The Weekly Poll
Results
The 'To Serve Man' Edition (Thanks, Rod)...
...aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist - but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact... He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on...
Don't talk to aliens, warns Stephen Hawking - Times Online
Despite that, should we seek out new life and new civilizations? (Thanks, Gene)
A.) Sure! ... Yoo Hoo! Here we are! Stop by for dinner! (haha).
B.) No way! ... Move along now, ALF, nothing to see here (especially cats).
C.) Que Sera Sera ... (sang Doris, sweetly)
Despite that, should we seek out new life and new civilizations? (Thanks, Gene)
And away we go! (Thanks, Jackie!)
A.) Sure! ... Yoo Hoo! Here we are! Stop by for dinner! (haha).
bebo
A. we should include john McCain & sarah palin as part of the welcoming committee. after meeting these two, the extraterrestrials would surely leave quickly, afraid they might become infected with a severe case of the" dumb-ass."
Roly
I will pick door "A". I believe that there are other life forms in the universe, multitudes of them will be intelligent. If they are like mankind and are busy destroying their planet, if they are close enough they may come here but we will have nothing to give them. With "peak oil", "peak metals" etc., they will have slim pickin's. Any civilization that could travel here from another star would find lot's of resources in their own system, comets and asteroids have lots of metals and hydro carbons.
"Life is like a roll of toilet paper: the older you get, the faster it goes." ;>)
B.) No way! ... Move along now, ALF, nothing to see here (especially cats).
DC Madman
I'd have to go with B. We're not smart enough to seek them out. Any radio signals from space originated way long ago. Of course they already may be here and sharing their technology with us. Funny Hawking played the alien fear card. I believe Oppenheimer once shared with someone how the military would always have plenty of money. First it was the Cold War, then militarizing space for a missile shield and when those enemies flame out it will be needed to protect us from extra-terrestrials. Will there be anything left for aliens after we've sucked the life out and poisoned this planet?
American Chronicle | Human-looking ETs secretly in U.S.?
maw
B. No, I think we should concentrate on getting a civilized Senate for the US.
C.) Que Sera Sera ... (sang Doris, sweetly)
Adam in NoHo
Even if we didn't want visitors, I doubt we will have the power to resist an advanced, space-faring race. They either have the power to find us and take what they want, or they used every bit of their technology and resources just to get here- in which case they're trapped.
We'll be caught between the lunatics who think the aliens will be 'angels' here 'to save us', the military, and the religious nuts who will go positively insane knowing we aren't the center of the universe. The religious nuts will be the most dangerous (as always...)
Maybe we can tell them that Tea baggers are the tastiest meat of all and hope they leave before they find out otherwise!
Joe B.
The Aliens coming here could go either way they could see how bad it is here and help us or say screw it and vaporize all humans, like Steve said. The BP fuck-up makes me sick, the only good thing I saw was President Obama at my favorite town Ann Arbor. (Mine, too, Joe! Go Blue! Although Austin, TX runs a very close second...)
Cal in SoCal
I don't think first contact will spell doom for humanity. We have one example of a civilization to study and historically speaking, they seem to mellow with age.
Two thousand years ago a Roman citizen could go the Coliseum and watch several thousand people slowly tortured to death for amusement. Today we have football.
As we expand into our home star system we will encounter plenty of life-forms but nothing flying space ship, let alone star ships. It is unlikely anything advanced enough to build faster than light transport would find our unremarkable neighborhood of value.
Carl Sagan said it best when he described our galactic location as a cosmic backwater unlikely to have been worth a visit.
The other reason extra galactic civilizations are likely to avoid us is our inability to place nice with each other and the 15 thousand nuclear warheads we have pointing at ourselves.
Charlie Y.
I've had the bad habit of thinking too much about the last few poll questions, then not getting around to sending anything in. I don't want to miss this one, even though I'm not sure whether to agree with Hawking or not. Certainly aliens advanced enough to be traveling amongst the stars would be a menace should they take a disliking to us, and one can think of all sorts of reasons for that. Of course, interstellar travel itself is exceedingly problematic, and even if there are highly intelligent aliens they may not be any more capable of this than we are at the moment.
NASA - Warp Drive, When?
We could hope that such aliens would share their valuable knowledge with us, but they might also decide that the Universe would be a better place without us. I am not normally in the habit of quoting scripture, but I recently saw a bit of it that is relevant here:
When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
Leviticus 19.33:34
Given our tendencies in this regard, Hawking has a point, but I think attempting to communicate with other life forms is in many respects a worthy pursuit, regardless of possibly negative outcomes. Hawking is a great scientist and we should listen to him, but we should also listen to other opinions (besides mine). There is also the possibility that the aliens are watching us -- and laughing their asses (or the alien equivalent thereof) off.
Jencin
I'll have to choose C, Que Sera Sera because we do not know enough about what kind of intelligent life form might present itself or what the motivation might be. It becomes an if, then puzzle to try to reach a conclusion.
IF communication is possible and good faith is exhibited, THEN the best answer would be A
IF the intent is sinister, THEN, of course, B would be the only reasonable choice.
Soooo . . . until we know more, I'll just hang with C.
DanD
"A," with a prejudiced choice of "B," as defined with an inevitably predestined consequence of "C."
First thing that we should all notice about (hu)mankind is that, after segregating ourselves into various groups, then these groups take turns exploiting the others. Well, guess what? This is an extraterrestrial trait that we have inherited from our (mostly) absentee, extra-stellar ancestors.
While humans have extensive individual life time recollections, our extra-generational memories have been severely inhibited. This is a genetically engineered design. It's so we can't take the "Xs" that happened in past generations, and add them to the "Ys" occuring during these present times, and then calculate to the "Z" effect that is our ultimate fate. And let me tell you, it is mostly because that final fate is not very pretty.
So let me ask, what is human civilization most commonly addicted to? Why, ENERGY, of course. Our species is a super-harvesting sort of creature, and there is one primary substance that our technical infrastructure is specifically tailor-made to dig out and produce -- even as it poisons us to death -- and that is anything that we must use for the extraction of metals (ALL metals) from the ground. In order to extract the Earth's metals at the pace that we have set, humans have quite suicidally overpopulated the numbers of its own species in order to accomplish this feat at break-neck speed.
So what happens when the human species finally kills off itself (and virtually all other complex species) on our assaulted planet? Well, Earth will become a poisoned derelict, with a massive detritus of abandoned and (variably) oxidizing large, mediumm and small metal megaliths and other abandoned wrecks expansively surrounding the globe.
It will be then that our extraterrestrial, relatively related puppet-masters swoop down like the vulture culture that it is and quite easily harvest all this already mined and refined metal (as well as a plethora of other substances), while yet preparing the planet's surface for some other, five-hundred-thousand-year-later event of biological renewal, harvesting, and consequent extra-terrestrial exploitation.
The tragedy of Ecclesiastes 1:9.
Joe in Manistee-by-the-Lake
The choices are A.) Sure, B.) No Way! and C.) Que Sera Sera........and the answer is....
D.) None of the above. They are already here people! They are already here! All that stuff we've been doing to find ET, all we've been doing so ET can find us? Waste of time. Like a fart in the wind.
THEY ARE ALREADY HERE!
Indeed!... and they have been here, I believe, for a VERY long time. I was remarkably impressed as a teenager with the concept put forward by Arthur C. Clarke in his 2001: A Space Odyssey (and his short story The Sentinel) that intelligence was inspired in the hominid ancestors of Homo Sapiens eons ago by an ancient alien race. Why not? Also, stories I've read and programs I've seen on TV about 'ancient aliens' mentioned by various civilizations certainly could be plausible. Again, why not?
So, there it is... Thankyewverymuch, Poll-fans!... and, as always, Yer the Best!
BadToTheBoneBob
~~~~~~~~~~~
New Question
The 'Double-Trouble' Edition...
This past week has brought two significant issues to our (ahem) attention that begs to be commented upon. (I'm pretty sure you all have opinions on these matters, haha...)
The 'What does that even mean?' Question...
In the aftermath of the enactment of Arizona's 'Papers, please' law, various and sundry administration officials, politicians and activists have said that this event only proves the need for immediate "Comprehensive Immigration Reform". However, specific details were lacking and
Mr. Obama has shied away from the issue by saying congress has no appetite for that political 'hot potato' with the fall mid-term elections looming. So, here's your opportunity to give them your input (or a piece of yer mind, if that works). I trust (cough) Rahm reads Bartcop E*...
What would you like (or not like) CIR to include and when (or) should it be done?
The 'Drill, Baby... Spill!' Question...
Not a month has passed after President Obama proposed increased off-shore oil drilling operations when karma bit him in the ass with the BP platform disaster. (Hello? 911? Gaia calling!)
Should Mr. Obama rescind or modify (how?) his decision?
Send your response to
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Drilling, Disaster, Denial (nytimes.com)
The disastrous oil spill in the gulf could help reverse environmentalism's long political slide, but it will require leadership.
Connie Schultz: An Arizona Vote To Secede (creators.com)
Last Wednesday, I was fielding questions in a journalism class at the University of Kansas, when one of the students asked about Arizona's new immigration law.
Scott Burns: The Future as a Large, Sullen Stranger (assetbuilder.com)
Most people think the recent bear market was about as close to truly bad times as they want to contemplate. Stocks fell about 50 percent. Lots of debt went bad. Yields on everything secure fell to nearly zero. And it is difficult to sell a house, car, or boat. The current recession beats everything in living memory except for the worst years of the Great Depression.
What I'm really thinking: The creative writing tutor (guardian.co.uk)
'Civil servants are usually the best writers. Perhaps it's because they spend their lives in the most soul-sapping of environments.'
David Plotz: The Gospel According to Philip (slate.com)
Philip Pullman tries to repair the most sacred story ever written.
KRISTA HOUSTOUN: Meet the Sultry Miss (Coyote) Grace (curvemag.com)
Ingrid Elizabeth of queer-folk duo Coyote Grace on opening for the Indigo Girls, maintaining her lesbian identity and redhead world domination.
Will Harris: A Chat with Tommy Chong (bullz-eye.com)
Cheech and Chong are back, man! Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong had been threatening a reunion for several years, but it wasn't until 2008 that the duo transformed their vague assurances into a full-fledged tour.
Rosanna Greenstreet: "Q&A: Debbie Reynolds" (guardian.co.uk)
'If I could edit my past I'd have chosen different husbands.'
Roger Ebert: Review of "Trucker" (4 stars; An Overlooked DVD)
There's one of those perfect moments in "Trucker" when I'm thinking, 'This is the moment to end! Now! Fade to black!' And the movie ends. It is the last of many absolutely right decisions by the first-time writer-director James Mottern, who began by casting two actors who bring his story to strong emotional life.
David Bruce: The Coolest People in Books: 250 Anecdotes (Lulu.com)
Click on "Download for free."
The Soviettes - Multiply & Divide (youtube.com)
replied:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Link from RJ
The Quoll
Hi there
A strange and peculiar creature for you today... Thanks for taking a look!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Back to sunny and warm.
Honors Shows `With A Conscience'
TV Academy
A "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" episode about prejudice and an Alzheimer's documentary with Maria Shriver are among eight programs to be honored Wednesday for demonstrating the power of TV.
The third annual Television Academy Honors spotlighting shows found to exemplify "television with a conscience" will be hosted by Dana Delany. The announcement was made by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
The programs to be honored:
• "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" for the episode "Coup de Grace," which takes on racial bias and profiling in a story about an off-duty officer's accidental killing by a colleague.
• "Glee" for the episode "Wheels," which highlights entrenched biases, including those faced by people with disabilities.
• "Private Practice" for the episode "Nothing to Fear," about physicians dealing with the moral, legal and ethical issues raised by an ailing man's request for assisted suicide.
For the rest, TV Academy
Outs Self
Chely Wright
Country singer Chely Wright is the latest celebrity to come out.
Wright tells People she's gay and that nothing in her life has been more magical than the moment she decided to reveal her sexuality.
The 39-year-old says she experienced a community in which homosexuality was shunned and she "hid everything" for her music.
Wright is releasing her memoir, "Like Me," and her new album, "Lifted Off the Ground," this week.
Chely Wright
Voted Most Influential Pop Video
"Thriller"
Michael Jackson's video for his hit single "Thriller" has been voted the most influential in pop music history, according to the results of a poll released on Monday.
The survey, commissioned by MySpace, interviewed more than 1,000 music fans. They made their choice from a long list of 20 videos selected by music and entertainment critics.
Following is the list of the top 10 most influential pop music videos:
1. "Thriller," Michael Jackson, 1983 (15.2 percent)
2. "Here It Goes Again," OK Go, 2006 (11.7 percent)
3. "Baby One More Time," Britney Spears, 1998 (11.2 percent)
4. "Take On Me," A-Ha, 1985 (8.6 percent)
5. "Hurt," Johnny Cash, 2003 (7.6 percent)
6. "Bohemian Rhapsody," Queen, 1975 (5.6 percent)
For the rest, "Thriller"
Wedding News
Grant - Green
The 'Austin Powers' star Seth Green tied the knot with model-and-actress Clare Grant on Saturday at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch in Nacasio, California.
Although not many details about the ceremony have been released, Seth's friend, Weird Al Yankovic, spoke of his joy at attending the nuptials.
Seth and Clare got engaged on New Year's Eve after he popped the question.
Seth, 36, rose to fame after playing Dr. Evil's son Scott in 1997's 'Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery'.
Grant - Green
Assistant Gets Prison For Killing
Natavia Lowery
A personal assistant was sentenced Monday to up to life in prison in the deadly bludgeoning of her boss, a punk-rock manager turned high-powered real estate broker. The judge called the aide "almost inhuman," while she insisted she didn't commit the crime.
Natavia Lowery called her trial unfair and vowed to appeal in a brief statement before she was sentenced to 32 years to life in prison on murder and other counts in the October 2007 slaying of Linda Stein.
A jury convicted her in February of killing Stein, who co-managed the Ramones in their 1970s heyday and later became a real estate broker with clients including Madonna and Sting.
Lowery, 28, admitted in a videotaped statement that she killed Stein but later recanted. In the confession, Lowery said she lashed out after the broker harangued her about the pace of her work and blew marijuana smoke in her face in Stein's Fifth Avenue penthouse on Oct. 30, 2007. No trace of the drug was found in Stein's body.
Natavia Lowery
Wine Seller Sues
Gordon Ramsay
A U.S. wine merchant went beyond just cursing Gordon Ramsay on Monday and filed a lawsuit against the television celebrity chef who is known as much for his command of swear words as he is for his sauces.
The merchant, Wineberry America LLC accused Ramsay, his private equity backers the Blackstone Group, The Righa Royal New York hotel, now called The London NYC, and others of not paying for $40,900 of wine that was ordered and delivered, according to the lawsuit filed in New York.
Wineberry, an importer and wholesaler of fine wines with offices in the United States, France and China, said it regularly delivered wines from July 2007 until November 2009 to Ramsay's New York property, according to court papers.
But at some point, the Scottish-born star of the "Hell's Kitchen" television program, who has opened restaurants in some of the world's most famous lodgings including Claridge's in London and the Dubai Hilton Creek Hotel, stopped paying for the wines, the suit maintained.
Gordon Ramsay
S.Korean Climber Defends Record Claim
Oh Eun-Sun
The South Korean climber who claims to be the first woman to have scaled the world's 14 highest mountains returned on Monday from her final summit and dismissed allegations that she had cheated.
Oh Eun-Sun's 2009 ascent of Mount Kanchenjunga has recently been disputed by fellow mountaineers, including her chief rival for the record, Edurne Pasaban of Spain, who have questioned whether she made it to the top.
A picture provided by Oh, 44, shows her standing on a bare rock on Kanchenjunga but those taken by Pasaban's team shows them standing on snow.
Pasaban, 36, from Spain, conquered Annapurna last month, leaving her with just one more mountain to climb.
Oh Eun-Sun
River Floods Nashville
Grand Ole Opry
Country music landmark The Grand Ole Opry House has been flooded with several feet of water, forcing managers to seek alternate space for upcoming shows.
The Opry House is part of the large Gaylord Opryland Hotel complex in Nashville. They took on water Monday from the Cumberland River, which flooded due to heavy rains that have inundated parts of Tennessee.
The Grand Ole Opry has been held in the same space in east Nashville since 1974. The Opry puts on 150 shows a year, and the building hosts other concerts.
The historic Ryman Auditorium, which is the longtime former home of the Grand Ole Opry located in downtown Nashville, was in no immediate danger of flooding.
Grand Ole Opry
New Test
Pork
Scientists in mainly Muslim Kazakhstan have come up with an instant test for the presence of pork in food, a popular newspaper reported on Monday.
The plastic-stick test detects food molecules that are found only in pork, which is forbidden by Islam but is easily found in the Central Asian state, Megapolis weekly said.
"It's no secret that some chefs cheat and add pork to beef to make the dish cheaper," the newspaper wrote on Monday, saying the practice was widespread in Kazakhstan.
Megapolis said it was unclear when the test, in which the stick changes color as in a pregnancy test, would become widely available.
Pork
In Memory
Lynn Redgrave
Lynn Redgrave, an introspective and independent player in her family's acting dynasty who became a 1960s sensation as the unconventional title character of "Georgy Girl" and later dramatized her troubled past in such one-woman stage performances as "Shakespeare for My Father" and "Nightingale," has died. She was 67.
Her publicist Rick Miramontez, speaking on behalf of her children, said Redgrave died peacefully Sunday night at her home in Kent, Conn. Children Ben, Pema and Annabel were with her, as were close friends.
Redgrave was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2002, had a mastectomy in January 2003 and underwent chemotherapy.
The youngest child of Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, Lynn Redgrave never quite managed the acclaim - or notoriety - of elder sibling Vanessa Redgrave, but received Oscar nominations for "Georgy Girl" and "Gods and Monsters," and Tony nominations for "Mrs. Warren's Profession," "Shakespeare for My Father" and "The Constant Wife." In recent years, she also made appearances on TV in "Ugly Betty," "Law & Order" and "Desperate Housewives."
In theater, the ruby-haired Redgrave often displayed a sunny, sweet and open personality, much like her ebullient offstage personality. It worked well in such shows as "Black Comedy" - her Broadway debut in 1972 - and again two years later in "My Fat Friend," a comedy about an overweight young woman who sheds pounds to find romance.
Tall and blue-eyed like her sister, she was as open about her personal life as Vanessa has been about politics. In plays and in interviews, Lynn Redgrave confided about her family, her marriage and her health. She acknowledged that she suffered from bulimia and served as a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers. With daughter Annabel Clark, she released a 2004 book about her fight with cancer, "Journal: A Mother and Daughter's Recovery From Breast Cancer."
Redgrave was born in London in 1943 and despite self-doubts pursued the family trade. She studied at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, and was not yet 20 when she debuted professionally on stage in a London production of "A Midsummer's Night Dream." Like her siblings, she appeared in plays and in films, working under Noel Coward and Laurence Olivier as a member of the National Theater and under director/brother-in-law Tony Richardson in the 1963 screen hit "Tom Jones."
True fame caught her with "Georgy Girl," billed as "the wildest thing to hit the world since the miniskirt." The 1966 film starred Redgrave as the plain, childlike Londoner pursued by her father's middle-aged boss, played by James Mason.
"Georgy Girl" didn't lead to lasting commercial success, but did anticipate a long-running theme: Redgrave's weight. She weighed 180 pounds while making the film, leading New York Times critic Michael Stern to complain that Redgrave "cannot be quite as homely as she makes herself in this film.
Films such as "The Happy Hooker" and "Every Little Crook and Nanny" were remembered less than Redgrave's decision to advocate for Weight Watchers. She even referenced "Georgy Girl" in one commercial, showing a clip and saying, "This was me when I made the movie, because this is the way I used to eat."
At age 50, Redgrave was ready to tell her story in full. As she wrote in the foreword to "Shakespeare for My Father," she was out of work and set off on a "journey that began almost as an act of desperation," writing a play out of her "passionately emotional desire" to better understand her father, who had died in 1985.
Redgrave credited the play, which interspersed readings from Shakespeare with family memories, with bringing her closer to her relatives and reviving her film career. She played the supportive wife of pianist David Helfgott in "Shine" and received an Oscar nomination as the loyal housekeeper for filmmaker James Whale in "Gods and Monsters." She also appeared in "Peter Pan," "Kinsey" and "Confessions of a Shopaholic."
Lynn Redgrave is survived by three children, six grandchildren, her sister Vanessa, and four nieces and nephews.
Lynn Redgrave
In Memory
Rob McConnell
Canadian jazz musician Rob McConnell, who led Toronto's jazz popular Boss Brass orchestra during his lauded career, has died of cancer. He was 75.
The London, Ont., native took up valve trombone in high school and began his career in 1954 in Edmonton, where he played with saxophonist Don Thompson.
He formed the Boss Brass in Toronto in 1968 and guided the group through the tremendous growth that occurred over the following years, including a Juno win in 1978 for their "Big Band Jazz" album.
He also won three Grammy Awards, was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1998, and was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in '97.
Rob McConnell
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