Dear K-T, Thanks for the Good Times. Love, Man

"For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for "life in the universe."

Not that I needed to read this news to make me feel more comfortable believing there are lifeforms throughout the universe and not just our small little planet. I'm not 99% sure, it's an easy 100% probability. With BILLIONS of suns out there, why would anyone assume Earth is the only place to be for some hot hot intelligent life action?

I do acknowledge the fragile creation and existence of life. Especially life as we know it. Just us being here now is pure dumb luck. A very specific series of events over the last 4 billion years results in a 4 limbed, 5 fingered being capable of relatively complex communication creating and interpreting a collection of pixels.

Over time, we're going to find Earth-like planets, but the chances of finding anything close to human is damn near zero. One can look at timely meteor strikes alone and see how they had a major role in the status of Earth's current tenants. We're a product of our planets individualism and unique history.

And that's pretty damn cool. If you want or need to feel special, there you go.

Chances are I won't live long enough to witness anything close to us discovering other beings in the universe. If humans don't destory themselves and survive other natural extinction events, we'll eventually run into neighbors. I'd love to know what they look like, their history, their behavior. Would we be able to communicate with them? Would we even be able to acknowledge each other?

Hopefully W. Bush won't be around, he'd probably react with fear and we all know how he and his boys deal with fear. Ba-boom! You know, JFK was kickass. He and his crew faced fear and managed it with intelligence and wisdom. They had pictures of nukes pointed directly at the US, capable of severely crippling the US, wiping out the East Coast. The threat was real, not speculative. And he still didn't primitively react with preemptive violence. What a beautiful time in history.

Anyway, back to aliens. Too many variables, no way to know what goes on outside our very isolated existence. I'd love to be around for such intergalactic discoveries, but that's more than likely a long time from now and if I somehow lived that long I'd probably be too tired to care.