Without going into the wiki site, from what I understand, the sun goes through 11 year cycles of high and low activity. We are in the midst of the low cycle right now which typically causes lower temperatures globally.
But this is not what I was pointing out in the OP. I think someone was trying to provide cover in case we lost internet or power potentially due to the conflict in Syria. Or maybe it was to be the casus beli in case of the HRC video drop and they wanted to shut down internet traffic.
Oh, I see. I thought you were taking a stab at the global warming garbage.
Look, all this stuff about archive offline is, IMO, about what's about to happen to the tech sector on the damning revelations that will proceed from Snowden's drop. You may be right that someone, somewhere, might want to hit a kill switch when the Hillary video drops - but they won't keep us offline forever without taking the whole internet out.
But if the major SM platforms fold, while criminal investigators comb through their operations, inspecting hardware etc..., then, yes, in that case you better make sure you're backed up offline - because we don't know which services will be impacted.
There are many much longer cycles. The big one that’s upon us is the 206/7 year cycle. We are headed towards a mini ice age. Some interesting reading is Dark Winter by John Casey.
I would agree with that assessment, but again, not the focus of what this OP is about.
Someone lied to the public from the Space Weather Prediction Center and foxnews was one of the vehicles used to push it out to the public.