Saw this topic and thought I'd chime in.  It is highly unlikely that intelligent life exists within our own Solar System, though not impossible.  Sagan described in his series Cosmos what large life may look like in a gas planet like jupiter.  Obviously the lack of a stable platform would prevent any type of civilization or the stability to not worry about being eaten or starving to death and able to pick up pursuits such as mathmatics.  It is possible that an intelligent species could exist benath the surface of mars or under the oceans of one of the many moons.  However, defining what makes them intelligent is up for debate.  Keep in mind that by our own detection standards, we would not be able to find ourselves if we existed as we did more than 150 years ago.  Without an industrial revolution, there would be an absence of many chemicals in the air that would signify a civilization below.  We only developed radio waves in the past 100 years or so, so any culture not yet at that point would be undetectable by us.  An alien probe could have passed by our neck of the woods in 1820 and without deep scans to intentionally detect humans, it would have came up empty.  100 years is less than a blink of an eye in universal time keeping. 

Most cosmologist do not find the idea of life as uncommon.  In all probability, the universe is probably full of life.  But the limiting factor is life the evolves into large mammal like creatures and eventually establishes sentience and is categorized as intelligent.  When you factor in these variables, the liklihood of creatures like us is very small.  The liklihood of creatures like us in our own solar system is extremely improbable - less so than every Playmate walking into my house right now to fuck my brains out and me continually hitting the powerball for the next 10 years. 

The scientist that debate this issue reference the goldilocks zone not because it would create people like us, but because it allows for conditions hospitable to developing intelligent life.  A desert world or one made of gas is not the environment microbes can evolve into large creatures and develop civilization.  That is the catch 22.

Any species that made it to Earth would be vastly superior to us.  Any idea of Star Wars or some space fight is foolish.  They would possess the technology to wipe us out with no risk to themself.  Imagine the United States declaring war on primitive humans 15,000 years ago.  Now imagine the United States (if it existed) 1,000 years from now declaring war on humans 15,000 years ago.  That is the parallell one would need to grasp to imagine an alien life coming to earth.  Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking have discussed the topic in depth.  I really suggest you watch Cosmos if you're interested in it and aren;'t inclined to read the books.

And on my final note, James you had stated earlier on that our solar system is still unmapped.  Also that the 70s probes had not yet broken out.  That is incorrect.  The Voyager probes broke the Kuiper belt (the belt of asteroids and objects past Pluto and what defines the boundaries of our solar system)several years ago.  There are no hidden or undiscovered planets.  We can detect the gravitational pull of a planet on its sun billions of light years away.  We can and obviously could do the same with objects relatively an arm's reach away.

I'ver been to Sturgis.  Don't plan on showing up there if you're an idiot.  This is a biker crowd and biker things will be going on.  It won't be your normal show.

Simply put, no one will have a problem kicking the shit out of you and there's a hell of alot of bikers there who will back "their" guy up over some outsider.

from their official facebook page:

Axl Rose Accosted by Belligerent Paparazzi at LAX

Lead singer of Guns N' Roses unhurt in encounter with unruly photographers

(Los Angeles) December 10, 2009 –
Axl Rose, lead singer for the legendary rock group Guns N' Roses, was unhurt last evening when he was accosted by an unruly group of paparazzi at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).

At the time of the incident, Mr. Rose was en-route to Taipei, Taiwan, to kick-off Guns N' Roses’ tour of Southeast Asia including shows in Taiwan, Korea and Japan.

Mr. Rose, who was about to enter a security checkpoint at LAX when the altercation took place, was approached by a group of unchecked and unruly photographers who became aggressive with the singer and female members of the traveling group.

Mr. Rose was not injured during the unprovoked attack and was able to board his flight without further incident.

And as I said, he was given the award for inspiring "hope" in people.  In other words, he made people feel good.  The nuclear weapons and climate bullshit haven't happened yet.   It's all a bunch of feel good rhetoric.  So as I said, with no input from Fox News or the hatred and failure to move past 2008 from MSNBC.

Our President got the Nobel Prize because he made people feel good.  Nothing more, nothing less.

What I was saying is that the World banks do pose a threat and are certainly involved in international politics.  However, because the banking institution is linked to events like 9/11 or the Illuminati, people discredit or dismiss everything about the argument.

Simply put, people might be more open to looking at the banking situation if the fringe didn't try to attach them to every conspiracy theory in existence.