GLENN: Man, I am so glad that we're restoring science to it was like we were living in the Dark Ages there for a while. You know what I mean, when everybody was afraid of science, science was evil and we had all those scientists locked up into those towers and we were torturing people: Confess! Confess! I'm so glad that those days are behind us now. Now we're going to swap our beakers for some telescopes today, satellites and some other fancy space equipment because we had an article now from NASA. So let's take a second here and get... lost... in... space! Actually lost in the sun, which is kind of I mean, technically, I'm not a scientist but I think it's in space.
So an international panel oh, jeez. It's never good when we start with an international panel. An international panel has released a new prediction. The solar cycle will peak May 2013. But they are saying it's going to bottom out, 2013, with a below average number of sun spots. For us thinkers and for those of us who have not yet completed our astronomy degree, and I well, I honestly haven't flipped through the endless studies about space, but this makes perfect sense for us thinkers. For you, the nonscientists, I mean, you may be confused by the term "Cycle" since we basically ignore that concept in order to blame things on man and, you know, the things that probably aren't caused by man and then we look at other things like the economy and do the same thing. But anyway, don't focus on that. Focus on the sun and space! NASA experts are now predicting that you dummies won't even understand that a massive space storm is coming our way, one similar to the one that happened in the 1800s that was described as, quote, a solar flare that produced northern lights so bright that people could read newspapers by their red and green glow. Wow. I didn't know that happened. That is so weird. People used to read newspapers. Who knew? The National Academy of Sciences found out that if a similar storm occurred today, it would cause $2 trillion in damages to society's high tech infrastructure. By comparison, Hurricane Katrina caused only $80 to $125 billion in damage. Oh, my goodness. Is the question that needs to be asked, Dick Cheney or George Bush currently up on the sun, breaking all of the dams that are keeping the solar flares in place. Some would say this sounds like fear mongering, I know, but when we scientists make predictions like this and I do include myself as a scientist we have to look at past results, which is pretty unnecessary since we're scientists and even politicians follow us blindly. But whatever. This forecast that a solar storm is going to happen by 2013 actually listen carefully revises an earlier prediction issued in 2007 that the solar storm would come March 2008, followed by a strong solar maximum in 2011. So some might say we were wrong. They are not scientists now, are they? If we're not you know, if I wasn't a brilliant scientist, I would say, gee, like you, but you're not one of the elite. Doesn't sound like one of those end of the world predictions, you know, when the date comes and goes, the end of the world's still here: Good news, we recalculated. Guess what, solar storm coming in 2013. Panic, everyone! Yeah. Well, Dean Pesnell, good, close, personal scientific buddy of mine, he's from the Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA's lead representative, NASA's lead representative on the panel, he says, "Turns out that none of our models were totally correct." Huh. Who would have he said, go ahead and mark your calendar for May 2013, quoting, but use a pencil. This is the guy they put in charge, you know, the lead representative? "Yeah, we were wrong. We were totally, we were wrong. And we're going to be wrong again." You're a scientist, damn it; start acting like one! You are 100% certain about things that you're 100% uncertain about. And when you're wrong, you don't admit it; you just revise it.
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