Roundup
(1) Do we hear cries of “Biden is a xenophobic racist” from the left? No? Isn’t that odd.
(2) Chaya Raichik, aka Libs of Tik Tok, is a brave woman.
(3) It sounds as though Pope Benedict isn’t long for this world.
(4) Another suspicious death of a Putin critic. See this for some background.
(5) Is our solar system unique? Maybe.
(6) California legalized the cannabis industry, and then proceeded to make the regulations so onerous that it’s squeezing out farmers trying to comply and allowing the illegal growers to flourish.
Some very good news (finally):
‘Judge rules Illinois cashless bail law is unconstitutional, handing prosecutors a win;
‘Court rules legislature “improperly attempted to amend the [Illinois] Constitution” by ending cash bail, putting new law in doubt.’—
https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/judge-rules-safe-t-acts-no-cash-bail-improperly-attempted-amend
…wonder if the Democrats will appeal…
(Just kiddin’. Of course they will…if they can. OTOH, wonder if they’ll just try to end-run the judge somehow…say, by ignoring the ruling?)
Did I say “very good news”?
Yikes! Spoke a tad too soon…
Compare and contrast:
“Biden economy sent retirement funds spiraling, prompting mass bailouts for union pensions”—
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/finance/pension-problems-bidens-bad-economy-prompts-massive-bailouts-pensions-401ks
“White House deals blow to GOP by demanding oversight requests to restart next Congress;
“The White House is not constitutionally obligated to respond to the House minority party.”—
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/white-house-deals-blow-gop-demanding-oversight-requests-restart-next-congress
+ Bonus:
“Janet Yellen’s Not-So-Good Name”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/janet-yellens-not-so-good-name
“Biden”‘s Trash-Talker in Chief is at it again…
To be fair there’s probably a bit of a selection bias at play when assessing the relative uniqueness of our Solar System due to some of the methods that are used for the detection of exoplanets. For example, with the most commonly used methods it’s easier to detect larger planets like gas giants than smaller, Earth sized planets because larger planets have a more significant effect on their star both gravitationally and in terms of transit photometry (basically how much a planet may dim its star as it passes in front of it). So in short it’s easier to find larger planets orbiting closer to their primaries.
But even so, our Solar System seems unusual since there appear to be no intermediate sized planets, unless we discover a 9th planet in that size range somewhere in the outer region of the Solar System. Also the orbits of most of the planets of our solar system seem pretty close to cicular (very low eccentricities), which appears to be unusual compared to other systems which have more extreme orbits.
To build on what Nonapod just wrote, selection bias was the first thought that came to me. And from the article itself:
“Things like the Solar System are very hard for us to find, they’re a bit beyond us technologically at the minute,” Horner says.”The terrestrial planets would be very unlikely to be picked up from any of the surveys we’ve done so far. You’re very unlikely to be able to find a Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars around a star like the Sun.”
We just found all the low hanging, easy to get to, fruit in planet discovery. Finding exoplanets of earth size within the Goldilocks zone is a very difficult task. The nice aspect of all these exoplanet discoveries is that one factor in the Drake equation is now fairly settled: ie it appears almost every star may come with planets. For a long time it was not really known if planets were a common byproduct of stellar formation. I would guess that now that number is certainly in the 90% range, if not higher.
physicsguy:
I believe that article says that they haven’t yet found planets in binary star systems, and there are a lot of binary star systems. They might just not have been detected yet, but there might be something about binary star systems that means they don’t have planets.
(5) I love this stuff. For all the bad things going on in the world, this alone makes it a good time to be alive; for me. It’s way outside of my expertise, so one of these days I have to find a connection the ongoing research. I’d like to believe our system is uncommon but it’s way to early to tell.
(6) Regulators gotta regulate & the taxman’s gotta tax. Utterly predictable & brain dead.
Don’t you hope that the Biden’s are having a good time in the Sun. The Press must since there doesn’t seem to be any criticism of them. Why should there be, I mean it’s not like there was a major Winter Storm that killed many people, and Southwest Airlines has collapsed causing major delays for people.
Oh, and Mayor Pete is really on the fiasco too.
#1 – Wow. I actually agree with this one; except I still wouldn’t let Chinese travellers in until they also had quarantined at their own expense for 7 days post-arrival.
#2 – You go girl!
#3 – Pax vobiscum.
#4-6… No surprises there.
Neo, sorta depends on the binary system. They come in all varieties with many different parings of types of stars. One could have a G-type sun star with a M-type red dwarf out at the orbit of Pluto and have earth like planets in stable orbits in between. I do agree, generally binary systems, which make up a large proportion of star systems, would be less hospitable to life bearing planets, but I see no reason those systems could not also have planets in some very eccentric orbits.
BTW, our system could be considered a near miss binary as Jupiter, with some more mass, could have evolved into a brown or red dwarf.
(6) California legalized the cannabis industry, and then proceeded to make the regulations so onerous that it’s squeezing out farmers trying to comply and allowing the illegal growers to flourish.
The whole point is to remove impediments to self indulgence and then manufacture gravy trains politicians and lawfare artists can exploit for profit. This is what happens when your political culture is so diseased it throws up crud like George Gascon and Adam Schiff.
While not exactly related to the uniqueness of our solar system; I just finished an interesting book:
The Red Planet: a Natural History of Mars
It was a little more heavy on the science than I care to read so I skipped a few paragraphs here and there. But, overall, it was very interesting and it showed, to me at least, how unique the Earth is compared to our near neighbor.
Suspicious Russian deaths.
How many Russian opponents of Putin have found themselves plummeting to the ground after having “jumped” from a window or balcony?
I do not know, but it’s clear they were all accidents; no foul play involved.
It is just a coincidence that all of them were critics of Putin.
It is just a coincidence they all met their fates in the same manner.
Yep, prove they were all murders; where is the proof?
That’s right, there is no proof.
Those that believe these were murders are simply “accident deniers.”
“(6) California legalized the cannabis industry, and then proceeded to make the regulations so onerous that it’s squeezing out farmers trying to comply and allowing the illegal growers to flourish.”
“The whole point is to remove impediments to self indulgence and then manufacture gravy trains politicians and lawfare artists can exploit for profit.” Art Deco
A more dysfuctional system could not be intentionally designed.
(6) Sometime in the past year or so, I read an article about this situation, with the headline something like “Only California could manage to lose money by legalizing the marijuana industry.”
Arkan-cide, Putin-cide, Fauci-cide … all just statistics.
Climate policies have been killing tens of thousands of old, poor Britons for years based on UK govt documents. Just a statistic. Also in Germany. This year the death toll will be quite a bit larger. Just a bigger statistic. Statistics are boring.
Let’s face it. A zero is nothing. Adding more zeros to a statistic means nothing.
So we killed a bunch of people by funding a bioweapon, denying the infected treatment, forcing the infected back into senior housing, demonizing inexpensive and effective treatments, and forcing people to get jabbed with experimental shots with unprecedented side effects which now appear to make them more susceptible to infection. It’s not like there’s a story there. Just statistics. Not even when the FBI dominates news organizations to censor any mention of the facts. Or Canada seizes the bank accounts of people who speak out. Nothing newsworthy in that.
Move along, nothing to see here.
History will look back at the early 21st century as the Great Gaslighting.