OT: Read In Magazine

[Atrocities]

I read today in a magazine in the Dr. Office that the Earth has moved about 760,000 miles closer to the sun over the Last four years and that is why we are having all of this add weather and funky tatonik (sp) plate movements. Hell when Mt. St. Helens becomes active again, something is wrong.

Any one know anything about this? Also it spoke about how the moon is moving away from the Earth at the rate of something like 20ft a year. And that effects the tides and such.

The article listed a bunch of nasty "The sky is falling" things that are, in the opinion of many scientists, happening right now. Real end of the world kind of crap from the polls flipping palarity to the core of the planet slowing down and no longer spinning.

Real depressing things like the polar ice caps are melting in the Artic and how some man made aqurium seaweed is spreading like wild fire through the mediterian sea and in its wake all things die because its so toxic to them.

Is any of this true?

[Fyron]

Erm... what magazine was this, Time magazine?

The Earth can not possibly be moving that much closer to the sun in 4 years... It is definitely either moving closer or farther each year, but not by that much. The Earth is something like 92,955,820.5 miles from the sun (first google hit on "earth sun distance"). At a rate of 760,000 miles every 4 years, we would have had to be twice as far from the sun around 500 years ago. There would have been a hell of a lot less life 500 years ago if we were 2 AU away from the sun. No event could magically cause the Earth's orbit to begin to decay at an extremely accelerated rate unless we were very close to it (far closer than Mercury). Total BS.

The moon causes tides by orbiting around the Earth and causing varying gravitational pulls on it as it rotates (from different location...). I do not recall whether it is slowly getting closer to the Earth or farther away. It is a very slow, almost imperceptible change, and will not have any significant affect for millions, if not billions, of years.

The magnetic poles of the Earth reverse polarity at infrequent intervals. Nothing special or dangerous.

Ice caps melt all the time. They also form all the time.

There was some deadly seaweed that was ravaging the ocean floor for a while, but I think they have gotten it more or less contained (albeit to rather large areas).

[bearclaw]

Fyron, our own resident Myth-Buster. Gotta love it.

[tesco samoa]

only thing i know is city of destruction.... aka Toyko... a ticking time bomb....

[AMF]

Because of Gojira?

tesco samoa said:
only thing i know is city of destruction.... aka Toyko... a ticking time bomb....

[dogscoff]

Alarikf said:
Because of Gojira?


Quote:
tesco samoa said:
only thing i know is city of destruction.... aka Toyko... a ticking time bomb....

Actually, because it's due for a massively massive earthquake about, oooh, five or ten years ago. Tokyo is built with earthquakes in mind, but even so the destruction will be huge.

It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. I just hope the recent Indian Ocean earthquake doesn't kick off the Tokyo one.

Isn't California due as well?

[Will]

Ok, story time. As you can see from my location, I go to USC. We have this rivalry thing going with UCLA, we're supposed to hate each other.

So anyway, "The Daily Bruin" is UCLA's student newspaper. A few months ago -- I think around October -- it had a minor headline saying there would be an earthquake somewhere in the Southern California area. On Friday. The article was published on a Tuesday or a Wednesday... So, anyway, if one took the time to read into the article, the justification for this claim was this: Several years ago, scientists predicted that there would be another big quake in SoCal between a certain set of dates spanning a few years. The Friday that the article claimed was the date the quake would hit was the Last day of that few-year span. That was the ONLY justification.

Needless to say, Friday came. Friday went. Not so much as a jiggle felt by anyone, or any siesmometer (sp?). So much for public school journalism

But anyway, I guess we're technically overdue.

[DarkHorse]

With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound
He pulls the spitting high tension wires down

Helpless people on a subway train
Scream bug-eyed as he looks in on them

He picks up a bus and he throws it back down
As he wades through the buildings toward the center of town

Oh no, they say he’s got to go
Go go godzilla, yeah
Oh no, there goes tokyo
Go go godzilla, yeah

Rinji news o moshiagemasu!
Rinji news o moshiagemasu!
Godzilla ga ginza hoomen e mukatte imasu!
Daishkyu hinan ****e kudasai!
Daishkyu hinan ****e kudasai!

Oh no, they say he’s got to go
Go go godzilla, yeah
Oh no, there goes tokyo
Go go godzilla, yeah

History shows again and again
How nature points up the folly of men
Godzilla!

[classic song ]

[David E. Gervais]

"I believe, I Believe!" (it's just the when that is 'Iffy')

Cheers!

[Nodachi]

If you want to see just how active southern California is check out this link.