"Not So Fast, Bucko"; Astronomical Edition

The State Supreme Court on Wednesday rescinded the construction permit for the Thirty Meter Telescope, a $1.4 billion observatory planned for the state’s tallest mountain, Mauna Kea, a revered symbol in Hawaiian culture.

I got nothing. Do your best snarking in the comments.

"It's Not the Crime, It's the Coverup"; Chicago Edition

Despite having sacked the police superintendent, Garry McCarthy, on Monday and ordered the formation of a taskforce into police accountability, questions continue to swirl about what [Mayor Rahm] Emanuel knew, and when he knew it – questions that at best raise doubts about his grip over his own city and at worst threaten to impugn his integrity.

"What did you know and when did you know it?"-- the question that has torpedoed many a political career.

Emanuel is pretty much a heartless and cold bastard when it comes to political shenanigans. He's one of those who would cook and eat puppies if it got him more votes than it'd lose him.

Covering up a murder done by a cop in order to win reelection is cold-bastard work.

Coldwater Creek Causes Cancer!

Federal officials promised concerned residents they would get to the bottom of whether Coldwater Creek is behind a rash of cancers reported by people who grew up in north St. Louis County.

No, not these guys.

Meanwhile, Across the Country

A former Prince George's County Police Officer could be sentenced to prison for as long 45 years after holding his firearm on a civilian's head in May of 2014.

A county judge Wednesday convicted Jenchesky Santiago on all counts stemming from the incident; first-degree assault, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony and malfeasance in office.

Witnesses reported that the cop also told his victim: “We’re PG police, and we shoot people.”

And this particular dirtbag wasn't the first Prince George's County cop to be convicted this year.

Not Adding Up; CA Shooting Ed.

A senior federal official who is monitoring the case said investigators believe one of the shooters left the party after getting into an argument and returned with one or two armed companions. Local officials, at an evening news conference, said it was not clear if the people involved in the dispute were the same people involved in the shooting.

The shooters carried long guns and wore masks when they opened fire on a gathering of San Bernardino County health department employees around 11 a.m., according to witnesses and officials.
...
{Denise Peraza] said the doors opened and two men dressed in all black wearing face masks entered with “big ol guns” and started shooting.

“Everyone dropped to the floor,” Peraza told her relatives. “The guys opened fired for 30 seconds, randomly, then paused to reload and began firing again.”

Peraza was hiding under a desk when she was struck in the lower back. After the attackers left the scene became silent for about five minutes. Then the doors swung open again, and a swarm of police officers entered the room.

So some guy gets into a beef during a holiday party, he leaves in a huff and comes back an hour or so later, dressed in black, with two of his friends, and shoots up the party? "My boss gave me shit, let's go kill them all!" "Yeah, let's!" "Dude, let's go do this!"

Even in a world of nutcases, this makes no sense.

Something's missing. No doubt, it'll get found out.

But, as I've said before, don't name these assholes.

How We Perceive the Universe Changed 100 Years Ago Today

Albert Einstein published "The Field Equations of Gravitation" on this date 100 years ago in Berlin.

General relativity changed the view of gravity. Before Einstein, gravity was believed to be a force-- objects pulled on one another. Einstein theorized that gravity was a consequence of the behavior of spacetime.

There isn't a "gravity well" per se, more like a funnels with curving sides caused by the mass of objects bending the fabric of spacetime-- like the way a rubber trampoline's surface is distorted by heavy objects on the trampoline. If you roll a marble across the surface of the trampoline, the marble may roll into the curvature of the trampoline caused by a heavy object. If the marble is moving fact enough, the curvature will change the path of the marble. If not, it will roll into the curved surface and come to rest next to the heavier object.

At least, that's how I comprehend it.

The Nobel Committee didn't award a Nobel to Einstein for any of his work on special or general relativity. They gave him one in 1921 for theorizing the existence of photons in 1905. Why the Nobel Committee refused to recognize his work on the theory of relativity, even after it had been proven to be true by experiments, may be wrapped up in interwar European antisemitism.

Thanks to European antisemitism, as manifested in the Holocaust, the necessity for physicists and chemists to be fluent in German was eliminated. After the war, articles in German scientific journals increasingly became published in English, as both the authors and editors came to realize that was the way to ensure their articles were widely read.

Shorter Chicago: "We're Sure that We Didn't Tamper With Evidence!"

The Chicago police have diligently investigated a charge that they tampered with evidence of the execution-style murder by a Chicago cop of Mr. McDonald and, yesiree, they didn't do nothing, Boss.

In a pig's eye.

(H/T to Joe from a comment, here)

Tossing One of the Riders From the Sleigh; Chicago Edition

Rahm Emanuel sought for months to keep the public from seeing a video that shows a white police officer shooting a black teenager 16 times.

Now, a week after the video's release, the Chicago mayor has fired the police superintendent, created a task force for police accountability and expanded the use of body cameras.

The mayor's protestations that he was waiting until the investigation was finished before releasing the video is bullshit. As I wrote last week, try to think of another situation where it would take prosecutors over a year to bring charges against a person who pumped bullets into a prostrate victim, after the prosecutors had video of the murder.

Changing the top cop in Chicago isn't going to change the police culture in that city, a culture that rivals the pre-Katrina NOPD for brutality and corruption. The Chicago PD regards itself as above the law. Zendo Deb has blogged about the Chicago cops for a long time, if you want to read a compilation of disgustingly awful authoritarian fuckery. It should be obvious, now, that if the video hadn't been released, the City and the county prosecutor would have swept the killing under the rug.

Over the last ten years, Chicago has paid out over a half a billion dollars to compensate victims of police brutality and outright torture. And that number doesn't include what the city paid its lawyers to defend the cases, estimated at over $80 million.

Six hundred million may be pocket-lint money for the Feds, but it's not for any city. Chicago pays a heavy price for its gang of brutal overseers. One wonders when they'll get tired of it.

(Note that the Chief Torturer of Chicago went to prison for perjury and impeding an investigation. He was never called to account for torturing people.)

Assholery Has its Costs; Alabama Edition

Alabama would pay just over $51,000 in legal fees to settle a lawsuit brought by Planned Parenthood Southeast over Gov. Robert Bentley's attempt to cancel the organization's Medicaid contract, under an agreement filed in federal court Monday morning. ... The Department of Health and Human Services warned Bentley after his [attempted cancellation] that canceling the contract could violate federal law. Planned Parenthood Southeast sued later that month.

Only politicians can get up and, with a straight face, pretend that getting their asses kicked in court is a "win". But that's just what Bentley tried to do.

Quote of the Day

"Sometimes it seems that life is a continuous reenactment of the Charge of the Light Brigade, except with assholes instead of cannons."

On the other hand: