Dear, oh, dear! I'm sure that if a friend of mine gets wind of this, it will be an occasion for yet another panic attack.

We were all supposed to die in the wee, small hours of January 29 when asteroid 2007 TU24 (a potato-shaped rock about 800 feet long) was going to collide with the earth. Several web sites reported this, as did a late-night radio program to which my insomniac friend is addicted. "NASA is keeping it hush-hush," she said, "because they're afraid people will panic. And besides, there's nothing they can do about it!"

Sounded a bit goofy to me (she's done this sort of thing before), so I wasted some time on the internet and discovered that astronomers had determined that asteroid 2007 TU24 would be what might be regarded as a "near miss," but that it would miss us by some 334,000 miles, further away than the moon.

But one does not let go of a good opportunity to panic that easily. She had subsequently heard that it would indeed miss the earth, but that it was "ionized," and that, as it passed the earth, there would be a "plasma discharge" that would set fire to the earth's atmosphere. We'd all be, literally, toast!

The morning of January 29th dawned, and lo! we were still hear!

Now—it seems that there is an increase in the intensity of sunspot activity. In astronomy class some decades back, I learned that this occurs on a regular 11-year cycle, and that at it's peak, there is sometimes an increase in radio interference, and often the northern lights are somewhat more spectacular than usual.

Ah!! But this time, she tells me, it will be far more intense, and at the peak of activity in the year 2012, it will stop the rotation of the earth!! There will be huge tidal waves, earthquakes, hurricane-force winds, volcanic eruptions, and a depressing shortage of beer! Also (proof positive), this is predicted by the Mayan calendar!

"Scientists and the government know about this," she says, "but they're keeping it hush-hush because . . . etc., etc."   

I'm not quite sure of the mechanism involved in sunspots, no matter how intense, being able to suddenly stop the rotation of the earth.

Oh! And if that doesn't get us, it is long overdue that the north and south poles are going to swap places. There is geological evidence that the magnetic poles do trade places periodically, but other than having your compass go screwy, there is no evidence of any effect beyond that. Certainly nothing that living beings would even notice. But she has it in her beanie that this means the whole earth is going to flip over 180 degrees, wiping out all life on earth!

I'm not really sure of the mechanism involved in that little dance, either.

My goodness, she leads an exciting life!!

Don Firth