Notes From All Over, The Political Page -- Nothing About The Bakken -- Part 2 -- January 31, 2020

Updates

January 31, 2020: late Friday afternoon, only two GOP senators voted for witnesses: the most hated US senator (reported earlier), Senator Susan Collins from Maine; and, the most scheming, ambitious GOP senator, Mitt Romney from Utah. The final acquittal vote probably won't come until after the State of the Union address and the Iowa caucuses. Television ratings for the state of the union will be through the roof, with an impeached, not yet acquitted president will be giving the speech. Senators Warren, Sanders, and Klobuchar stuck in DC while Iowa caucuses go on.


January 31, 2020: this will be most agonizing for senators Warren, Klobuchar, and Sanders. It appears the trial is over; now it's all about dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's. Schumer says he wants to protect the rights of the minority party in the US Senate and therefore wants to go through the whole "amendment" process again, which will add another day to the trial. Meanwhile, closing arguments by the GOP are incredibly important; add another day. Iowa caucuses are Monday night. State of the Union address -- probably will hit all-time viewing records -- Tuesday night. It seems the GOP would like to have the president speak once he's acquitted, not still under trial -- that would be awkward. Watch Mitch McConnell schedule the acquittal vote about the same time that first results are coming out of Iowa, Monday night. LOL. 

January 31, 2020: it's being reported that the US Senate won't vote for witnesses; will acquit. What happened? How did this happen so quickly? What was the turning point? I think the turning point came:

• when US Senators, all with big egos, realized that John Bolton was only out to further his ambitions, and sell more books; and,
• when Chief Justice Roberts showed his true colors by not reading certain questions from GOP senators

Original Post

Politics: if the impeachment trial ends "early," these are the reasons:

• RNC and Trump setting campaign finance contribution records; Dems can't handle any more of these Pyrrhic victories
• American people don't care; trial not even on their radar scope
• Pelosi, Schiff, and Nadler -- the new "wrecking crew" -- and not in a good way
• US senators bored; even Romney can see this isn't going as hoped
• US Supreme Court justice reduced to reading questions submitted on 4 x 6 notecards -- and he's the top jurist in the country -- embarrassing
• even some Democrat senators suggesting it's time to wrap this thing up
• Pocahontas will blame her poor Iowa showing on impeachment nightmare; can't afford to lose any more time from the campaign trail
• Klobuchar, a legend in her own mind, ditto
• Sanders: probably the biggest beneficiary; gave him mandatory time-out to rest his heart
• can you imagine the impeachment trial stretching through the Super Bowl and the State of the Union Address? 

But stranger things have happened. Who knows? This may go on for months if each US Senator can call two witnesses. LOL.

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The Book Page

The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed For Discovery, Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards, c. 2004.

Perhaps one of the most difficult books I've ever read. The first third is fascinating, and a relatively easy read. The middle third is a real slog; wow, it's tough sledding; and then the final third: incredible. Really puts SETI -- search for extra-terrestrial life -- in perspective.

Remember that monolith in the opening scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey? What were the geometric proportions of that terrifying black, domino-like monolith? One x four x nine.

So what?

One x four x nine: the squares of the first three prime numbers.

Cool.


The book is chock (whatever a "chock" might be) full of examples of coincidence, serendipity, whatever you want to call it. One of my favorites, pages 187 - 188. [A reader reminded me to use the hyphen: chock-full.]

The discovery of that "background radiation" in 1964 by Bell Labs engineers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson has always fascinated me. It was crucial for the Big Bang theory. Absolutely crucial.

But this I never knew. It was purely coincidental (?) that man was alive when he was (and intelligent enough) to have discovered the cosmic background radiation.

Today, the universe presents astronomers with about 40 percent of the sources that are in principle observable -- quite a large sample. But as the expansion continues to accelerate, objects in the universe will appear with ever greater redshifts and gradually fade from view.

The most distant objects will be receding the fastest and will fade first....the effects of the event horizon are not yet visible, since it is beyond the particle horizon, but we are surprisingly close to seeing them, at least on a cosmological timescale.

If the best estimates are correct, then the even horizon will begin affecting our view of the universe in twenty to thirty billion years. After that, the amount of accessible information in the universe will start to taper off. The first to fade from view will be the most distant parts of the universe, such as the background radiation.

I'm reminded of that every time that we are told that we are so fortunate that Algore, Occasional-Cortex, and St Greta appeared when they did, to arrive on earth just years before global warming would doom us all.

Gonzalez and Richards suggest we have only 20 to 30 billion years before accessible information in our universe will start to taper off. No time to waste. Always something to worry about.