Woo-woo casserole recipe

Today, I ran across a truly wonderful site, if by "wonderful" you mean "absurd."  It is called "Divinorum Psychonauticus,"which loosely translated from sort-of Latin means "Spirit Sailor of the Divine," even though to my ears it sounds like a spell from Harry Potter.  The site is subtitled, "Where science fears to tread, art staggereth in theorem."  Whatever that means.  Its creator, Erich Kuersten, seems to be a raving wingnut, although in his defense he's up front about that.  In his "About This Author" paragraph he calls himself "legally insane ten times over," although in his posts, he seems entirely serious; I saw none of the hallmarks of "Divinorum Psychonauticus" being a spoof site.  In any case, I bumped into the site because of this post, whose title ("The Bigfoot-Ancient Alien Connection: Solved!") seemed to promise great things.

I was not disappointed.

The first thing I noticed was how deftly the article explains why we haven't seen Bigfoot.  It is not, as many think, because Bigfoot doesn't exist.  It is also not, as others explain, that Bigfoots are intelligent, wary primates who live in trackless wilderness with plenty of places to hide.

No, it's because Bigfoots have all of their junk DNA turned on, and that allows them to time travel.  In Kuersten's words:

Our DNA is tampered [sic] down, which is to say a lot of our 'junk DNA' is disconnected. We're like parrots with clipped wings, while Bigfoot's are unclipped. If we could access all 100% of our brain, 'turn on' the dormant DNA, we could do some of the things Bigfoot does, such us 'skipping' through time, being able to wink in and out of existence (and thus avoid capture). In fact this is why they are so evasive... they're on the run if you will, from the castrating scissors of the Greys.

Well, I have to admit that if a gray alien with castrating scissors was chasing me, I'd try to avoid capture, too.

Kuersten then adds a nice seasoning of biblical "history" to the mix:

The story of the Great Flood and all that - the Annunaki went to wipe us all out and start again because they made us in their image and likeness and with many of their powers, their ability to tap into the higher dimensions of consciousness (there are nine total), to vibrate their Kundalini energy in and out of existence and forward and backwards through time, and into alternate dimensions. So when the sasquatch /earlier race learned how to 'wink out' they no longer wanted to mine gold for their masters. They had the power to hide, and went on the run. The next wave of humans (the Annunaki/Greys spliced with early ape hominid DNA) had these aspects of the brain shut off, the wings clipped. But the flood couldn't reach the high up mountains, which is why the bigfoot and yeti are often found there. 

Is that why that is?  I'd always wondered.  The Himalayas, for example, have always seemed to me to be a singularly inhospitable place, what with all that snow and ice and thin air.  If I were a primitive hominid, I would choose somewhere rather nicer to live.  Maui, for example.  But evidently the reason you never see sasquatches on the beach is because they got stranded up in the mountains after the Great Flood and now, 4,000-odd years later, they still haven't been able to find their way down.

But why, you might ask, are Bigfoots frequently seen getting in and out of UFOs?  I know I've asked that question myself, and usually my response has been, "hallucinogenic drugs."  But Kuersten disagrees:

The reason Bigfoots are sometimes found getting into and out of UFOs is explainable as either a kind of bigfoot terminator or traitor, working to infiltrate the bigfoot colonies, or various 'friendly' alien visitors--the equivalent of, say, Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves. 

Okay,  now I understand!  Some of the Bigfoots are in cahoots with evil aliens.  Or friendly aliens.  Or Kevin Costner.

And finally, how does Kuersten know all of this, as clearly there is no way you could get here via any of the more standard ways of thinking?  By this time, you will not be surprised to find out that the answer is:  spirit animal guides.

I asked my 'channeled' guru panther animal spirit guide. Believe it or not, that's what he 'told' me, in the weird non-linguistic way that spirit guides will. Now, he's quite a trickster as I've learned on more than one occasion. But this all makes a lot more sense than some of the daffy theories (I've heard), so I'm posting it here. Make of it what you will, and remember, the truth is so strange no language can encompass it, so never be afraid to leave language at the door when entering the higher planes! 

Oh, I will, Erich.  I left language with baggage check, and am ready to be x-rayed by the TSA (Transcendental Safety Authority) before boarding my astral plane!

So, anyway.  That's our brief foray into the deep end of the pool for today.  It's kind of like a recipe for a woo-woo casserole, isn't it?

In a large mixing bowl, place 2 lbs. finely ground Bigfoot.  Add:

• a chopped Annunaki
• biblical references to taste
• 3 tbsp. references to poorly-understood science
• 1 cup higher dimensions of consciousness
• 1 cracked UFO
• 1 pint time travel
• 1 spirit guide (preferably "panther," but "weasel" will do)

Mix well.  Place in a greased baking dish, and bake at 350 F until well-done  Serve immediately.

Pairs excellently with most wines.  In fact, the more your guests drink, the more palatable the casserole will seem.

*ding* You've got mail!

Even though I've had this blog for a couple of years, I am still mystified as to why certain posts will grab people's attention.

To date, the two posts I've done that have garnered the most hits are ones describing the fact that Rebecca Black was not singing about JFK's assassination in her dreadful song "Friday," and the fact that the blob of rock discovered by some treasure hunters on the bottom of the Baltic Sea is not the Millennium Falcon.  Why those two still get dozens of hits a day is a little beyond me, but who am I to question my readers for reading what I write?

Still more, I am frequently puzzled as to why specific posts get people's dander up.  I still periodically get hate mail over my rather sardonic post about British ghost hunters, for example.  And this brings up the interesting phenomenon of the interconnectedness of social media -- the irate Brits who still get their knickers in a twist over my disbelief in ghosts found my blog because it showed up on Twitter and then got posted to a site devoted to ghost hunting -- with the caption, "Look at what this Yankee twit said about us!"  After that, they stopped hunting ghosts for a time to hunt the wild skeptic, and I got 300 hits in an hour.  Followed by a torrent of very irate emails.

Something similar happened on Thursday, although I have yet to figure out how it occurred.  Wednesday's post, you might recall, was about the Tennessee anti-evolution bill, and I not-so-gently pointed out that the sponsors of that bill had a poorer understanding of science than your average Bigfoot chaser.  Okay, that may have been a little inflammatory, but I've said worse things about creationists in the past and gotten little to no response.

Evidently, someone told someone who told someone, and by midday on Thursday, the floodgates had opened up.  It's a little alarming, and seldom good news, when I see a big spike on my hit tracker -- so when I saw the line rising suddenly, I said, "uh-oh."  And sure enough, the emails started shortly afterwards.  And ye gods and little fishes... If I had time and space, I’d print a bunch of excerpts.  Instead, here’s a capsule summary of their comments:

So, you think you’re so smart, Mr. Evolutionary Biology Guy.  Well, blah blah blah transitional fossils?  There are no transitional fossils at all, you freakin dumass!  Blah blah yak yak the Bible is INERRANT!  It’s God’s Word!  Yak yak Second Law of Thermodynamics!  Entropy disproves evolution yak yak blah blah you worthless wanker!  Radiometric data is inaccurate, so therefore yakkity schmackity booga booga Big Bang!  What happened before the Big Bang, huh?  Were you there to see it, Mr. Godless Atheist?  I didn’t think so!  Gotcha there!!!  Yak yak blah blah it’s just a theory, not a fact!  Even the scientists don’t have any confidence in it!  Blah blah you smug, arrogant BASTARD!  Rot in hell.

Yours in Christ,

The Creationists of America

Well, all I can say is, thank you so much for your comments.  To address a few of your points:

• I can be smug and arrogant, sometimes, so guilty as charged.  I know it’s not nice and I try not to be, but it’s one of my faults.
• As far as being a bastard, my parents were married long before I was born, so it’s a big nope on that one, and my mom, god rest her soul (if there is one and she had one) would have been scandalized by the suggestion.
• “Godless Atheist” is kind of redundant, don’t you think?  Okay, I’ll let that one go, maybe you were just being emphatic.
• I’d have taken the “dumbass” comment more seriously if the person who called me that hadn’t misspelled it.
• I’m not actually worthless, although what I am worth is left as an exercise for the reader.
• And as far as my being a wanker – well, I’m not going there.  You’ll just have to speculate.

Regarding the objections to evolution itself, those have been discussed at such length in other venues that I won’t respond, except for one.  Saying “evolution is just a theory” is not an argument.  The word “theory” has nothing to do with uncertainty, or the idea that there’s this nagging feeling in scientists’ minds that “evolution might very well be wrong.”  They call it “music theory,” and it’s not because they think that music might not exist.  Are we clear on that point?

Okay.  I feel much better, but have probably now initiated a further waterfall of hostile posts.  I guess you can’t have everything.

The monolith on Phobos, and why the aliens are avoiding us

In Stanley Kubrick's seminal science fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, Earth astronauts discover a monolith on the Moon that turns out to be a signal transmitter to a super-powerful race of aliens.  Uncovering it alerts the aliens that we have become sufficiently advanced that we have made it into space -- letting them know that we had achieved a high enough technological level that we were ready to take the next step, which turned out to be spending twenty minutes watching psychedelic colored lights and the main character's eye blinking.

Well, according to a new claim, based upon NASA photographs, Kubrick's vision may have been prophetic -- he just got the location of the monolith wrong.

Take a look at this photograph of the surface of Phobos, one of the two moons of Mars:

The stick-in-the-mud, dry-as-dust scientists at NASA say this is just a tall, vaguely rectangular boulder.  This ignores the truth, which is that it is a structure placed there by a highly advanced alien species, of unknown motives, so we should proceed with caution.  After all, three separate probes have all disappeared on or near Mars -- the 1988 Phobos-2 spacecraft, the 1999 Mars Climate Orbiter, and Beagle-2 in 2003.

Oh, and also: Phobos is hollow, and is actually a spacecraft launched in 1876 that is peopled by aliens whose job is to monitor what we're up to here on Earth.

By this time, you're probably wondering who dreamed all of this up.  It will come as no surprise to hear that this is the brainchild of: Richard C. Hoagland.

Yes, Hoagland again, he of the Face on Mars, the faking of the Moon landing, hyperdimensional super-energy inside the dormant volcano Mauna Loa, the crop circles on Saturn, NASA being a thinly-disguised cult that worships the Egyptian god Osiris, and the idea that the universe is being controlled by a Giant Radioactive Bunny from the Andromeda Galaxy.  Okay, I made the last one up, but it would be hard to tell, frankly, because a lot of Hoagland's ideas leave me thinking that where most people have a brain, he has a half pound of Malt-o-Meal.

So, anyway, given Hoagland's track record I'm voting for the "big boulder" hypothesis regarding the Monolith on Phobos, boring as that may be.  But this isn't the only news from the skies -- we also should mention the claim last week, by Russian astronomer Sergey Smirnov, that the aliens aren't landing on Earth and making contact because they think we're "childish idiots."

"They don’t really like the way we are polluting our planet," Smirnov told reporters.  "Obviously, they warned all the space inhabitants to avoid contacts with the Earth, because our civilization is dangerous and all the secrets they might reveal to us will be used for constructing a new super bomb or poison."

So, basically, we're sort of the interstellar version of the creepy guy on the subway who hasn't bathed in weeks and looks like he might mug you if you get too close.

Anyhow, that's our news from the world of space research.  And maybe Smirnov's right; perhaps the take-home message is that it really would be better if we just stuck around on Earth until we learned how to clean up our act, both literally and figuratively.  This goes double if Hoagland is right about what's on Phobos.  After all, look at all the trouble the guys in 2001 got into when they started investigating the monolith.  Their computer went bonkers, a bunch of them died, and one of them got turned into an Enormous Floating Space Baby.  And lord knows, we wouldn't want that to happen.

Life Vessels and faith healers

I'm often asked why I feel so passionately about critical thinking.  "Why," the question usually goes, "does it matter so much if people believe in crazy stuff?  How does a belief in astrology, crystal healing, Tarot cards, or whatever harm anyone?"

Two recent stories will illustrate that there can be a tremendous human cost to irrational thinking.

First, we have a story broken by Karen Stollznow of the James Randi Educational Foundation (read it here) regarding a quack cure called "The Life Vessel."  The purveyors of this useless piece of woo-woo  "alternative medicine" state on their website, "THE LIFE VESSEL is a patented non-invasive technology and technique by which Frequency, Vibration, Sound and Light Waves are applied to the human body in a resonate [sic] frequency, resulting in the body being able to perform its innate Natural Ability to Heal Itself."

Note the use of our favorite words "frequency," "vibration," and "resonate" (although I think they meant "resonant").  I'm surprised they didn't throw in "quantum" for good measure.  The machines are basically a bunch of light bulbs and speakers in a box; you climb into the box, and are exposed to light and sound, and voilà!  You're healed!  Now, fork over...

... $125 per session.

And these things are showing up in "alternative medicine clinics" all over the Midwest.  An investigative reporter working for the James Randi Foundation posed as a potential client, claiming to speak on behalf of her ill mother, found that the practitioners of this foolishness claimed it could cure ovarian cancer!

How many people are forgoing medical treatment for serious conditions to pay $125 for the privilege of spending a half-hour in a box with some light bulbs?  And yet when the CBS station in Denver did an exposé regarding the practice, people came howling out of the woodwork claiming that the treatments work -- logic and the placebo effect be damned.

Then, out of South Africa we have this story, in which a popular "faith healer" presided over an event in which one man died and sixteen were hospitalized.

Brother Chris Oyakhilome, a Nigerian pastor, stages something he calls the "Higher Life Conference" at venues all over the world, attracting huge crowds and raking in money.  He has supposedly made paralyzed individuals walk, cured terminal illnesses, and performed other miracles.  And last week, he was doing his dog-and-pony show in Cape Town, South Africa, to a crowd of 150,000.

I guess the miracle pipeline was down for repairs that night, because one man collapsed from renal failure and later died, and thirty had to seek treatment at a local medical center.  Sixteen were sent from there directly to a hospital.  "Some of them had traveled long distances to get there, they had ongoing medical issues and were in a lot of pain," Dr. Wayne Smith, the doctor in charge of the emergency room, stated.

What harm if people believe in ignorant superstitions?  A lot.  Sometimes a fatal dose of harm.  Had the gentleman who died in Cape Town last week gone to a hospital directly, instead of trying to get Brother Chris to heal him through miraculous means, it's possible that he could have received treatment and might still be alive.  But no doubt Brother Chris would rationalize the man's death as being "god's will."

Sorry, I don't see it that way.  People like Brother Chris and the purveyors of the Life Vessel are charlatans and frauds.  They are making claims that are factually untrue, and are harming people in the process.  And as there seems to be no particular will on the part of governments to institute legal proceedings in these cases, the only alternative is to educate the populace in how to think critically -- and put these hoaxers out of a job.

The monster hunters and the Tennessee anti-evolution bill

There are two stories in the news that are interesting not only on their own merits, but especially in juxtaposition.

The first comes out of the world of cryptozoology, where Dr. Karl Shuker has announced the birth of a new peer-reviewed cryptozoological journal, The Journal of Cryptozoology.  (Read about it here.)  My first thought, being rather a cynic regarding human credulousness, was that it was going to be the Sasquatch hunter's answer to Fate or UFO Digest, but I'm pleased to state for the record that I was wrong.  When they say "peer-reviewed," they mean it -- and the group of people who make up the review board for submissions is no bunch of MonsterQuest rejects, it is a prestigious, highly educated group of renowned zoologists and paleontologists.

So they're doing this thing the right way.  As I've long said, my position as a skeptic does not mean that I don't believe in Bigfoot; it means that I'm withholding judgment until I have evidence.  There's nothing scientifically impossible about many of the claims of cryptozoology buffs, and there have been numerous examples of species long thought extinct being found, alive and well.  What's generally lacking is hard data, something that an unbiased scientist would accept as convincing.  And it seems to me that this review board is amply qualified to make that determination.  It's pretty clear that they don't have a dog in this race -- they're there to sift through the data and publish only those papers that meet a minimum standard for scientific validity.  And that's just as it should be.

So watch for The Journal of Cryptozoology.  It looks like the people in charge have exactly the skeptical approach that has been largely missing from discussions of this subject.

Which is more than I can say for the legislature of the state of Tennessee, which on Monday passed a bill (HB 368) by a margin of 24-8.  (Read about it here.)  Sponsored by Republican Bo Watson, the bill “provides guidelines for teachers answering students’ questions about evolution, global warming and other scientific subjects,” specifically encouraging teachers to "teach the weaknesses" of these "controversial scientific theories."

Well.  As I've said so many times that I'm beginning to feel like I should just post it as a banner headline on the top of this blog, THERE IS NO CONTROVERSY AMONGST SCIENTISTS REGARDING EVOLUTION.  And damn little about global warming.  The evolutionary model is no more subject to "weaknesses" than is the atomic theory, the theory of gravitation, or the theory of electromagnetism.  As far as global warming -- there is no doubt any more that the world is warming up; the only question is to what extent that warm-up is due to human production of carbon dioxide.

As always, this bill is just a transparent attempt to introduce a political or a religious agenda (and increasingly, those are fusing into one thing) into the sphere of governmental oversight of education policy.  It has nothing, nothing whatsoever, to do with science per se -- with the world of rational, critical evaluation of the evidence.  No one who starts from an unbiased position could fail to be swayed by the mountain of evidence supporting the evolutionary model, and in fact we know a great deal more about the mechanisms involved in evolution than we do about those involved in gravitation.

See why I found the linking of those stories wryly amusing?  It's a crazy old world when the people who are investigating Bigfoot and El Chupacabra understand the principles of scientific induction better than those who are entrusted with the welfare and education of our children.  And to the Tennessee legislators who voted for this bill; if you want a fine example of how to keep ignorant superstition and confirmation bias out of the realm of science, you might want to learn a thing or two from the Monster Hunters.

Water of life

Are you thirsty?  Is plain old water just not doing it for you any more?  Would you like to try a new kind of water, special water, that is different from the regular kind mostly because it costs lots more?

Well, allow me to introduce "Starfire Water."  But let's let the manufacturers speak for themselves:

...Starfire Water™, a proprietary alkaline, performance, bio-holographic “living” water produced using breakthrough, 21st-century quantum water technology. Starfire Water™ is treated with ultraviolet, ozonation, infrared stimulation and electromagnetism for a negative ion charged water, as in nature, allowing deep, cellular intake through aquaporins, the floodgates to hydration. 

Wow.  "Quantum water."  And it's also "bio-holographic."  Doesn't that make you want to drink up?  But tell me, how is "Starfire Water" different than tap water?

Structured Water - Water is naturally structured, but water from the tap is not and neither is most water sold in the store. Unstructured water goes right through you, while structured water removes toxins from your body.
Energized Water - Even structured water on the market, isn’t energized. When you taste our water, you’ll feel a tingle on the roof of the mouth. That’s the energized water. It gives you energy for life.
Infused Water - Most water is just water. But we infuse our water with Etherium, a trace form of liquid gold, known to facilitate higher awareness.

"Etherium?"  I checked the periodic table, just to see if I'd missed something last time I looked, and I couldn't find any "etherium."  But they said it's just "liquid gold," right?  Why on earth do we need gold in our water?

In car stereos, they use gold plated ends to provide a crisp clear connection. In the human body, we use gold too! We cannot just eat any old gold off of our wedding ring or the wires of our stereo. This gold must be small enough to enter the human cell with out digestion. If the gold is in flakes or too large like colloidal gold, it must be digested, or broken down. Some times large minerals like these do not stay in the digestive tract long enough to be digested and pass through with out much benefit. A better choice is to get the gold in a form that is all ready in it's (sic) smallest form. What is the smallest form of gold? It is Angstrom gold. Angstrom gold is the smallest form of gold available today. It is so small it can enter the human cell without digestion. Angstrom gold does not have any fillers or other excess baggage with it like colloidal gold can carry with it. Angstrom gold is pure gold infused into Pure water using angstrom's special process.

"Angstrom" gold, eh?  Isn't an "angstrom" just a unit of length, equal to one ten-billionth of a meter?  I would much prefer my gold measured in units of mass, not length.  And large ones.  "Kilograms of gold" would be something I could get excited about.  But be that as it may: what can "Starfire Water" do for my health?

(It is) The Most Hydrating Water on the Planet. That's because Starfire Structured Water is infused with Hydrogen Structuring Technology introduced by a syndicate of water enthusiast, and making it the most energizing, detoxiying (sic), anti-oxidizing and hydrating water on the planet. Using [hydrogen fortification] vortex technology, we’ve created hexagonal water that quenches your thirst from inside out.

Oooh!  Hexagonal water!  My favorite kind!  Trapezoidal water is kinda pointy and hurts going down,  ya know?  And how awesome that it's "introduced by a syndicate of water enthusiast."  Whatever the hell that means.  But in any case, how can you folks manage to make such an amazing product?

Our process utilizes a centrifugal vortex to implode the water and set the water in motion for several hours. This reorganizes the molecular order into a receptive state to receive high frequency vibration. The water is then passed through a chamber where magnetic resonance imprints a series of frequencies in an infinitely modulating sequence. Molecular order and frequency loading mutually reinforce each other to maintain the transformation of the water. The result is a liquid with the water formed into small, biocompatible water crystals that resonate at a designed and predictable frequency. The specific frequencies of the crystalline structured water solution are designed to be amplified by the cells of the human body, and transferred through resonant paths to tissues in need of "tuning".

Oh, really?  I... I see... I... um...

NO!  I CAN'T TAKE ANY MORE!  PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!  MY CELLS ARE ALL VIBRATING AT THEIR MAXIMUM BIO-HOLOGRAPHIC QUANTUM RESONANT MODULATION FREQUENCY!   I CAN'T READ ANY MORE!  NOT ONE WORD MORE!!!  *does faceplant, directly into his keyboard*

*several minutes pass*

Whoooo, sorry for that outburst, folks.  I've gotten a handle on myself, now.  In fact, I think what I really need, right now, is a nice big glass of...

Scotch.  But being that it's 5 AM, it might be a little early for that, so I'll settle for coffee.  Made with plain old, ordinary tap water, unpotentiated and un-bio-energized.  Which, to be clear, is the only kind of water there is. 

And, allow me to point out, it is also far, far less expensive.

We're having an apocalypse. Again.

I remember reading some years ago, although I've forgotten the source, about a theory that connects the degree to which people engage in apocalyptic thinking with how godawful the conditions are at the time.  The author pointed to the decades following the Black Death in Europe, and 250 years later the misery that attended the Thirty Years' War, as spawning a resurgence of focus on the End Times -- and, interestingly, an increased persecution of individuals perceived as collaborating with the agents of evil.  It's almost as if people said, "Wow, this is some awful stuff we're going through right now, wouldn't it be nice if the powers-that-be would just press 'Reset'?  But until then, let's amuse ourselves by burning some witches."

I have been mystified recently by how much attention has been given to end-of-the-world scenarios, and not just by the religious.  Besides the Christian Rapture crowd, led by such luminaries of critical thinking as Harold Camping and Ronald Weinland, there has been the Mayan Apocalypse crowd, the Planet Nibiru crowd, and (to bring it into the realm of the marginally plausible) the Death Asteroids crowd.  And what has struck me, each time, is how enthusiastic everyone seems to be about these various scenarios.  You very much get the impression that these folks really would love nothing more than to see a giant rock turn downtown Baltimore into a humongous crater.

Which, I suppose, is why new and different proposals for bringing down Civilization As We Know It keep cropping up.  I ran into a new one just yesterday (described here), in which a Russian scientist, Alexey Dmitriev, goes into his own personal take on how we're all gonna die.

We are (Dmitriev says) about to run smack into an "interstellar energy cloud" that will propel us into "2,000 years of light."  This sounds good until you read a little more, and find out that Dmitriev blames the leading edge of this cloud for massive animal die-offs, hurricanes and tornadoes, climate change, and solar coronal mass ejections.  He includes this map to illustrate what's happening:

So, anyway, I'm looking at the diagram, and I'm thinking, "I see where we supposedly are, but who are all of those other folks... Electra, Celaeno, Alcyone, and so on?"  And then I thought, "Wait, those names are familiar..."  And finally I figured it out.  Those are the names of the Seven Sisters from Greek mythology -- the Pleiades.

Interestingly, the article I linked above doesn't mention anything about the Pleiades -- it goes on and on about how NASA is covering the whole thing up so as not to cause mass panic, but never explains that the map is showing the solar system orbiting around one of the Pleiades.  This is probably because, given that the Sun does not, in fact, orbit around the Pleiades, anyone who knows even a smattering of astronomy would then look at the article and say, "This is complete horse waste."

Interestingly, the article gives a link to a NASA press release (here), and only quotes one line:  "The solar system is passing through an interstellar cloud that physics says should not exist."  This, of course, makes it sound mysterious and scary.  The article doesn't mention, however, that in the very next paragraph of the NASA story, the author states that information from Voyager gave physicists the information they needed to figure it out -- and in any case, the cloud is a "wispy mix of hydrogen and helium" that is being held in place, far outside Pluto's orbit, by a bubble of stable magnetic field.  So, as usual, the apocalyptic woo-woos quoted just enough actual science that, taken out of context, it sounded scary.

What is more interesting, however, how... cheery the author sounds about the prospect of worldwide cataclysm:  "...this strange nebulous cloud of energy (will cause) the sun to become more excited than ever before... fueling the sun to erupt into one final burst of energy that could not only destroy everything we know about our society, but also herald in a new wave of consciousness as a new generation of highly advanced and technologically minded people attempt to put the pieces back together and the infrastructure sends humanity back to a level of technology comparable to the turn of the 19th century."

Doesn't this sound the same as what the Rapture folks and the Mayan apocalypse folks are saying?  "Okay, it'll be rough for a time, but don't worry, everything will be amazingly wonderful afterwards!"  You have to wonder why this kind of thinking is so popular these days -- everyone and his dog seems to be coming up with a new and improved version of how modern civilization is going to collapse.  And I started to wonder: "Is it because things are kind of cruddy now?"  I mean, we don't have anything as catastrophic as the Black Death to try to recover from, come to terms with, and explain; but there are hundreds of more ordinary bad things -- economic woes, wars, terrorism, unemployment, hate crimes...  It did cross my mind to speculate that some of this neoapocalypticism (to coin a new, and almost unpronounceable, word) might be fueled by people looking around them and thinking, "This is dreadful.  Maybe we should just start over."

I also wonder if it might be fuel to the fire of the hypermoralistic wingnuts who are currently trying to promote government intrusion into women's rights and every facet of human sexuality, despite that it is these same folks who chant the mantra of "small government" with no apparent awareness of a break in the logical chain.  To listen to Rick Santorum, contraception, gay marriage, and pornography are going to lead directly to the fall of the United States; and if you look at folks like Brent Bozell (not directly!  Wear protective eyewear!), you'd come away with the impression that movies with scenes showing people having sex are going to destroy the moral fabric of the entire society. 

It's the same thing, isn't it?  The world is facing some pretty serious problems; day-to-day life can be kind of depressing; and we have a sudden resurgence of apocalyptic thinking and persecution of people on the basis of morals and beliefs.  In so many ways, we haven't progressed much with comparison to our ancestors from the 14th century -- a thought that is not all that reassuring.