2008 X Flares Could Be Blessing in Disguise

I have been reporting for several months what Russian scientists are considering complications from the Sun Imbalance and now the current issue of Popular Science - June 2007 - is backing up those reports.

We are going to face the largest and most powerful X flares and CMEs - coronal mass ejections in 50 years. In 1987 in Quebec the power was totally knocked out by a CME. This could be child's play compared to what we will see in 2008. It is predicted that satellites may be fried and blackouts could lasts for days on end. This cycle will last for at least two years.

Well may be it is a blessing in disguise. May be we need to have this "wake up call" to get us to remember what it is to not rely on "instant" messaging, the Net, cell phones, video games, etc. May be it will enable us to stop being total couch potatoes and get us back out walking and meeting our own neighbors instead of just people on the Net.

May be we will return to reading again. I have a friend who teaches Entrepreneurial Studies at Western Carolina University. One day he asked his students how many had read just one book besides their textbooks in the last six months. There were less than five hands raised in a class of over 100!

This is a VERY sad state of affairs in our education system here in the USA! We are turning out students whose exams are so poorly written that it is even hard to understand what they are writing about.

We are hiring people in India and other places to write articles for us that we should be writing ourselves! I remember in grad school in 1973 when I was a dorm daddy that over 75% of my students on the floor had to take a remedial English program! How the heck had they graduated from high school?

Today the trend continues and is getting worse!

Let's hope that this potential disaster on the horizon wakes us up before we become totally relying on the Net!

US Prepared
Emergency preparedness for both man-made and natural disasters.