On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:34:15 +1100, Alan S
wrote in :

On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 03:24:06 GMT, kangaroo16
wrote:

On Tue, 13 Nov 2007 08:49:14 +0100, "maxi"
wrote in :

wasn't belgium on a wendsday


Ron (from belgium)

As am a curious human (some would say in more ways than one) I
really do have to ask why!

Are there no "Wednesdays" in Belgium? If so, this must be pretty
confusing to European travelers.

The OP was wrong, Belgium was on a Tuesday. And roo16,
you've had a culturally deprived childhood.
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/2429...lgium/overview

You could be right, Alan. Depending on how you define "culture",
of course.:-) My wife was watching the musical quiz show,
"Singing Bee" I had never heard of most of the songs or the
groups.

Even as a child, I preferred Jazz & Classical. Never developed a
taste for most pop music. When Elvis Presley hit the national
scene, he didn't appeal to me at all, nor did the other rock or
pop music stars.

I often preferred early jazz rather than modern jazz. Have you
ever heard a Bessie Smith recording of "Empty Bed Blues"?

I did listen to some modern music, liked some of the early songs
of Bob Dylan. I like songs such as "The Gamblers Song", "The
Band Played Waltzing Matilda" by Eric Bogle. Some of the older
traditional Australian songs are pretty good, and easy to listen
to.

Most pop music since the 1950's or so do nothing for me. Even
some Country & Western is better than pop music, in small doses
at least. On radio, I seldom listen to anything but various
commercial free ABC stations on FM. ABC classical is good,
Radio National often has interesting programs.

A few months ago even heard one ABC station play "House of the
Rising Sun". The ABC must have a huge library of old songs. I
wonder how often it is played in the US these days? :-)

Basically, though as far as music is concerned, I could get along
quite nicely if I didn't hear anything composed after, say,
1955 or so. Perhaps I was born old?

Even then, though, all music is more of a ''background" sound for
when I'm doing something else.

I am a bit of a news junkie, though. When 9/11 news was on T.V.
I even slept in front of the T.V. If a radio is on in the
background, programs will still be interrupted with important
breaking news. I would hate to miss important items like
the outbreak of WW3, the possibility of the first contact with
extraterrestrials, a large meteor or asteroid strike, etc. :-)

I posted an item earlier about the group of pilots in the USA
who want the U.S. Government to start investigating UFOs again
after a about a 30 year gap.

I somehow doubt that they will though. See
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5...l6ZR1ROk1DoR1A

final line of above report:
"When Callahan suggested the government tell Americans about a
UFO, the CIA official allegedly told him: "'No way, if we were to
tell the American public there are UFOs they would panic.'"

As they did decades ago when the Orson Wells broadcast
of "The War of the Worlds" was broadcast.

Actually, though, a fear of an extraterrestrial invasion is
probably the only thing that would ever unite the citizens of the
world to work together to prepare to fight the alien foe.

From memory, the first TV broadcast was of the Olympic Games
in Germany in the late 1930s. VHF and higher frequencies,
especially radar don't bounce of the Heaviside layer, but
are broadcast into space.

So if there was any race at our level of civilization or greater
within 100 light years or so, they would know we were here.:-)

To quote from
"The Growing Problem of UFOs and Aliens"

"Belief in UFOs and aliens is not just a fringe belief. USA
Today says that their surveys show that 43% of all Americans
believe in UFOs and aliens as being real. In 1977 a plaque was
attached to a spaceship leaving the solar system that showed
where we live in our solar system and what we look like. The
justification for this was that aliens outside of our solar
system would find the space ship and we needed to let them know
that we are friendly and that we welcome them."

http://www.doesgodexist.org/MayJun03...AndAliens.html

I somehow doubt that the level of belief is anywhere this high in
Australia, though!

Have you noticed that a lot fewer sightings and "aliens" since
people started carrying camera phones, cameras, video cams, etc.
around in the bush?

Personally, am pretty skeptical. I've yet to see any convincing
proof of such encounters. There is or was a US female
Psychiatrist who wrote a book reporting stories told by her
patients, and she seemed to think UFOs were genuine.

I'm not saying that there is no advanced civilization somewhere
out there, but so far "Project Seti" hasn't found any intelligent
signals from space despite decades of searching. If there was
any alien civilization within 100 light years or so, we should
have detected it.

The universe, though, is a very large place, and when consider
the estimated number of suns in it, it seems a bit odd that the
earth, which is a minor planet in a solar system far out on the
edge of our local galaxy would be the only place with advanced
life.

Perhaps they can't be bothered to come check us out? Perhaps we
are "off limits" for some reason? :-) Given the total number of
wars in human history, we may be considered as too dangerous for
a civilized race to risk contact. :-)

Cheers,
Kangaroo16





Cheers, Alan, Australia