Supermoon Lunacy ~ Perigee-Syzygy

The sky is falling, the sky is falling! The moon will be so close and in such perfect alignment on March 19, 2011 that it will lift the weight of the oceans off the tectonic plates and allow them to collide ferociously causing wide spread death and destruction (the alarmists will state). Expect earthquakes, tsunami's and volcanic eruptions.

Actually according to the astrologer (not scientist, not astronomer, but astrologer) who coined the phrase "Supermoon" over three decades ago, there are 4-6 perigee-syzygies or 'super moons' every year. And this one is simply the 'biggest' this year, certainly not the first in 18 years. They are statistically meaningless according to science. Remember that stuff with the hallmarks of observability, testability, repeatability, and falsifiability? Yeah that inconvenient stuff. But what about Japan? Well, what about Japan? The Quake didn't occur during a
new moon nor the full moon but somewhere just about in between so, no, take that off the table please.

Every one from new-agers to Armageddonists to politicos with agendas are running around like chickens with their heads cut off squawking about 2012; the end of time as we know it, the end days, the great cleansing. I have a big, "whatever dude!", for them all. Just like in gambling where our minds wish to find patterns and even the most intelligent person can fall victim to the gamblers fallacy - we see what we want to see in correlations to 2012.

Supermoons have been occurring as long as the night has had stars. Solar storms were found to have a roughly 11 year cycle almost two hundred years ago and its only been recently that science has been able to show the cause of them. The magnetosphere (which protects us from solar radiation) has had cracks come and go for hours at a time, at least as long as we have had the technology to observe it. The earth's magnetic field has been tilting the gyro forever and has flipped more than once and will most assuredly flip again. Planets and moons and suns and stars have aligned (depending on your point of reference) since pixie dust coalesced in the ether's.

It might be interesting to note that the dead solar storms and flares (magnetic knots) of 1986-1996 are the ones that were swept up in the solar conveyor belt and will be 're-birthed' for the upcoming superstorms. The belt is moving fast, as it does approaching the peak, and the best scientific predictions put the 'big one' of this 30-50 year cycle squarely in this year, 2011 - not 2012. We can't even predict if they will be focused or facing the earth or if they will blow out the backside.

Now, could a 'perfect storm' develop in the coming year or so where a California-sized crack opens in the magnetosphere at the same time a burst of radiation is pointed toward and focused on earth? Sure! But whatcha gonna do? All you can do is stock up on food, water, and protection because an event like that would literally fry every piece of operating electrical and electronic equipment including automobiles, satellites, power stations, cell towers and phones, computers and margarita blenders and it would take years, not weeks to rebuild the networks we all rely on.

But looking at the parts of this equation, and being a gambling man, I'm not going to lose any sleep over this stuff. I prefer the "correct" decoded end of the Mayan calendar by Rush for 2112 and choose to believe that the Mayans counted time by planets' relative positions to themselves; so of course they have to reset the calendar when this alignment takes place. There is nothing 'end time' about starting a cycle over is there?

Yup, I'll take my lunacy listening to Rush and watching some amazing aurora borealis and just hope the blender keeps on blending!

*Lunacy as defined by: Dictionary.com
1. insanity; mental disorder.
2. intermittent insanity, formerly believed to be related to phases of the moon.
3. extreme foolishness or an instance of it

Terminology below defined by: John E. Sanders, Professor Emeritus Barnard College, Columbia University

*Perigee is defined as an Earth-orbiting-body's closest approach to the Earth.

*Syzygy is the astronomic term for the lunar phases that appear when the centers of the Sun, the Earth and the Moon lie along a common line. When the Moon is between the Sun and the Earth, the result is New Moon syzygy. When the Earth appears between the Moon and the Sun, the result is Full Moon syzygy.