Push for Sunspots

Interesting NASA and NOAA missed on sunspot prediction and were coming under scrutiny.
Now we see them making qualitative comments:
"This is the third time in as many weeks that a new-cycle sunspot has interrupted the year's remarkable run of blank suns. The accelerating pace of new-cycle sunspot production is an encouraging sign that, while solar activity remains very low, the sunspot cycle is unfolding more or less normally."

Science, "encouraging sign". What is meant by encouraging? Science wants data. Politicians wan "encouraging".

Then to show the political science
"sunspot cycle is unfolding more or less normally."

Yet, they predicted the initial low as early as May 2006. Missing by two years is "normal".