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The S&T website is also a good resource for information: http://www.skytonight.com/

What does that even mean, "visible from all inhabited places on earth"? First of all, I live in Juneau, Alaska, a place which is very much so inhabited (okay, not *very* much so, but certainly inhabited), but isn't going to see the eclipse. Moreover, the west coast of the United States, inhabited by more than thirty million people, won't see it either.

Alaska represent! I'll be yawning during this eclipse. Someone email me a picture.

http://skytonight.com/observing/home/This_Weekends _Total_Lunar_Eclipse.html http://media.skytonight.com/images/March'07+TLE_l. jpg

http://skytonight.com/observing/home/This_Weekends _Total_Lunar_Eclipse.html http://media.skytonight.com/images/March'07+TLE_l. jpg

We don't know nearly enough about the probabilities to calculate anything.

We don't have values for any of the terms for the Drake Equation, for instance.
http://skytonight.com/resources/seti/3304541.html
From that URL: "ne is the average number of "Earthlike" planets (potentially suitable for life) in the typical solar system..."

Until we have a terrestrial planet finder, at a minimum, we'll have no idea of what constitutes a typical solar system, even in this region of the galaxy. We still wouldn't know whether the properties of a typical solar system vary by distance from the nucleus, via data from any planet finder we're likely to build. I'm only guessing that it could be possible for properties to vary by distance to nucleus. Maybe an astronomer here could provide some estimates based on what we know about gas cloud composition or something?

ne is only one term of seven in the Drake Equation. Again, I don't see that we have any basis for anything beyond absolutely wild guesses.

Enrico Fermi wasn't someone widely regarded as being "full of it." Or whose thoughts were at all likely to be "foolish." Anyone with an *element* (atomic number 100, fermium) named after them is generally going to have some pretty serious credibility with me, anyway. Some say that Fermi never actually asked the "Where are they?" question. Assuming he did, he may have been thinking in terms of an appropriate framework for approaching the problem, rather than attempting to prove that we were alone. We're not likely to ever know--but the man was certainly capable of very deep thought.

I very much *hope* that there is extraterrestrial intelligent life in this galaxy, though I'm not sure I *believe* in it. I've found the question worthwhile enough to have sporadically contributed a lot of cycles to SETI@HOME, over the years. Possible resolutions of Fermi's Paradox are highly interesting to me.

But your examples completely miss the essence of the paradox, which is that *someone*, not any one particular species or civilization would have been detected.

http://skytonight.com/observing/highlights/5133461 .html

"If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, January 12th is your last good opportunity to catch Comet McNaught in the evening twilight -- though January 13th isn't completely out of the question. After that, Comet McNaught will become a target for observers in the Southern Hemisphere, as shown below."

Today is January 14th.

For you folks that actually get up when it is still dark, Saturn is really nice this season:

Saturn (magnitude +0.5, in Leo), rises around 11:30 or midnight and is in fine view high in the southeast by early dawn. Regulus, about half as bright, sparkles 5 below Saturn after they rise. By dawn Regulus is to Saturn's lower left.

http://skytonight.com/observing/ataglance

I don't think I'm alone when I say, 'Hail Eris! All hail Discordia!'"

No, you're not. In fact, you probably aren't the first either. Slashdot isn't the *only* place that geeks hang out, you know. :)