A warning concerning upcoming solar flares has been the most popular news item on Yahoo News for two days. That shows that people are really concerned they may not be able to text their sweethearts!  You can find the article here.

Because I had a ninth-grade science class, I know that solar flares have been a part of life throughout the history of humankind. The cycle is eleven to thirteen years, depending on who you read. When they first came to my attention, I was into CB radios and “scientists” were warning us that CBs would be unusable. That didn’t happen. It got noisy, but the problem wasn’t as severe as was advertised.  A dozen years later I was into Amateur Radio, and again, “scientists” warned that the solar flares would cripple the hobby. Didn’t happen. Static? Yes. But not so bad it made it unusable — not even the low-bands.

Once more, “scientists” are alerting us to this terrible natural phenomenon of solar storms. (They changed the name from solar flares to storms — probably for effect.)

Watch the video on the Yahoo! site and try not to laugh when “Scientist Baker” says, regarding the electrical power grid, “It could cause blackouts that could last for…years” and “[I] don’t believe this is a chicken little thing” all in the same breath.

And they wonder why people don’t believe them when they talk Global Warming! (Which — to cover themselves — they have renamed as “Climate Change”).

I expect to see these “scientists,” wearing sack-cloth saying, “Repent!” Meh — skip the sack-cloth, Gore’s been preaching repentance in Armani suits for years.

Don’t get me wrong. I love science. And I respect true students of science. What the media is showing us today is a different kind of scientist — one who seems to have a flair for the dramatic.