There is no sunspot activity at this time -- if you all need something to worry about here is my candidate -- sunspot activity plays a very important role in earth's weather . The  Little Ice Age (1300 - 1850 ) had a minimum of sunspot activity during the worse of it.

While science is still debating the importance of the Maunder minimum to the little ice age I have read statements that it absolutely DID have an effect and that extreme sunspot activity also occurs during hot spells here on earth--- so , I suspect the sun has a great deal to do with Earth's weather, what about you all ?   --- so would you all rather freeze then burn ? I'm still debating but I think I would rather do neither.

Just because... Leon saw some horror pictures of what happens to people that have motorcycle accidents without protective clothing and he says I am not riding until I get my leathers...
The jacket is on hold -- though with this cool summer we are having I may sew it, anyway.   He is more than likely right so I yielded to his superior wisdom and insight -- actually, I debated a little further but I did not have anything like a reasonable weapon; saying I Just WANT to ride the bike did not exactly sound like a grown-up thing to say.

Its going to rain this weekend... starting tonight... Well, Happy Fourth of July, folks !! I will be doing inside things and absolutely no outside cooking unless NOAA is wrong - Once again!

OH -- for those of you who have clear skies ... look towards the west at sundown on the Fourth ... you will see a very spectacular sight - Saturn, Mars (Regulus) and the Moon are pretty much lined up (alignment)    as pretty as they can be... that's in Leo (Regulus is Leo's brightest star!)  for all you who slept through astronomy class.  Not sure what that might imply for all you astrologers but I tend to love sky watching for its own sake. I will take a peek if NOAA proves to be wrong about the weather. (PLEASE, Oh, God let them be wrong!!!!!!)

As an American Italian,  I thank our founders for my freedom and rights ... Long live the USA, and many blessings on all Americans of all colors and sizes  !!!!!!

I won't bother you with the long name -- our planet has a sound track caused by solar wind hitting Earth's magnetic field- the same thing that causes Aurora at both poles. It is not a pleasant sound but it isn't quite as terrible as they say it is -- what is neat is that it may be another tool for finding planets orbiting other suns !!!!!

The sun is dormant - few or no sunspots, just as it was during the little ice age. So get knitting. I suspect that global warming may delayed some. Where the human effect on climate is questionable, in my mind, no one can doubt that the sun effects climate.

Ice on Mars? Well, well well - won't have to bring our own ice to the first 4th of July on Mars colony I - good news, folks !! (oh, please let it be ice!)
Computer glitches on the other hand - oh, great ! and not one geek within a million miles.

Well, isn't that just a hoot? From 1300 AD to about 1850 AD the planet was in a little ice age. It was a bad time had by all- the first thing was that came was years without summers, next, starvation, third - epidemics, 4th? the Plague in 1348... People fear warming but I do not. I fear cooling. Warming will just redistribute rain and weather. Cooling will create a crisis in food production and health concerns that will be nightmares.It will force us to burn more fossil fuels.
READ about "the Little Ice Age".

Its always something lately with the Muslims : Guys, you can force the rest of us to treat Mecca as the center of the world AFTER you conquer the world, not before! (England imposed it after conquering the world, what's your problem???)

I think we will sooner or later find out that many of our legends & myths are actual memories. I Sodom & Gomorrah may or may not been destroyed because of their sin(I doubt God to be so wrath-filled ) but nature knows no favoritism!

Super Interesting!!!!! Another suggestion of a large planet - Planet "X" in the outer most reaches of the solar system. Poor little Pluto wasn't good enough, folks - but that far out what is the difference between an asteroid, comet and a planet - size alone, orbit, chemical composition? Will this turn into another 'nemesis' bust when it isn't found?

Our early solar system was a chaotic place and one of the biggest questions facing science is what makes a planet a life-bearer, because if we that we can look for the same conditions in other solar systems. Here is another piece of the puzzle.

"This is how the world ends, this is how the world ENDS...."

Sometimes the news is GOOD > Asteroid is passing by but does not crash into our party. Good news.

Not exactly a cozy, friendly universe - good news, we really are a boring planet orbiting a small, main sequence star !!

Totally weird - a true U.F.O. -something with a long, black trail looks like it is plummeting towards Earth. I don't believe in the whole aliens-ate--my-homework religion - but what is it? I like the space junk guess. Makes sense.

Just an article that is so absurd I am sure it is profound. I felt while I was reading it like the poor peasants of Italy must have felt when, by some happenstance they happened to collide with Giordano Bruno or even Galileo G. back in the late 1500's - you know, just one of those accidents that happened on busy Italian street corners back in 1575. Or,  perhaps a better metaphor would be the same peasant delivering some squash to the Vatican kitchens and accidentally ending up in the Sistine Chapel ...
Their eyes grew large, they listened to the profound natural philosopher (ie. scientist)  or looked up to the magnificent paintings (if we use the Sistine chapel metaphor...) and then shook their head.
"I don't understand, sir, but I am impressed. Please speak Italian, slowly, I am but a humble farmer..."  or, perhaps :  "Too much for my eyes & mind, I can't absorb it all eeeeeee kkkk !" As he ran out of the grand room weeping in terror.
Here is the article. Tell me if you understand it in the least. How can (in a real and rational world) looking at something actually effect it to this degree? O.K. They need the math but honestly - shorten life of the universe? I cannot as a rational person take it seriously. I have a question : Its a darn big universe out there... there must be billions of scientists on millions of worlds studying this stuff... they all look up and do the same math, find the same dark matter, explore the same universal physical laws... are they all shortening the universe's life when they do so, and, if this is so, perhaps it is time to invent a parallel universe machine to escape when the sands of time run out in two seconds. (doubtlessly some new race on a distant planet just noticed quantum mechanics for the first time? )

I know the cat trick and parallel universe theory and may even understand it some (only very little but  - really???) I thought that it was all just a theory.  Human beings don't have any where near this power to effect things, do we - could this be what prayer is - studied concentration on something changes it radically?  No can't be. Don't mix world views, Kat, it don't work.
I return to my theoretical and metaphoric Italian farmer:

"Tell me that angels dance on the head of the pin or that the earth goes around the sun and I might smile and nod and go back to my squash farm ... but, really, sir, tell me I have the power to shorten the life of the universe just by looking up and counting the stars. Its time to gather firewood, sir, it really is! "

(For any of you that don't understand the reference to firewood : as in an auto-de-fe - the usual solution for the absolutely annoying natural philosopher back in the late Renaissance ! )

For me, it seems that science, or, at least physics has just gone off the deep end, next they will be telling us that 10 billion angels CAN dance on the head of a pin - My thoughts can be summed up thus  ----- 'And they think I am mad because I believe in God - next to this idea of changing the universe by looking at it ... the idea of an infinite intelligence or mind behind all reality is just a really neat possibility. God, I can believe in - my effecting the life span of an entire universe by observation alone? No way - me - one insignificant worm on an insignificant planet orbiting a main sequence star in a galaxy called the Milky Way?

I will read the article a few dozen times more and try to comprehend, but honestly, I think I like my metaphoric squash farm, more and more !

Some good news for people, like myself, that believe that mankind must go to the stars or perish. At least 5 planets orbiting a star rather close by interstellar standards... all we need now is money, will and a ship that can move fast enough!