Some astronomers recently discovered some planets; large gas giants, orbiting a star on the fringe of the Milky Way, about 500 light years (500,000,000 miles) from Earth. Significance was Hubble was able to actually take pictures of them. Not closeups, but enough detail to identify them as planets. As Carl Sagan used to say, with "billions and billions" of stars, there must be "billions and billions" of planets out there, and some of them must harbor life. Maybe intelligent life, perhaps superior to our own. We are incredibly arrogant to assume we are the only intelligent life in the universe. They why hasn't someone tried to get in touch yet? Thats one of the great mysteries!

On a more picayune scale, I don't think we should bail out the U.S. automakers; let them go bankrupt, and finally make the painful adjustments called for in a capitalist economy, when you manage your company very poorly. Sorry for the pain of the employees, but they will lay off hundreds of thousands anyway.