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Well, it looks like those good old, gun lovin’, land grabbin’ Bundy boys are going to walk, which leaves me with some pretty mixed emotions. Mostly surprised.
See, I thought they’d been tried and convicted months ago, maybe even a year, I honestly don’t know how long it’s been and I’m not going to look it up, because this is another late night, too stoned and must get to bed blog, and the Bundys’ freedom, while I see it as an injustice and an insult to the intelligence of anybody who actually reads the news, will not particularly affect me, in the short term, anyway.
It does say something about our justice system that they’ve been incarcerated this long and haven’t had a trial yet, although that’s probably their lawyer’s fault as much as anybody’s.why is that necessary? By the time they were arrested, the justice department already had all the information they were ever going to get, and it was plenty because they’d been all over the news for the previous several weeks. What it means is that the feds can lock you up, charge you with something and, no matter how bogus the charges, they can at least keep you in jail for a year or so just dicking around and making you wait for a trial.
But I can’t believe they got cleared of all charges. They couldn’t get them for vandalism? Littering?
Whatever, though. Life goes on and the Bundys are going to go on being idiots, in or out of jail. My guess is that, feeling vindicated, they will continue to commit criminal acts, sort of like George Zimmerman or O.J. Simpson and, sooner or later, like O.J. Simpson, they will do something stupid again and wind up in jail again, because it’s a pattern, and not one they plan to break out of.

I like the short poems, the ones that pop into my head almost fully written and require almost no effort from me, not just because I am lazy but also I think they are some of my best. Brevity is the soul of wit, if something is right, it’s right, and you don’t need a lot of words to convey a simple thought.
I like the quote from Gertrude Stein: I don’t like to write. I like having written.
Such a one popped into my head this morning at about 10 to 7, just as I was getting off the bus on my way to an early morning lesson, and it was still dark:

People are oblivious
completely unaware
they do not know
that they do not know
nor do they even care

Sometimes, however,it doesn’t work like that. Sometimes I get an idea and turn it around in my head for weeks, so if you see me on the tram counting out syllables on my fingers or muttering under my breath ‘day, may, jay, way, it’s O.K., your mama’s toupee..’ or something like that, that’s what’s going on.
At the moment, it’s one I got in my head about a week ago while out walking and saw a branch on the ground, probably fell from its tree in one of the rainstorms we’ve had recently, nothing serious, but there are always a few branches which fall, and I decided to write a poem on the subject of art trouvé, so I’m just using this blog to think out loud.
I’ve got the first stanza, about finding the log on the ground, and then Id like another one about all the different forms it can take, sticks, stones, and piney cones. Then one about how it’s the most anarchistic of art forms, and random, it does not depend on any author interference at all, it’s just totally in tune with the universe, so maybe a sacred art form in terms of Earth worship, and then one about how we’re all obsessed with making the world a better place but maybe the key is just to stop fucking it up because the world is already a pretty amazing place, maybe the key to utopia is reduction and not construction.
So, we’ll see how it comes out, if it comes out, and thank you for giving me thisopportunity to think aloud.

I know I wrote about this just last night but I can’t get it out of my head. First of all, 234 is a very small percentage of 2.5 million, about .01%, or one out of 10,000 planets examined, but while some scientists might use that to throw shade on the study, to me that reinforces the idea that these are intelligent civilizations trying to communicate with us. (well, maybe not specifically with us – it strikes me as more likely that they are sending out the signal into blank space, figuring any civilization capable of receiving the message is probably one they’ve intended it for)
If it was just the kind of signal emitted naturally by a sun of that kind, it would be a higher number than 234. Sure, there are many different types and classes of sun in the galaxy, but these are like ours, and it’s one of the more common types. So, it would have been more.
Of course, it could still turn out to be some technical glitch (pidgin droppings on the telescope, for instance) or human error (maybe Borra and Trottier have just seen a few too many Star Trek episodes), but I certainly hope scientists are taking this at least seriously enough to focus our search on those stars for a while.
234 stars. Could it all be one species or (as I think is more likely) a federation of planets. That would be most totally awesome.
It’s as if the human race has been lost in the woods for the past, oh, I don’t know, since the beginning of existence I suppose, and suddenly we’ve stumbled into a cocktail party.
Focus on those stars, scientists! Until this story is disproven, I’m going to continue believing that theyre out there.

The Drake equation is not actually an equation. It’s a checklist. Other suns have planets, check, water is the exact opposite of rare, check, there are earth-size planets, check, and we’re getting closer and closer to it seeming like there is other intelligent life out there.
Anyway, for the past week or so there’s been a buzz about alien signals having been received and I, for one, think we should go ahead and give it the benefit of the doubt and get this all checked out. It’s a win-win. If the Canadians are correct, we’ll have discovered alien life! Wow! That’s awesome. If it can’t be proved, we’ll keep honing the process and focusing on those planets -all 234 of them – until we find out something, and add to our scientific knowledge and capabilities. If it can be disproved, well, that’s pretty impressive, too, and something we deserve to know. If there are 234 earth-like planets out there WITHOUT intelliegent civilizations, we can begin to colonize the galaxy.
What we’re talking about here is a new study from E.F. Borra and E. Trottier, two astronomers at Laval University in Canada. Their study, titled “Discovery of peculiar periodic spectral modulations in a small fraction of solar type stars,” found signals coming from 234 out of the 2.5 million stars they analyzed – a tin percentage, to be sure, but all of those 234 stars are similar in size and luminosity to our sun.
The signals are pulses of light, regularly spaced. So, even if it is a signal from aliens, we will have no way of knowing what they’re saying. But, we’ll know the3y are saying ‘We are here!
And think about this: 234 planets. If they are intelligent signals, and 234 planets are sending the same one, that is like a federation of planets. That implies the Star Trek universe is out there and just waiting for us. That’s pretty amazing.

It’s looking more and more as if I’m not going to be able to vote this year. I requested my ballot in plenty of time, back in September, but nothing has arrived. I have been trying, via e-mail, to get somebody to resolve this situation, but am not having any luck. I got directed to a website, and there was a link there saying ‘check the status of your ballot.’ So, I clicked on that. The language was kind of ambiguous, my ballot has been ‘received and processed’ which does not exactly have the identical meaning to ‘sent.’ In fact, it kind of looked like they were telling me I’d already voted, which would be impossible, because I haven’t received a ballot.
To add insult to injury, I got a packet in the mail today, from the Los Angeles Board of Elections, with ‘ballot information.’ A handy, dandy little booklet, about 30 pages, explaining all the local initiatives and whatnot, but it won’t do much good – because I haven’t received a ballot.
I’m still hoping something will arrive in the next few days but, much longer than that and it will be beyond the ability of the Czech and American postal services, neither one of which is particularly noted for speed and reliability, to get it there in time.
Am I being singled out? I don’t know. On the one hand, I don’t really think so, because, despite the fact that I’ve been outspoken in my support of Jill Stein, I am just one voter, and I doubt the board of elections is stalking my facebook page, and it’s very unlikely they read my blog, because I have about 20 readers, on a good day. On the other hand, I got a ballot in the mail without all the complicated foofaraw in 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012 with no problems.
This year is different. I don’t think anybody can deny that. This year is definitely different.