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This article is interesting although the credibility could be questionable - so file it under "something interesting":

Super Event Warned Near As Weather Chaos Pounds Planet

A grim report prepared by the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) for President Putin on the catastrophic flooding in the ‎Krasnodar region that has killed at least 144 people warns that our world is fast approaching what is termed as a “Chizhevsky Super Event” due to the rapidly growing number of sunspots that continue to hurl M and X Class Flares towards Earth causing continued and massive global weather chaos.

A “Chizhevsky Super Event” is named after famed Russian scientist Alexander Chizhevsky (1897-1964) who founded “heliobiology” (study of the sun’s effect on biology)

Chizhevsky is most notable for his use of historical research (historiometry) techniques to link the 11 year solar cycle, Earth’s climate and the mass activity of peoples, research that was confirmed by Western scientists earlier this decade in two important studies titled Amplifying the Pacific Climate System Response to a Small 11-Year Solar Cycle Forcing and Synchronized Northern Hemisphere climate change and solar magnetic cycles during the Maunder Minimum.

According to Chizhevsky’s research, RAS scientists state in this report, the defining characteristics to be looked for when our world enters into a Third Period “Super Event” timeline is a rapid overturning of existing weather phenomena combined with an equally sudden major changing of the global social-political power structures all occurring during a period of Solar Maximum.

According to NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center web site, a derecho (pronounced “deh-REY-cho”) is a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms.

Chizhevsky’s research, however, states that derecho storms are but a precursor to the much more damaging events associated with a “Super Event”, a finding made even more terrifying with the 2008 news that NASA’s five THEMIS spacecraft had discovered a breach in Earth’s magnetic field ten times larger than anything previously thought to exist. Solar wind can flow in through the opening to “load up” the magnetosphere for powerful geomagnetic storms.

RAS scientists in this report blame this “loading up” of the magnetosphere caused by solar flares for causing not only the catastrophic Russian floods, but also our present global weather chaos, to include: 1.) The unrelenting heat wave hitting the United States that has caused at least 30 deaths, hundreds of forest fires and billions in crop damage. 2.) The torrential floods and rain continuing to batter the United Kingdom. 3.) The catastrophic floods that have hit India leaving nearly 100 dead and millions homeless. 4.) The historic and severe drought that has hit northern and central Mexico. 5.) The historic drought that has ravaged Brazil’s northeast.

Israel To Deploy Iron Dome System On Egyptian Border

Israel said on Wednesday it would deploy a battery of Iron Dome rocket interceptors at a southern frontier town opposite Egypt, a move that follows cross-border attacks in the area.

Israeli media reported that it was the first time the interceptors, which have been used against Palestinian rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip, were being set up at Eilat, near Israel's borders with Egypt and Jordan.

Israel's border with Egypt has grown tense since a popular uprising ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak last year. Two rockets fired across the frontier have struck in the Eilat area this year, without causing casualties. Egypt has denied they were shot from its territory.

U.S. Debt The Real National Security Threat

The United States has been running trillion-dollar deficits, resulting in a huge explosion in the country’s indebtedness. Publicly held debt now equals 70 percent of gross domestic product, a threshold many economists consider significant and highly worrisome. Making matters worse, half of our current deficit financing is being provided by foreigners. We are getting by with low interest rates and tolerable levels of domestic investment only because they find U.S. debt attractive, which may not last.

Why is this situation so serious? First, we are headed for a level of debt that within a decade could require us to spend the first trillion dollars of every year’s federal budget servicing that debt. Much less money will be left for other things. That is a prescription for a vicious cycle of underfinancing for our infrastructure, national education efforts, science research and all the other functions of government that are crucial to long-term economic growth. Robust defense spending will be unsustainable, too. Once we get in this rut, getting out will be very hard.

Last, American economic weakness undercuts U.S. leadership abroad. Other countries sense our weakness and wonder about our purported decline. If this perception becomes more widespread, and the case that we are in decline becomes more persuasive, countries will begin to take actions that reflect their skepticism about America’s future. Allies and friends will doubt our commitment and may pursue nuclear weapons for their own security, for example; adversaries will sense opportunity and be less restrained in throwing around their weight in their own neighborhoods. The crucial Persian Gulf and Western Pacific regions will likely become less stable. Major war will become more likely.