I’ve heard the increased gravitational pull will cause us all to have erections!

I’m hoping it causes ATMs to just shoot out money...lol

Why didn’t I think of the money bit cause I can’t have an erection.

People are such idjits!  Everyone knows that once Mars gets close enough, the gravitational pull will yank all the water off of earth and we’ll all die of parched-ness, er, parchment.  No, that’s not right.  Parchedity.  Ummm, thirst!  Yeah, that’s it thirst.

Ok, I’ll stop now.

Run for your lives! Or you’ll be up to your armpits in Martians!

(Thanks, Bugs.)

PU-38 Explosive Space Modulator, loaded.
Persoanlly, I’m putting on my Adidas and green jumpsuit and waiting for the mother ship to come out from the dark side of Mars.

Holy shit.  People are fucking stupid.

Umm I have to wonder why people even concern themselves with it, after all if Mars were to herald the destruction of life as we know it etc, what exactly do people expect to do about it?

I mean right now we are the biggest threat to continuing life on this planet, and what are we doing about it? Well apart from killing each other in bigger and better ways… (Actually I’m not endorsing war here, but sometimes I feel a few less humans on the planet can’t be a bad thing, it’s just a shame it’s always all the wrong ones that get killed...)

Laugh�all you pseudo-intellectual scoffers�laugh!  Mars is half the size of the Earth, is traveling at 57.43 gazillion miles per hour, and it�s gonna make oh such a bump when it hits us.  Do the math!  I am going to have my house mounted on springs and will be buying some mountain climbing gear to be ready for the new mountain ranges the collision will create here in Florida.

Serai�can you BE any more pessimistic???

I was actually pointing out how silly people are regarding Mars being nearer as a concern for destruction of life as we know it. When the facts show human beings themselves are going to be the cause of our own demise.

Pessimism doesn’t come into it, when you look at a world that is scrabbling for control of the remaining and rapidly dwindling resources. I think the only optimism is that once all the fossil fuels are gone at least we won’t be able to pollute anymore…

Personally I don’t see much to be leaping for joy about, unless you’re one of those people who actually believe hydrogen power will save us all at the last moment. Personally I’d sooner believe in the martians, than the hydrogen energy myth.

I think you are all forgetting that Mars is a god, and that we should not anger the god of war!  If we all PRAY really really hard, and kill many, many sheep and goats and virgins, then I KNOW He will spare us and not suck all the water from earth and make new mountains and other special effects!  You must BELIEVE!  [Pause to wipe foam from mouth.] Worship the god of war, and you shall be SAVED for all eternity!

Chainbreaker�you INFIDEL!!!  It is not permissible to type the holy name of M-rs.  The first offense is punishable by smiting and the second by stoning�oh shit, I typed it in my first post�oowww�I just smited myself for typing the name of Mars in my first post�oh shit, I just did it again�gotta go find some stones.

Peace Out

Double dipping…

Serai

I guess your answer would be, “No, I can’t be more pessimistic!” Fuel cells have been around for decades, solar and wind energy technologies haven�t matured yet, but when they do� Just curious why you are so �un-pessimistic� about the future of mankind.  Is that cloudy place you live in causing this pessimism?  I lived there for 9 years, so I recall the winters that you guys referred to as summer.

Hmm I still don’t see how taking what I percieve to be a realistic view is pessimism, but then again it’s all about perspective and my realism may well be pessimism in your book, and I am happy to accept that much.

Fuel cells may have been around a while, but that doesn’t make them a viable alternative to fossil fuels. If you do a bit of research into hydrogen energy you will find a couple of large flaws that they have cheerfully glossed over when selling the idea to us. First off Hydrogen by it’s very nature of being a simple element means it cannot be contained without seepage, it will always leak no matter what kind of container you use. Also the energy needed to process hydrogen is far in excess of the return from using hydrogen as a fuel, and that is without taking into account the continual waste from leakage.

So in effect we are talking about burning far more fuel, be it fossil fuels or nuclear power to manufacture hydrogen fuel. I cannot see how that is either a sensible or green solution to our problems. Rather I see the hydrogen fuel energy story as a pacifier for the masses to keep us from losing faith in the oil companies, who by the way are the leading proponents of this new alternative energy.

As for weather in the UK, well I don’t know where you ‘winter’ but if anything our summers have been too hot to bear the past few years, with temperatures rivalling the Mediteranean. The thing about UK weather is we have such huge variations for such a small land mass, so the only thing you can say about it is, it’s always changeable.

Oh and by way of conclusion, I just want to say that although I sometimes speak in a matter of fact way, I always accept that this is just my view of things, and certainly don’t expect people to agree with me, or assume I am right, after all it’s not about being ‘right’.

Serai

I forgot about the heat over there this year.  I remember the summer of 1983 when all kinds of people were falling dead from the heat.  I still note a hint of pessimism in your �realism�.  It could be that we speak different languages; you speak English, while on the other hand, English is my native language.  Maybe I�m not understanding you, though I do understand English English… for example:

One night me and me mates went down to pub to chat up some birds.  I had a couple of brown and bitters and a packet of crisps.  One of me mates, who is also me gaffer, was hungry, so we went to the chippy.  I also stopped in the market and picked up some fags.  I didn�t fancy chips, so I got a bap instead.  Well we went back to me motor and put the fags, the chips, and the bap in the boot.  Wouldn�t you now it�one of me mates was taking the piss and left his pint on me bonnet!  Bloody �ell!  So I sent me mate to Coventry, went to me flat, and told me other mates to knock me up in the morning.

I could get jail time in several southern States for some of those events I just described. Anyway�I�ve only done cursory studies of alternative fuel sources, so I really can�t oppose your thinking.  I tend to have an optimistic outlook on life.  I think (hope) that the same guys that can describe the characteristics of objects millions of miles away can also figure out how to keep my electricity flowing.  I will point out that electricity itself was around for a �long while� before its power was harnessed.  Airplanes have been around for almost 100 years, but it was over fifty years after their introduction before commercial air travel really started to be viable.

Mild Bill: That’s CHAIRbreaker, not Chainbreaker, although I must admit a kind of like Chainbreaker… makes me think of a freedom fighter, with huge muscles that can break chains and even the occasional idiot.  Unfortunately, the only things I manage to break are the chairs I try to sit in… life is a bitch.

Hehe well now me old cocker, ‘ow’s it ‘anging then? If yer bung me a monkey I’ll give yer a deal on some hookey tellies what fell orf a lorry.

How did you know I was a cockney then, or was it just a wild guess? Although I was born in the East end of London I am not technically a true cockney as I wasn’t born within the sound of Bow bells.

And yes I think you are reading more into my posts than was there, I think to put it in as plain a way possible, I was just rolling my eyes at the fact people can get all up in the air over an unlikely event such as Mars colliding with the Earth, as if we could do anything about it anyway. Yet on the other hand these same people ignore the very real problems that face humanity that we can actually do something about.

As for the hydrogen fuel thing, time will tell on that one, I suppose my general mistrust of anything coming from big corporations or politicians make me seriously doubt they have a solution to the world energy crisis once we run out of oil. I have yet to see a politician that plans anything past the next election.

Anyway may I say it’s been nice making your acquantance Bill, and hope we can have some more err discussions soon.