kottke.org

...is a weblog about the liberal arts 2.0 edited by Jason Kottke since March 1998 (archives). You can read about me and kottke.org here. If you've got questions, concerns, or interesting links, send them along.

Here comes the Sun (and not in a nice way like in that Beatles song)

Attention, citizens of Earth! The time for talk has passed; we need to take action. Our nearest solar neighbor, who goes by the seemingly benign name of "the Sun", is currently making what is the latest in a series of aggressive moves against our planet and its inhabitants. Here are just a few of the Sun's many past & current actions against us:

- Aided by tiny electromagnetic evildoers called "photons", the Sun is providing the fuel for Kudzu's takeover of the American South.

- The Sun is in league with several large Earth corporations for the nefarious purpose of raising the temperature of our planet in order to melt the polar ice cap, flooding our continental coastlines, and making the land further inland into valuable coastline. And who owns this soon-to-be-valuable land? You got it, the Sun.

- Deadly UV rays coming directly from the Sun are causing skin cancer in millions and turning George Hamilton into a tan freak of nature, while doing nothing to help poor Michael Jackson with his paleness.

- In a spectacular display of greed, the Sun, at its current fuel consumption rate -- which can only be called "recklessly high" -- will burn itself out in several billion years, leaving the inhabitants of Earth without heat, light, and eventually little else as well.

And now the Sun has launched its latest offensive. On Tuesday, the Sun fired a level X17 solar flare directly at the Earth. The flare, which is "headed straight for us like a freight train", will impact our magnetic defense shields sometime on Wednesday and, according to our solar defense experts, could disrupt satellite communications, take out large chunks of our power grid, and seriously injure our brave astronauts orbiting the Earth in the International Space Station. This latest attack could be the 2nd or 3rd largest on record, leading some to speculate that the Sun is deliberately escalating the conflict and that peace between our celestial objects is becoming impossible.

Haven't we had enough? I say it's time to stand up to the Sun and its cronies (Kuiper Belt, Oort Cloud, I'm looking at you here). Let us throw down the oppressive Copernican Regime and show the galaxy who's the boss of this so-called "solar" system.

By Jason Kottke    Oct 29, 2003 at 10:53 am

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