let me ask you, what is the advantages and disadvantages of radio seti versus optical seti? >> there are a lot of pros and cons. lasers are good for point-to-point communication and lots of bits pr second, lots of data. i think the best strategy is multiple strategy. we should be looking for all kinds of different signals and not put all of our money in one basket. it's hard to predict what other civilizations are doing. if you asked me 100 years ago what to look for, would i have said smoke signals. so we try to launch a new seti project and new idea every year. >> dr. shostak, anything to add to the advantages or disadvantage of radio versus optical seti? >> i should point out they're both sort of different colors of the same thing. in fact literally different colors. they're both electromagnetic means of communication and we use both in our telecommunications here on earth. i suspect aliens will as well. just about every week i get an e-mail from somebody who says you guise are looking for radio signals, that's so old school. extraterrestrials, assume ig they're out there

let me ask you, what is the advantages and disadvantages of radio seti versus optical seti? >> there are a lot of pros and cons. lasers are good for point-to-point communication and and lots of bits per second, lots of data. i think the best strategy is a multiple strategy. we should be looking for all kinds of different signals and not put all of our money in one basket. it's hard to predict what other civilizations are doing. if you asked me 100 years ago what to look for, would i have said smoke signals. so we try to launch a new seti project and new idea every year. >> ok, and dr. shostak, anything to add to the advantages or disadvantage of radio versus optical seti? >> i should point out they're both sort of different colors of the same thing. in fact, literally different colors. they're both electromagnetic means of communication and we use both in our telecommunications here on earth. i suspect aliens will as well. just about every week i get an e-mail from somebody who says you guys are looking for radio signals, that's so old school. extraterrestrials, assuming the

let me ask you, what is the advantages and disadvantages of radio seti versus optical seti? >> there are a lot of pros and cons. lasers are good for point-to-point communication and and lots of bits per second, lots of data. i think the best strategy is multiple strategy. we should be looking for all kinds of different signals and not put all of our money in one basket. it's hard to predict what other civilizations are doing. if you asked me 100 years ago what to look for, would i have said smoke signals. so we try to launch a new seti project and new idea every year. >> dr. shostak, anything to add to the advantages or disadvantage of radio versus optical seti? >> i should point out they're both sort of different colors of the same thing. in fact literally different colors. they're both electromagnetic means of communication and we use both in our telecommunications here on earth. i suspect aliens will as well. just about every week i get an e-mail from somebody who says you guise are looking for radio signals, that's so old school. extraterrestrials, assuming they're out t

versus optical seti? >> there are lots of pros and cons. laysers are good for point to point communication and lots of bits per second, lots of data. i think the best strategy is a multiple strategy. we should be looking for all kinds of different signals and not put all our money in one basket. it's hard to predict what other civilizations are doing. if you had asked me a hundred years ago what to look for i would have said smoke signals. so we try to launch a new one every year. >> anything to add to the advantages or disadvantages? >> i should point out that they are both sort of different colors of the same thing in fact literally different colors. they are both electro magnetic. we use both here on earth. i suspect the aliens will as well. an about every week i get email from somebody saying that's more old school. they'll use something more sophisticated than that. we don't know. and one shouldn't discount a technology just because it's been around a while. we use the wheel every day. that's an old

again johnny and in chicago this is a very good point that stephen brings up because we have south of seti in two thousand and eight as well but maybe it's the dysfunctionality of the entire post cold war environment i mean what has the international system found any kind of balance are we still moving to some kind of lack of equilibrium or is it the united states just has gotten used to being very had to manage monic well i basically agree with steve which is that i think that the united states and the west more generally but especially the united states has found it almost impossible to put cold war thinking. behind it and as a result in the mid one nine hundred ninety s. the clinton administration began to push hard for a nato expansion and there's no way you could explain nato expansion unless you make the argument that it's designed to contain some sort of future russian threat nobody put the argument for nato expansion in those terms at the time but in retrospect it's quite clear that that's what was going on so the deep cause of the present crisis i believe is nato expansion which i

left alliance in the western countries and of course when russia does assert as it did in some of the seti to protect the rights of russians and of course it is a demonized but i think there is a real disconnect peter which i think we should mention between the western elite and the general public because russia phobia is very much dominant among the western elites you always have to be russian phobic to gain to be allowed to be a member of the political elite in the west nowadays but it's not shared by the general public there was a poll a few months ago which showed that the e.u. was more popular than russia that israel was more popular than russia and the british public certainly off buying into this idea that president putin you know is this bogeyman this new hitler character that the tabloids the rupert murdoch tabloids are trying to portray him as and i think that what happened last week with the mh seventies aster we saw a very crude attempt by the western leitz to try to use this to blame russia without any evidence connecting russia to this disaster and to try to get the general p

most recently we debated the waxman-markey bill of 2009 which seti missions to -- set emissions to facilities over 25,000 tons a year. now, that bill passed the house but was never brought up to the senate for a vote because they knew it would fail. each of these bills had one thing in common -- their cost wase norm outs. we found out -- cost was enormous. we found out some time ago that if we were to pass cap and trade, the cost would be in the area of $300 billion to $400 billion a year. now, i do calculations every time i hear a large number and i go back. in my state of oklahoma, we have -- i calculate the number of people, families that actually file a federal tax return and do the math. that would cost each family in oklahoma about $3,000 a year. now, we know that it doesn't make any difference because by the testimony of the administrator of the e.p.a., lisa jackson, who was appointed by this president, obama, she said, in response to my question on public record, that the -- even if we were to pass something here, it would not have the effect of reducing co2 emissions worldwide becaus