As IF Times

link Rare Drop in Sunspot Activity Could Cause Little Ice Age – International Business Times.

I wonder how they know it’s ‘rare’?  While advances in science and research have been marvelous over the past 100 years, some of the conclusions that are offered should prod some questions as to their validity.  It’s not known for how long observing sun spot activity has been a scientific pursuit, at least for those who don’t wind up blind, but when they observe that sunspot activity is  ‘rare’, we presume it means over the lifetime of the sun and not just of the person.

Of course we really don’t know the history of the sun to assign what actually constitutes rare.  It’s been around for a few million years and man only invented telescopes a short while ago in relative terms.  In fact, the activity may not be rare at all, it may just happen at night.  But let’s assume that there’s legitimate reason to label this sunspot activity rare.

If that’s the case, we expect that there must be records kept over at least the past 3000 years which document the instances of sunspot activity.  This in itself would be amazing since these days,  we can’t even find a birth certificate issued 50 odd years ago.  According to the article, some Chinese sun-gazers made note of this activity in 600 B.C. as did some German astronomers in the 1840’s. Anyone’s guess is good as to why they would do this.   It’s a stretch to believe that people in those days recorded these kinds of ‘scientific’ observations as part of some official capacity.  You’d have to convince me that governments had nothing better to do than to pay someone to look at the sun.  More likely, they were eccentrics who pursued this stuff like someone cataloging types of cat hair.  Nevertheless, the conclusion is that based on such historical records,  sunspot activity is linked to temperature fluctuations here on earth.  Unfortunately, according to the article, not enough to offset global warming.

I guess it all sounds plausible.  As plausible as the doom the Mayans felt when they witnessed a rare eclipse back in the day, doubly so if you were a virgin.  There’s an old anecdotal story about a scientist studying the relationship between removing the legs on a bug and its hearing.  As the scientist removed each leg,  he commanded the bug to move, which of course it did. Upon removing the last leg, the command to move elicited no movement from the bug.  The conclusion was that when you remove legs from a bug, it goes deaf.  I can’t help but think of this when articles like this claiming really questionable science comes to light. Call me a skeptic.

link BBC News – Profile: Ban Ki-moon.

This all sounds warm and fuzzy, but what is it exactly that the head of the U.N. does?  Not to just to pick on Mr. Ban, but let’s include  the professional tsk tskers before him, Kofi Annan, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, etc. etc., all the way back to  U Thant.  Viewed outside of the circle of the political jet set, what accomplishments do these people actually achieve?  More importantly, how do they get appointed to these cushy jobs? 

We would have to assume that the number one priority of this person and in fact the  founding reason for the U.N.’s existence lies with the standard answer given by beauty contestants for decades; that is world peace.  By this measure, the results are spotty and certainly debatable.  Founded in 1945 after World War 2, the U.N. was ostensibly set up to prevent the outbreak of another world scale military conflict through diplomatic means.  On the surface, this kind of worked, but perhaps only because after World War 2, the only nation that wasn’t obliterated was the United States.  In fact, through the rebuilding process of its wartime enemies Germany and Japan, the Americans helped move the world into a period of 60 years of general prosperity accompanied by a somewhat  uneven peace.  Conflicts such as the Vietnam War, the Korean War, Kosovo etc., were arguably policing conflicts rather than world scale hostilities.  It was the U.N. that helped with the creation of Israel in 1948, ironically, the source of much of world conflict today. 

It’s certainly debatable whether or not the U.N. has had any real efficacy if not for their main asset of American financing, resources and of course military arsenal.  Paradoxically, the U.S. is consistently at odds with the rest of the members of the U.N. on many world issues.  Given a chance, all and sundry banana republic nations condemn the U.S. for one thing or another.   Just as the Democrats in the U.S. like to pin all that ails the nation on George Bush, so does the rest of the world assign blame to the Americans for all of the world’s woes.   This, despite the collection of shady and comic book caricatures of tin pot dictators that populate the U.N.’s committees.   Most recently, Mohmar Khadaffi, he of bombing his own people fame, was the Chair of the U.N.’s human rights council and in fact created the eponymous Khadaffi prize for excellence in that field.   You can’t make that one up.

So, getting back to Mr. Ban. What unique qualifications does this guy have that he is unopposed and unanimously acclaimed for another term in office?  If you read the article, he is exalted for his efforts on Global Warming during his first term.   Hmm.  So world peace is not among his accomplishments, but ‘awareness’ of global warming is.  Call me cynical, but I suspect there’s more money in the global warming racket than there is in quelling dictators.  If only he didn’t have to share a stage with that media hog Al Gore.

In addition, it’s not as if he even has to learn anything new for his job.  It’s likely that there exists a manual of epithets and catchphrases that he can choose from in which to create rousing speeches, all applicable to any circumstance:

“We must act now to avert an imminent crisis”

“Time is running out to avert a humanitarian crisis”

“The world must come together to avert this crisis”

“The world cannot stand idly by while this crisis unfolds”

Crisis of course is the key word, without which there would be no implied urgency.   On the other hand, saving the world is a tough job.  Hope he’s up to it.