Why do Things Go Wrong?

On the eighth day God said, "Okay Murphy, you're in charge".

Barack Obama's Stimulus Plan - Who Will Pay?

On Feb. 17, 2009 Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary said that the $787 Billion recovery package President Obama signed into law would "set our economy on a firmer foundation." At the same time, the President proudly announced that the massive tax cuts would begin in April, allowing the typical American family to gain at least $65 a month, while in the same breath, he pledged to cut America's $1,3 trillion-dollar deficit.

How?

Despite the grandiose plans to trim the defense budget etc. and somehow turn the US treasury into a lean, mean saving machine, unless the President is a reincarnated Genie able to manufacture wealth out of thin air, one has to wonder… Could the unthinkable be happening?

Is it remotely possible that the President is using words and economic sleight of hand to fool us into believing that $787 billion will not translate into extra trillions if dollars worth of debt that our children and our children’s children will have to bear?

It all reminds me of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale about The Emperor’s New Clothes...

I have an idea! Shouldn’t he also be looking at the billions and billions of dollars being squandered on useless scientific disciplines such as SETI?

But why should SETI be a useless waste of time, resources and money? Let me explain:

In 1950, Enrico Fermi, a renowned physicist and professor at the Institute for Nuclear Studies of the University of Chicago, said, “Where is everybody?”

He was referring to his famous paradox, which states: “The size and age of the universe suggests that many technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations ought to exits. However, this hypothesis seems inconsistent with the lack of observational evidence to support it.”

Ten years later Dr. Frank Drake (now Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz) presented the famous Drake Equation, taking into consideration eight factors in a formula that all present agreed was logical.

Despite the fact that there are between two hundred and four hundred billion stars in our galaxy, Drake calculated that there could only be a maximum of ten civilizations in existence that have the ability to communicating with us! However, in spite of these staggering odds, government backed funding has since poured untold billions, plus an astonishing amount of resources into this seemingly futile search.

Since 1960, hundreds of powerful radio telescopes, including the Allen Telescope Array, The very Large Array, Big Ear, MOP, Project Phoenix and many others, have been listening for signals. On top of that, SETI @home, a world–wide volunteer group consisting of over 5 million computer users, have contributed over 19 billion hours analyzing signals from the SERENDIP II project.

What have they found?

Nothing… apart from the controversial WOW signal received back in 1977.

The only positive spin-off has been to the entertainment industry and pop culture. I refer to films such as 2010: The Year WE Make Contact, Independence Day, 2010: Odyssey Two, Contact, and the final scene of Arrival. There was also Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series together with a number of video games and pop records.

And yet, the spending frenzy continues!

Everyone seems to have ignored one tiny irrefutable fact … time!

Let me explain. According to the geological clock, the earth is about 4.5 billion years old. If this is broken up into 12 segments and represented as a clock, the ice age began 17 seconds ago. In other words, since the beginnings of the universe, we have only had a 70-year window of opportunity to communicate with extraterrestrial life.

Just suppose for a moment that those ten advanced civilizations in our galaxy actually exist, or did exist at some time or other. If we take our own behavior into consideration, we can probably assume that civilizations tend to destroy themselves rather quickly, either by hostile means or by technological means. I hold up global warming, pollution, the rape of natural resources, plus several near misses from a nuclear holocaust as examples.

How many of those aliens exist at this moment?

Now, let’s take a closer look at time.

Many scientists agree that the closes habitable planet system may be located near a white star called Antares. This particular star is 2,110,000,000,000,000 miles away. If we sent a manned spaceship, traveling at 25,000 miles per hour, it would take us 9,6 million years to get there. The time taken to receive a radio signal from them would be 360 years and our reply would only reach them 720 years after they called us.

What if they tried to contact us 750 years ago and hung up the phone because there was no reply?

Bear this in mind: Antares is probably the closest place for an alien civilization to emerge, so what are the odds of ever being able to contact someone or something out there?

And if we did manage to reach another civilization or two, would it be wise to shout in the jungle? What if they were hostile towards us?

Here’s the big question:

Isn’t it time for us to cut out this childish behavior? Shouldn’t the President start thinking about eliminating, or at least postponing this huge drain in order to ease the present economic burden?

Not only would he be lightening the crushing debt that we and our descendants face, but he could also channel some of those funds and scientific know-how into a concerted effort to save our own planet.

Global Warming -- Something to Think About

No news is good news… and the media have capitalized on this truism for a very good reason: Disaster sells! As a result, more and more people are becoming aware of the dangers associated with Global Warming, for example:

• Wildfires -- 100,000 fires reported in 2006 with nearly 10 million acres burned (125% over the decade’s average), not to mention the recent horrific Australian inferno that caused scores of deaths, and the complete loss of some rural towns.
• More powerful and dangerous hurricanes (Hurricane Katrina of August 2005 was the costliest and one of the deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history).
• Intense rainstorms and flooding together with more reports of droughts and deadly heat waves.
• Growing effects on wildlife, for example, Polar Bears drowning because they have to swim further to reach ice floes (all of the glaciers in Glacier National Park will be gone by 2070).
• Rising sea levels, reduced snowfall and increased rainfalls. Imagine the loss of every coastal city and most island nations throughout the world. In fact, a combination of these factors is already threatening residents in the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta area, and if the trend continues, the homes of some 300,000 Californian residences will be flooded, not to mention the fact that the drinking water of 24 million people will also be contaminated.
• Health threats such as bad air resulting in allergies and asthma, plus the increases in the frequencies of infectious diseases and food and waterborne outbreaks.

And so on… Which brings me to the subject of this article, which few people are aware of:

ECOSYSTEM SHIFTS.

The journal ‘Nature’ recently reported the discovery of fossilized remains of the world’s largest snake, Titanoboa cerrejonensis, discovered in a large coal quarry in Colombia. It is estimated that the snake was approximately 42 ft long, the length of a bus, and so wide that it would have reached up to a person’s hips.

Herpetologist Jack Conrad of the American Museum of Natural History in New York said, "This is amazing. It challenges everything we know about how big a snake can be,"

Although the animal was large enough to swallow a cow, its diet probably consisted of giant turtles and pre-historic crocodiles. It hunted the way modern anacondas do, by lurking in the water and overcoming its prey in ferocious bone-crushing strikes.

Professor Polly from the Indiana University said, “A snake living in the tropics would have been operating at a much higher metabolic rate, so snakes had the opportunity to evolve and grow as this one did.”

Dr Jason Head from the University of Toronto at Mississauga, Canada, added that the discovery “Challenges our understanding of past climates and environments as well as the biological limitations on the evolution of giant snakes.”

Using the animal’s size to make an estimate of the Earth’s temperature 58 to 60 million years ago, researchers concluded that a snake of Titanoboa’s size would have required a temperature of between 30C and 34C (86F and 93F) to survive.

By comparison, the average temperature of the region where the snake was discovered is about 28C.

A rise in global temperatures of a mere 2 to 6 degrees caused by global warming falls within the estimates given by many modern climatologists… and this gives us pause.

Apart from the other factors, do we also want to live in a world populated by giant reptiles?

Think about it…

How to Save Money in Hard Times

Now that we are firmly entrenched in a seemingly endless economical downturn, many people are finding it difficult to adjust. Disposable income is shrinking by the day and, in many homes across this land, depression is settling in as an unwelcome guest.

There just doesn't seem to be enough to go around, and this is threatening the harmony and in some cases, the very fabric of once happy, co-operative marriages and families.

Wives blame husbands and vice-versa; children rebel at cuts in their allowances and don't understand why they have to be penalized because some greedy, dishonest adults in Wall Street messed up.

Some of the following ideas might help to lighten things up a bit:

• Call a conference. Ideally, the whole family should get together around the table for an open problem solving discussion without any finger pointing whatsoever.
• Get everyone involved in a brainstorming session on how to cut expenses. Write each suggestion down, no matter how bizarre or impractical it may seem, and then refine it until some workable results start to emerge.
• Vote on the best suggestion and reward the winner. For example, breakfast in bed, reduced chores for a week, a homemade ice cream fest with the winner as the guest of honor, whatever seems like fun.
• Draw up a preliminary family budget that everyone agrees upon, and schedule a follow-up debugging session in a couple of week's time.
• Keep it light and have some fun. That way everyone will co-operate and the whole family wins.

You'll be surprised at some of the suggestions that could emerge. How about a weekly fun and games evening? Charades, Monopoly, Truth or Dare, Trivial Pursuits, go fish, and so on. A family cookout or picnic where each person is responsible for one menu item and the most delicious appetizer, salad, marinated and barbecued portion or desert is rewarded. Why not a car wash day where anything goes and nobody is allowed to keep dry. Instead of going to an expensive movie, rent a couple of videos and microwave some popcorn. Make a glitzy floating trophy and paint it gold, then have a handicapped X-box, Playstation or Wii tournament, (so that the grown-ups stand a chance)... whatever sounds like fun.

Make a game out of cutting expenses and think of enjoyable ways to do so. The payoff will be well worthwhile.

Excuses an Alibis

Since I've used up all of my sick leave, I'm calling in dead!

Scams and Information Overload - 7 Winning Tips

Although there are many legitimate offers out there, the murky waters of the Internet are the hunting grounds for sharks and scammers whose natural prey is the newcomer looking for an easy way of making money online.

These unscrupulous so-called ‘Guru’s’ make a handsome living feeding ‘Internet secrets’ to the beginner… for a price, thereby luring them in with convincing offers that promise to turn them into instant millionaires.

With the overwhelming mass of data available, Information Overload is one of the major deterrents facing the aspiring Internet entrepreneur. As a consequence, it often causes confusion, procrastination and in many cases, burnt fingers and skinny billfolds.

Untold thousands of beginners every week become willing lambs to the slaughter, and the overall philosophy of these false ‘Guru’ types seems to be that if the Good Lord didn’t want them sheared, he wouldn’t have made them sheep in the first place.

There are seven ways to avoid this trap:

1. Look before you leap. Investigate every offer first. Run a Google or Yahoo search on the website in question, read investigative forums, look them up on Ezine Articles… and most important, visit the BBB online before jumping in headfirst.
2. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
3. If the testimonials lack a phone number or contact email address, move on.
4. Do not fall for high-pressure sales and time related offers such as ‘Buy in the next five minutes or lose out’ or ‘Act now! Only 23 slots left’, and so on. Let’s face it, if they were legit, they’d have all the time in the world, so it’s probably a scam.
5. Beware FREE offers. Remember, there is no such thing as a free lunch! Look for the hook, because it’s usually there somewhere.
6. Never pay for up-front information.
7. And lastly. DO NOT give out your credit card details without first going through step 1.

To put it in a nutshell, don’t be a “Ready, Fire, Aim” sort of person. The truth is, there’s no substitution for work, time and sweat equity.

Don’t be discouraged. There are fortunes to be made and there are many legitimate offers available. Once you’ve carried out your investigations and vetted every testimonial you can find, concentrate on one that works for you and ignore the rest.

As someone once put it, “Slowly, slowly, catchee monkey”.