Funny, isn’t it?

Since Friday, the blogosphere has essentially switched topics altogether. It is no longer all Obama, all the time. Now it is Palin. The left continues to try to smear her, the right to defend her, or to point out the slimy behavior of the left.

But Obama has pretty well been knocked out of the ’sphere.

As I said Friday, well played, John McCain.

The left and the media (I know, sometimes the terms are redundant) thinks they can damage McCain and Palin with their antics. Instead, I suspect, they are putting their loathsome side right out there where the public can see it. The public is not particularly amused by that.

It’s A Good Thing The Sun Can’t Affect Us Here…

…at least thats what Al Gore told us. From Daily Tech: Sun Makes History. First Spotless Month in a Century

The sun has reached a milestone not seen for nearly 100 years: an entire month has passed without a single visible sunspot being noted.

The event is significant as many climatologists now believe solar magnetic activity – which determines the number of sunspots — is an influencing factor for climate on earth.

According to data from Mount Wilson Observatory, UCLA, more than an entire month has passed without a spot. The last time such an event occurred was June of 1913. Sunspot data has been collected since 1749.

When the sun is active, it’s not uncommon to see sunspot numbers of 100 or more in a single month. Every 11 years, activity slows, and numbers briefly drop to near-zero. Normally sunspots return very quickly, as a new cycle begins.

But this year — which corresponds to the start of Solar Cycle 24 — has been extraordinarily long and quiet, with the first seven months averaging a sunspot number of only 3. August followed with none at all. The astonishing rapid drop of the past year has defied predictions, and caught nearly all astronomers by surprise.

In 2005, a pair of astronomers from the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson attempted to publish a paper in the journal Science. The pair looked at minute spectroscopic and magnetic changes in the sun. By extrapolating forward, they reached the startling result that, within 10 years, sunspots would vanish entirely. At the time, the sun was very active. Most of their peers laughed at what they considered an unsubstantiated conclusion.

The journal ultimately rejected the paper as being too controversial.

I love how the theory that SUV’s drive our climate was not too controversial, but a paper about sunspots was considered “out there.”

There have been plenty of signs lately that decreased solar activity is having an impact on our climate. Last winter was the harshest in awhile. The UK and Western Europe have had very mild summers with lots of Brits complaining about the lack of warm weather. Here in the Twin Cities we had an entire month of August without topping 90 degrees.

What does any of that prove? Well, not too much really, but it is certainly more consistent with the theory of solar influence on climate than it is with Anthropogenic Global Warming. Remember, AGW works (so we are told) without any input from the sun. (Yep, all of the computers models they used for the U.N. reports neglected to have a solar input variable.) Now, this is fine as long as you make it clear that your work is in the “all things being equal” vein. However, the pronouncements of the Goracle and his cohort of scientific henchmen were treated like they were scripture.

Like it or not, the universe is still a big place and we are still small and relatively insignificant. If an inactive sun make this a cooler world than it does. We will have to learn to adapt as best we can.

H/T To QandO, where a commenter had this beautiful line:

What matters is we meet Ted Turner’s prediction of cannibalism. How we get there isn’t important!