Intelligent Life Outside Planet Earth?

What if there is intelligent life outside of our own solar system?

The ancient Greek Philosophers thought the skies above were the heavens, and the sun, stars, winds, rain and just about everything else, came from various gods.

Thanks to technology, we now know that the sun rise and set isn’t controlled by Zeus, Apollo, or some other god-like being, but is just the natural course of planetary orbits within our solar system.

The real question scientists and sci-fi aficionados have been seeking to solve, is whether there really are other intelligent life forms.

Movie makers have long used this question to entertain us, creating a whole genre of films featuring the stereotypical olive-green men from Mars, with those scary dark as night eyes, long faces, and just as creepily long arms and legs. Sadly, most of these movies are so bad, they shouldn’t even qualify for their “B-Movie” labels.

But the question I started thinking about wasn’t whether intelligent life exists outside of our safe and comfortable home of planet Earth. My thoughts turned to the infamous “what if?”

What if we do discover intelligent beings, able to communicate with us? What then?

We have enough difficulty communicating with ourselves, with all the wars going on around the globe. Some of us can’t talk to our own boss, wife, or even to our kids without getting all tongue-tied.

How would we relate to beings from another world?

 

Would we be open to sharing our socio-economic and technical knowledge? Would they?

Assuming there are beings intelligent enough to visit us – as we certainly haven’t mastered space travel yet – they would probably be far more advanced than us.

Maybe they have solved all of the common global crisis we face now – war, starvation, famine, drought, holes in the ozone, global warming . . .

It would be an amazing bit of luck to pick the brains of some alien race, who could solve all – or even just one – of these problems.

But then again, what could we offer in return?

Here, have a cheese doodle.

Yeah. Right.

Chances are, if aliens were able to solve the distances of space travel to visit it us, we’d be so far beneath them on the evolutionary scale, we may seem like cockroaches appear to us.

And for the most part, we crush cockroaches, as we just see them as filthy, disgusting insects that invade our homes scavenging for food.

One of the greatest minds in our time, Stephen Hawking even suggested not long ago, that we should stop sending out signals, satellites, and other spacecraft in search of alien life, because it puts us at grave risk.

To Hawking, sending out these beacons is like showing the insect exterminator where the hive is. We human beings haven’t exactly been all that peaceful with others from distant lands down here on Earth – just think of all the wars and currently and previously being fought.

What makes us so sure aliens able to travel to other worlds would be any different?

Our planet is a wealth of natural resources, ripe for the picking of any alien species which might use it for food, fuel or a new home.

And if they have mastered space travel, they certainly have the technological power to displace and destroy us as they harvest our planet’s resources, or make themselves home.

Happy Red and White Day Canada

This weekend, on Sunday July 1, we Canadians will be celebrating the birth of our country.

  

I love Canada Day – people wearing red and white, cars with mini Canadian flags on their antennas, Canadian flags hanging from balconies and on flag poles outside people’s homes.

We Canadians are a lucky lot. We live in the best country on earth. We really do.

We have a free, democratic society. Free access to a great health care system. And for the most part we are liked internationally by other countries across the globe.

We worship the beaver, the moose, and Don Cherry’s ramblings on Hockey Night in Canada.

We love to bitch and moan about the lack of Canadian content on television, but then we boast about going to see the latest Hollywood blockbuster.

The language police clamp down on all things Canadian in Quebec– unless they are in French. Then we laugh and joke about how it is typically Canadian to even have people policing language in this country.

Our cities and towns are clean, safe and we are always friendly and courteous.

We still haven’t found our unique Canadian identity, but that’s uniquely part of being Canadian. We are always searching for what it means to be Canadian, in the shadow of the giant the US of Eh, eh?

We are known worldwide for having among the best beers and wines in the world – some of the world’s best wines come from Niagara Falls, ON.

And some of the most famous celebs came out of Canada – Pamela Anderson, Jim Carrey, Martin Short, Andrea Martin, Eugene Levy, Avril Lavigne, and Shania Twain.

This Canada Day, I'll be celebrating our nation's birth doing what we Canadians do well -- cooking raw meat with fire -- I'll be BBQing burgers and other BBQ treats -- I'm dying to taste one of my new recipe home made chicken burgers on the grill.

 

I'll be watching fireworks at sunset with friends, enjoying some grilled meats, and thinking about the wonderful country we live in.

However you enjoy your weekend, from far and wide around the world, enjoy your own celebrations with family and friends.

 

Happy Canada Day!

Share Your Blog – By Pinning It on Pinterest

Yesterday I discovered a new trick which I’ll share with you – how to Pin your blog posts – or any posts for that matter – to Pinterest.

Pinterest is the latest social networking site to go big, where people post images on their virtual cork boards. Think of Twitter, only instead of 140 characters, you “tweet” pics.

As Pinterest has hit it off with women, it’s become known as a place to post recipes, fashion trends, household items, and vacation destination pictures and descriptions

But surprisingly, I figured out a way to post my blog to the highly visual site, and you can too.

So long as your blog posting – or whatever site you want to link to – has an image, you’re good to go.

Here’s how I did it in a few quick steps:

1. Create a Board – Click Add + at the top of the Pinterest page, and then select Create a Board.
   
   If you want to post your blog to Pinterest everytime you have a new blog entry, it’s not a bad idea to create a specific place on Pinterest to stick these.
   
   
2. Enter the Board’s Details -- Type a Board Name, Category for the Board, and any additional Pinterest users you want to allow to pin to this board, and then click Create Board.
   
   
3. Go to Your Blog --  Go to the blog or website where you want to pin content from, and select the specific web page which you want to link to in your newly created Pinterest Board.
   This is really important, otherwise you’ll just link to the first page of your blog.
   
4. Click Pin It -- From the specific page you want to link to your Pinterest Board, click the Pin It button in your web browser (assuming you’ve already added this when you joined Pinterest, if not, click here for instructions).
   
5. Select the Specific Image -- Select the image you want to pin.
   
   
   The standard pinning window opens.
   
   
6. Select the Board to Pin Too -- From the Boards drop-down menu, select the board you created for these pins.
   
7. Describe Your Pin -- Enter a description of this pin – I use the blog posting’s title, a brief description, followed by “click the pic to read the post.”
   
8. Select Additional Connected Networks -- Select the check boxes at the bottom to post to Facebook and/or Twitter if you’ve linked those accounts and want to do so – which gets you more views.
   
9. Pin It! Click Pin It and in a few seconds you’ll get a Pinning Success Message, letting you know your blog posting has been pinned!

Check out your new blog board on Pinterest!

Pretty cool stuff – and an excellent way to increase your blog’s presence on the constantly growing social networks.

And hey, while you're at it, follow me on Pinterest!