Will you join my movement to ban the Sun? It causes skin cancer, blindness, sun burns, premature aging, and moles, among other maladies. According to the World Health Organization, exposure to the Sun kills 60,000 people annually. In other words, every year the Sun drops the equivalent of a Nagasaki-like bomb on the Earth. And what do we Earthlings do? Stop-gap measures: sun screen, sun glasses, parasols. Something more drastic, I'm afraid, is needed.

We need to keep the Sun off the streets and away from kids. Some in the Sun-Control movement suggest a Sun buyback program, where people turn in their tanning booths, beach chairs, and other deadly products--no questions asked--at innercity locations in exchange for a token amount of money. Others demand that we sue the Sun, and the manufacturers of Sun-worshipping products. Still others raise the idea of a five-day waiting period for anyone foolish enough to want to go out into the Sun.

All of these ideas send us in the right direction, but not fast enough. The only plan that will truly put an end to solar deaths is a total ban on the Sun. This ban must be complete. If, say, Washington, DC bans the Sun, and Virginia doesn't, some of the Sun's harmful rays will find their way across the border and into the nation's capital. Fixating on states and localities just won't cut it. What's needed is a national, or perhaps, a world ban on the Sun.

Whether this is to be accomplished through a galactic firehose or a giant waterbucket, I really don't care. All I care about is forever extinguishing the Sun's deadly rays. Think of the unnecessary deaths we will prevent. Saving 60,000 lives is certainly worth your "fun" day at the beach.

I have been advocating this for years.

Life kills.

Dan,

You are absolutely right on this! We simply must ban the Sun. If excess exposure to the Sun was avoidable somehow, or if we could take steps to minimize the harm from it, I might feel differently. I mean, I don't want to intrude on other people's liberties. Your life is yours to risk as long as it doesn't affect me.

But in today's world, one could end up a victim of sun violence committed by criminals that get sun. Armed only with a concave mirror, they reflect the sunlight at their innocent victims and incinerate them in seconds. According to the US Census Bureau of Justice Statistics and the US Census Bureau, incidents of sun violence have killed 17,000 people in 2002. The possibility of being the next victim threatens your life and my life, and I'm glad that through your common sense, you realize that banning the Sun is justified.

Numerous surveys of the last 40+ years have found that a bit over half of all households live completely without the Sun! Not being necessary to life, the remaining households can learn to adapt, and live without the Sun. They must obey our laws. If they want to complain, that is their right in our great democratic society, based on free speech and the notion that people deserve precisely those rights that at least 50% of us agree with. I just hope they don't sue the government claiming that the Sun is their constitutional right. To acquire rights through the courts like that, when they cannot get majority vote from the population of their state, is undemocratic and un-American. Terrorists.

Its all Bush's fault.

True Dat. The sun is awful. I perfer Quiet City.

"Still others raise the idea of a five-day waiting period for anyone foolish enough to want to go out into the Sun."

Nice!

The Sun did it!

You've given in to the nanny state mentality, Dan. People do not need to be protected from themselves. If they want to expose themselves to such dangers, it's their right to do so. Just as they are free to blow their hand off with a firecracker if they want to (in some states anyway), or ride their motorcycle without a helmet (in some states anyway), or hit themselves in the head with a hammer, repeatedly (in some states anyway).

Granted, those that must be exposed to the sun as part of their jobs (lifeguards, cabana boys, etc), should be protected via federal legislation that requires the sun only to shine only shine in certain places, but with a specific mandate that the sun will NEVER shine in the location where such legislation shall be inserted.

This is the most ridiculous post and set of comments I've ever read.

The Sun doesn't kill people. People kill people.

As an unreconstructed southerner I propose that we secede from the solar system in response to the tyrrannical acts of destruction and assorted mischief (like outfield glare causing ball players to make errors) caused by the domination of that infernal Yankee sun.

i love this site.

Let's not forget the six billion people the sun saves every year.

Mr. Wilds,

Apparently, you think that a government initiative in funding alternative energy sources can't replace the Sun with a cheaper and safer alternaitive. I don't know where you'd get this idea.

What about second-hand sun? What about the children?!?!?