CARPE DIEM ~!

     One definition of this term is an admonition to seize the pleasures of the moment without concern for the future.  Since all the "stuff" I've been looking at recently (and DEALING with of late) has led me to conclude that any "future" a) won't be anything like our recent past and/or b) may not be worth messing with, anyway, I think T-shirts and bumper stickers loudly proclaiming CARPE DIEM ~!!  is a nifty idea.
     Yesterday, Fri 8/20/10, I sank into the History channel and caught a re-run of their series, "How the Earth Was Made" and got captivated by the potential blow-up of the Yellowstone volcano -- while this is not new news, the BBC documentary, 12 parts, each about 10 min., at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF-RKzqNtz0 WAS indeed more current and really gripping.  Once I got into it, stopping was not an option -- like trying NOT to rubber-neck at a massive car wreck~!
     Then, today I got all caught up in the HIstory channel series on "The Universe", some repeats, some current, one in particular on CME's or coronal mass ejections.  They (and all the yapping about 2012) address magnetic pole reversals -- which happens, say every 700,000 years and we're just a tad bit overdue for another one.  Two-leggeds prolly wouldn't notice swapping of the poles too much -- migratory birds might be more confused for a year or so -- UNLESS we were nakeed, hanging out here in space for a period of days til everything, especially our magnetosphere, which is our PROTECTION against CME's came back to right.
     Sans the magnetosphere, as I understand such things, a really BIG CME could and would wipe out everything electrical on planet Earth -- fry all the transformers, power grids and appliances,i.e. a magnetic apocalypse.  When I'm stronger, I'll proly check out the you tube stuff available on the magnetosphere (getting weaker). 
     IF a really big CME came this way, sans protection, all those fried transformers could NOT be repaired (so they claim) and it takes six months to build a new one from scratch.  Ergo, it might be a decade to restore the current grid with 1/3 to 1/2 of everyone in the developed world dying in the meantime, due to a magnetic storm.  There may be some efforts to "plan ahead" (what a novel idea for humans, let alone bureaucrats) and retrofit the grid with surge protectors for transformers.
     Then there's the "solar max" and "solar minimum" -- 11 year cycles of big and bigger sunspots or solar flares vs. weaker ones.  Seems we're right now IN a "solar max" period, which will culminate in 2013.
     And, also from the History channel, there's a good review of 2012, the "end" of the world per prophecies at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KGg0BWFb-4&feature=related.  Confusingly, there are several other videos there by almost the same title, but with a decidedly christian, fundamentalist slant, which I don't care for so much. 
     Astrophysics and geology are two of my pet favs -- can't get enough about either  -- no doubt ONE reason men my age don't find me attractive AT ALL ~!  I THINK ~!  Waaaaay too much.  Most people seem to already KNOW all they need (or want) to know. Not me.  My maxim #1:  THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX.  Maxim #2:  You can't KNOW anything if you can't PROVE it -- you can only believe it.  Corrolary to #2:  new facts CAN change what you "know".
     Oh well.  I really DO figure the odds are 51% we're all gonna be toast in another few, short years -- hate to be gloomy, but between peak oil, rising food prices, weather anomalies, powerless, effect politicians who can only squabble with each other, POTENTIAL astronomical events, and economic instability, I already long for "the good old days" of the early 1970's -- NOT the 1930's of my parents / grandparents ~!  Carpe diem.