Sluggish Sun

Matt Drudge provides a link to this Space.com article about the declining activity of the sun. The article summarizes several scientific studies which point it this direction. More than anything else, the sun powers the earth's weather.

The article carefully omits linking solar minima to climatic events. On the other hand, this article in The Register (U.K.) explicitly makes the linkage between solar minima and exceptional cold weather, including the last called The Little Ice Age. Global cooling, anyone?