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Looking For Intelligence
Calgacus writes "We've all read stories about extra-solar planets being found by gravitational wobbles. The Scotsman has a story here about a planet in the Fomalhaut system being discovered because of its wake through a dust cloud. It's further out than other recently discovered planets and astronomers are saying it means there's an odds-on chance of intelligent life being out there. If only there was more on Earth..."
Maybe it's me, but that picture looks like Saturn coming in for a crash landing. I guess it's the cut-and-paste school of astromony illustrations.
for the verb form "were" being correct in this sentence. The word "if" in the sentence invokes (in most languages) the subjunctive tense which in English (but not in most languages) just happens to share the same spelling as the plural past tense of the verb "to be".
To illustrate, if we simply remove the word "if" from the beginning of the sentence, "There was more on earth..." it becomes grammatically correct. Even adding your "collective noun" to the sentence doesn't change it: "There was more intelligent life on earth." is still more correct (and readable) than, "There were more intelligent life on earth."
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Man, I don't know why you haven't been modded up yet, but I thought that comment was hillarious. hehehe :D
Karma: NaN
On the other hand, if your crack was some sort of political snipe at the US, then fine-- but it's funny how most people are really trying hard to get to the US.
The US have how many inhabitants? 290 million?
The EU has how many inhabitants? 340 million?
You like to compare the "mightiness" of the US versus the rest of the world by the amount of people who try to "get into it"?
Does that not sound realy silly if you realize, finaly, that the rest of the world is ten times bigger then US and EU together?
Actually: more then 11 times.
The whole population of, Japan is nearly 50% of US. India has nearly 2.5 times the populatin of the US. China has 4 times the population of US.
Of course: I do not like to live in US, I consider it a bad place to live in relation where I live.
However if I would live in India, US was first choice as I learnd english in school. In India official business and government language is english, of course I apply for US and not for germany to immigrate.
If I have to leave e.g. North Korea, of course America is easyer to reach then Europe.
Isn't it funny how less able americans seem to be to look at their own place from a distant view and get a picture/impression where they are in the world?
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.