Rod Dreher". Call it self-parity...

Also in the wake-up-it's-time-for-your-suicide-pill annals of doom: Perhaps mercifully, I don't recall hearing anything about last year's cinematic turkey, The Happening, about tree-spawned inhalants triggering mass suicides by the millions enacted in all manner of gaudy Grand Guignol bathos. It seems as if the makers of Plan 9 From Outer Space and Robot Monster will have to step aside, there's a New Kid on the Block (literally, given the casting of Mark Wahlberg) in the lead). Both the movie and the review of it in The New Republic by Christopher Orr, reposted in the magazine's Best of 2008 archive,

"This film is so bad that I feel compelled to make a spoiler-laden list of its most laughably terrible parts rather than review it."

read like outtakes from Jack Handey's old faux-naif "Deep Thoughts" and "Fuzzy Memories" Bizarro-World spoken-word pieces on Saturday Night Live almost two decades ago [spoiler alert for the entire 18-point review]:

"Alas, there's no singing. But the methods of suicide chosen often seem chosen for their entertainment value, in particular: the man who meticulously starts an industrial mower and then lies down in front of it; the woman who wanders around a house methodically smashing her head through windows until she embeds enough glass in her skull to keel o6z8ver; and, of course, the zoo lion keeper who invites his charges to bite off his arms so he can stand around, Black Knight-like, spraying blood from the stumps."

Rod, I was a little surprised (and disappointed) that you didn't blog at all about "Armageddon Week," on the History Channel for the past five or six nights. I'm naturally skeptical of gloom and doom prophecies, but boy, that year 2012 just keeps popping up everywhere, from culture to culture, in the scientific AND religious communities. It's pretty eerie... Oh, and the stuff about the Bible Code is fascinating, too...

Knock-knock . . . .
Who's there?
Armageddon!
Armageddon who?
Armageddon sick of all this doom and gloom!

My contribution to levity. Thankew, thankew, no need to throw pointy objects . . . .

Actually, I welcome the coming catastrophe! At last, a post I can enthusiastically enjoy with no need for chiding or guilt! Cheers for the harmless thrill of imagined disasters of biblical proportions! Dante's Peak, The Day After Tomorrow . . . it's all good. Bring out the popcorn. Maybe this could be the new Republican campaign slogan: "Finally--A Fun Apocalypse!"

If our old friend Sol doesn't begin to show some serious spots fairly soon, we won't have to worry about global warming. Google "Maunder Minimum" for many happy moments of apocalyptic angst. NASA has been wrong about the onset of the next solar cycle for over a year now, so the 2012 number is not much more reliable than tarot cards, but we will be on the receiving end of grid-crashing solar storm eventually. It's the price we pay for living on a rocky ball orbiting within the outer atmosphere of our local star.

Wait, are we seeing Rod making light of a Doomsday scenario? This from the guy who posts a new Doomsday scenario every single day, and revels in them?

Panthera,
"Caribou Barbie"....man you have me ROFLOL. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. What a perfect description of my governor.

So here's a doomsday scenario....we in AK are getting ready to blow our cold air down on top of the US and it was COLD....like -70 in parts of N Alaska....

break out the wood stoves and brandy folks and enjoy the ice!

BH,

Love the NY Times headline! Made me laugh out loud.
Thanks.

I think many people search for something else that will end the world so we won't be responsible for doing it ourselves.

Opps, that was me, TO Scott

Why the warnings if there isn't a damned thing we can do about it? Just sit back and enjoy the ride?!? My husband works in a cave and my dad said that in the event of a nuclear disaster, or some such thing, he'd be safe, thank Goodness! And the hubby replied, "And live on the three day supply of pretzels and coke?" hehehe

"Dunno, Max - I suppose it might be a close-run thing. I haven't seen either film, but enjoyed the TNR review of The Happening."

***

I recommend a twelve pack, a couple of friends, and a viewing of "Battlefield Earth" in the grand old tradition of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

It's a howler.

I have reader's autism -- more like a trace of Asperger's, but what tax lawyer doesn't have a trace of it? -- in that I often can't tell whether the writer is being serious or joking. So in case you weren't joking, and to amplify on a point made by Scott Walker above, the current solar cycle is off to a very, very weak start. NASA has recently revised down its estimate of how active this cycle will be: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/08/the-new-nasa-solar-goalpost-cycle-24-maybe-not-so-big/

What does this mean? I think there's a lower likelihood of a catastrophic solar storm. Also, very significantly, a lower activity level for solar cycle 24 could provide very indicative data on climate change. If you buy the CO2 analysis, AGW would go full speed ahead (which is already not the case), with little impact from what the sun is or isn't doing. More likely, we will have a period of cooling. Even the AGW types realize this, which is why the preferred term is now "climate change," instead of "global warming." (Of course, the climate is almost always changing, so the notion of "climate change" as something new and scary represents an effort to play on the public's ignorance and gullibility.) Stay tuned. I have a hunch the sun is fixin' to pwn Al Gore in a big way.

I'm still sticking to "No man will know that day and hour." A lot of people thought January 1, 2000 would bring Armageddon.

I used to read a lot of Nostradamus and "The Bible Code." Made me really paranoid, too. Now I know that no one knows the future but God, so I'm just leaving it in His hands.

yeah but the scientist and other people who are pros in all that space shit are saying something BIG is gonna happen and man im scared i dont w

But I'm still freakin' scared.

I feel your pain bro. I'm a hippy, and yes hippies don't usualy use computers, but we have to do SOMETHING in our spare time. Anway, what I'm saying is that as long as we live a good life for the next three years, we won't all end up down there. HAHAHA!!! Sorry. I'm trying to sound like a hippy, but I just can't. Tooo funny. Anyway, we're not gonna die. In 2012, the strong heat from the flares will melt probably most of Earth's ice, causing it to cover Earth in more than 100ft. of water. And when the major flare passes by, it will heat the water and create steam. No, we will not be steamed like lobsters. Don't worry, we scientists are working on it. Anyway again, Earth will be saved and life will still provail. Taadaa!!