[ExI] From the sublime to the ridiculous

[John Clark]

Strange day. Today in the Journal Science it was announced that for only
the second time the pinpoint location of a Fast Radio Burst (FRB) has been
found, one of the most mysterious things in astronomy that probably require
new physics to explain. This FRB came from the outskirts of a old massive
galaxy with little new star formation which was very unlike the first the FRB
which came from the center of a young dwarf galaxy with lots of stellar
formation indicating that FRB's are a general phenomena not requiring
unusual astronomical conditions.

Only about 60 FRB's have ever been observed, mostly in the last 5 years,
but the location of only 2 have been found; they only last about a
millisecond and most never repeat so they're hard to detect much less
locate despite their immense power, but it's estimated that about 10,000
must happen every day in the observable universe.  Theories have been
proposed for their cause but all the ones I've heard involve very weird
stuff of one sort or another.

A single fast radio burst localized to a massive galaxy
<https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2019/06/26/science.aaw5903>

Speaking of weird stuff, also today a pregnant woman in Alabama, the hart
of Trump country, was shot in the stomach and miscarried; the shooter was
not charged with anything but the woman was charged with manslaughter for
killing her baby:

Woman In Alabama Charged With Manslaughter After Being Shot
<https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/06/alabama-pregnant-woman-unborn-baby-fetus-miscarriage-gunshot-stomach-manslaughter.html>

Also today Trump's judges on the Supreme Court decreed (5 to 4) that
political gerrymandering is perfectly fine,  apparently it was the original
intent of the framers of the constitution that the politicians should pick
their voters and the voters should not pick their politicians:

Court gives Trump a victory on gerrymandered
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/us/supreme-court-gerrymandering-census.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage>

And in yet more news of this day, the court didn't give Trump his way on
everything, they said he couldn't  put all the questions he wanted on the
new census form, so immediately and in flagrant disregard of the
constitution and in the first time in the history of the nation he will try
to delay the 2020 census until AFTER the 2020 election.  If Trump ever gets
his wish and his face is added to Mt. Rushmore they can carve these
inspiring words of his beneath it:

*"Seems totally ridiculous that our government, and indeed Country, cannot
ask a basic question of Citizenship in a very expensive, detailed and
important Census, in this case for 2020. I have asked the lawyers if they
can delay the Census, no matter how long, until the United States Supreme
Court is given additional information"*

Trump will try to delay 2020 census until after 2020 election
<https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trump-floats-delaying-2020-census-citizenship-question-n1023316>

And if he figures all that would still not be enough to remain in power no
doubt he will try something else. Remember when I said Trump would "delay"
the 2020 election if he doesn't think he will win?

John K Clark
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