Life on Enceladus?

***Weekly astronomical update***

In February of this year, Carolyn Porco of the Cassini mission to Saturn announced that there is good reason to think that Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons (pictured above), may be hiding an ocean under it's surface capable of necessitating extraterrestrial life! This theory has been drawn largely from the discovery of salt water ice crystals which are said to contain the chemical energy and compounds needed for life.

In Greek mythology, Enceladus was a child of Gaia (Earth) with limbs that resembled a dragon-like water serpent.

Most likely inhabitants?
...sea monsters of course.

True Blood Brothas

I'd like to devote this post to my favourite of supernatural beings and my latest obsession-vamps. As teenagers, we all secretly wish for a sexy vampire to show up in the woods behind our mansion (or greasy spoon diner) and hypnotize us into falling in love with them-and then demand that we leave them alone. Well, now you can live out your s&m fantasies vicariously through one of the latest celebrity vamps or their love victims!!

In True Blood (based on Charlaine Harris' 'Southern Vampire Mysteries') Anna Paquin (go Winnipeg!) plays Sookie Stackhouse-perky small town waitress with telepathic powers and the love interest of vampire Bill Compton. An imitation blood drink has been invented to keep the thirsty minority vamp population under control, but they remain an oppressed sub-group in society fighting for equal rights and mainstream tolerance.

In the beginning, I wasn't sure if I was suppose to take this show seriously..the intro is amazing- but something about a bunch of young waitresses in daisy dukes living on a trailer park, running around the forest looking for vampires really screams cheesy thrasher movie...In fact, you can almost predict the order in which people will be killed based on their level of skanky-ness.

But don't be fooled...you will get hooked. Just wait until the vamp blood is being traded on the black market as viagra!

Wait a minute... telepathic waitress with a creepy boss getting pulled into the dark underworld...? It's almost as if someone was sniffing around my diary...

But the award for *best fang-banger* goes to Kristen Stewart (a.k.a. Bella) from my new favourite movie -Twilight (thanks for the addiction Kate). It may be that Bella's character is more natural..more believable, therefore allowing me to more easily pretend to be her. It may be the suspense, the special effects or dreamy co-star Robert Pattinson. Whatever it is, I am officially in the Twilight zone.

How To Disguise Your Cult #1

Some of you (thousands of readers!) may remember back when I wrote a few articles trying to inform the public about the Church of Scientology-

well I received some angry messages claiming that I was bashing a religion out of ignorance and now I'm afraid that someone is going to proclaim me a 'suppressive person' (an "antisocial" whose behaviour is "disastrous") and destroy me. Lucky that my bank balance is at $-5, so they can't get me there!

Anyways, I've thought a lot about what exactly terrifies me about this new movement of some (supposed) million people. At first I thought it was the use of non-professional psychological methods as 'religious ritual.' But I wouldn't want to claim that (potential) alternative healing methods (whether accepted by the APA or not) should never be considered a spiritual exercise. Mind you, no one should be misled into paying thousands of dollars for these methods.

No- It's the fact that they're not even TRYING to hide!

TOP 3 WAYS TO DISGUISE YOUR CULT

1. Try not to be responsible for mysterious and avoidable deaths.

2. Maybe don't market your 'religious' services at the carnival-
it will only make me associate your cult with the absurd EVEN MORE.

(I had some dianetics done on me last summer right after the tilt-a-whirl when I was hangin with my homegirls at the Toronto Exhibition. This guy who looked like a robot fiddled around with his alarm clock and told me I was completely stressed out and I needed to purchase Hubbard's book on dianetics. But I was clearly having a blast. FAIL for dianetics.

3. You probably should not sue into bankruptcy and then monopolize the only active cult watch group in the country. It makes you look creepy.

...MORE TIPS TO COME