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[U] A Fine Amicus Brief Sets Out Applicable Election Law — For This Morning’s Likely Final Houston Hearing, In Federal Court…

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Updated @ 3 PM CST — The GOP was just bounced out of federal court. Time’s up. Count those 127,000 votes from in and around Houston. End, update.

Just to keep the bidding straight, this is why the Texas GOP will not get the TRO they seek, this morning — in the federal district courthouse in Houston. It is a last ditch, fools’ errand effort by the GOP / vote suppression forces.

The highly-esteemed law professors are right — the Texas vote suppressors are wrong:

…The issues present in this case have already been decided in state court. Plaintiffs now seek to re-litigate the state law issues in federal court on the basis of a novel and unfounded federal constitutional theory which would wrest control of Texas election law from the state authorities charged by law with implementing and interpreting it. The plaintiffs’ novel theory is simply incorrect. The Elections Clause does not grant federal courts the power to override a State’s construction of its own law or to create a private constitutional right of action in favor of individuals solely because they disagree with the State’s construction of its election laws….

The Bush v. Gore concurrence [Ed. Note: not binding law, at all] was limited to the situation in which state courts interpret state law in a way that (a) is so wrong that it has “no basis” in state law and “no reasonable person” would interpret it that way, and (b) contravenes the express decision of the state official “authorized by law to issue binding interpretations of the Election Code.” Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. at 119-20 (conc. of Rehnquist, J.). Even on its own terms, the non-binding concurrence does not confer authority on federal courts to interpret state law as a general matter, but only in extraordinary cases where a state court’s or state official’s interpretation is so wrong and so unexpected that it violates due process….

The correct procedure to challenge the Secretary of State and Harris County’s interpretation of the Texas Election Code was to use the method the Legislature specified in the Texas Election Code: to bring a claim in state court, see Tex. Elec. Code § 273.061 (giving mandamus jurisdiction to the Texas Supreme Court over actions against election officials). The system is working exactly as the Legislature designed it. And, the state authorities the Legislature has charged with interpreting state law have agreed with Harris County and the Secretary of State….

Just yesterday (in an emergency Sunday session), the State Supreme Court of Texas tossed the GOP claim, per the last paragraph — and it was so clearly a loser, the Court issued no opinion — just an order dumping them out of court. Onward, grinning — ever grinning.

नमस्ते

The Bright White Water Ice Scraped Clean, Where The Lil’ Philae Scrubbed Across It, In November 2014…

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Has it already been six years? Truly? I guess so….

As you watch the ESA video below, at about 40 seconds in, you will see a bright white slice, in what turns out to be a slushy surface, with the consistency of cappuccino foam. It is that… ephemeral. That iridescent white gash is where Philae plowed through it — exposing pristine water ice below.

We followed this quite closely, almost exactly six years ago now (ending in silence, some 22 months later, in fact). We were completely wowed by the idea of bouncing off a comet.

And, as is often true, it turns out that the tumbling miscalculations of ESA’s Rosetta mission (not fully-accounting for micro-gravity’s bouncy, trampoline-lie surface effects) informed the OSIRIS-REx asteriod egineers’ touchdown calculus — allowing a safe, wispy-light “touch and go” capture of that admittedly more solid regolith, for an Earth return, by this time in 2023.

And now, it turns out that the Rosetta mission data has yielded the surprising finding that much of the top of a comet is like slightly frozen sea-foam — no more substantial than that. When a metal craft of several hundred pounds bumps into it, at several meters per second, that cold-brewed foam is just… very smoothly plowed aside. [ESA’s latest story on it — and a bit below the video clip.]

…Rosetta’s Philae lander touched down on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 12 November 2014 and made multiple contacts with the surface before arriving at its final resting place in a location named Abydos.

A reanalysis of the touchdown data found that Philae had spent nearly two full minutes at the second touchdown site, making at least four distinct surface contacts as it plowed across it. One particularly notable imprint revealed in the images was created as Philae’s top surface sank 25 cm into the ice on the side of a crevice, leaving identifiable marks of its drill tower and sides. The spikes in the magnetic field data arising from the boom movement showed that it took Philae three seconds to make this particular depression….

Analysis of images and data from OSIRIS and Rosetta’s spectrometer VIRTIS confirmed that the bright exposure was water-ice covering an area of about 3.5 square metres. Although the ice was mostly in shadow at the time of the landing, the Sun was directly illuminating the area when the images were taken months later, lighting it up like a beacon to stand out against everything around it. The ice was brighter than the surrounds because it had not been previously exposed to the space environment and undergone space weathering….

“The simple action of Philae stamping into the side of the crevice allowed us to work out that this ancient, billions-of-years-old, icy-dust mixture is extraordinarily soft – fluffier than froth on a cappuccino, or the foam found in a bubble bath or on top of waves at the seashore,” added Laurence….

That is… simply amazing, now six years on, from those cute little cartoons, before the ESA lander went silent for good. Smiling and looking back, indeed. But onward — to a bright, new election day, and some results — in about 48 hours.

नमस्ते

Breaking — Texas Republicans Not Allowed To Ignore 127,000 Harris County Votes: TX Supreme Court

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This is exceedingly good news.

But it shouldn’t ever have been controversial, at all. In the US — we count every valid ballot. At least prior to Trump and Abbott we used to. But the GOP knows higher totals will never again favor their side, so the move is to supress the vote.

This is, in fact, the only really wide spread vote fraud going on: Republicans seeking incessantly (like clouds of whiny gnats) to disenfranchise urban (in this case, Houston-area) voters, knowing that the GOP platforms are all aimed at harming urban people, everywhere — in the main. I suppose a US Supreme court challenge may be attempted by the Texas State Republican Party, but the sand is almost out of the hour-glass’s upper chamber for such a move, now. Condor predicts even the conservative federal judges in Texas will so hold. Here’s a bit, but do go read it all at The Austin Statesman:

. . .The Texas Supreme Court on Sunday rejected, without comment, a bid by three Republican candidates and a GOP activist to toss out almost 127,000 votes cast from drive-thru lanes in the emerging Democratic stronghold of Harris County.

The votes, however, are not yet safe to count as part of the early-voting tally Tuesday.

A federal judge will hold an emergency hearing Monday morning — less than 21 hours before polls open on Election Day — to hear arguments on a similar challenge filed by the same group of Republicans, who argue that state law prohibits drive-thru voting, so every vote cast from cars during the early voting period should be tossed out as illegal.

At the same hearing, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen will weigh a request by Democratic organizations and the party’s U.S. Senate candidate, MJ Hegar, to join the case in defense of drive-thru voting — and the 126,911 votes cast that way.. . .

Onward smiling, even so — brimming, in fact, with optimism — about the prospect of Tuesday evening’s results.

नमस्ते

In Which John Predicts A Trump Win, And A Still-Red Senate. Nope.

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Nothing much more to say, in view of the masthead — and all the more reliable data.

I just want Hinderaker’s lunacy marked, for posterity here.

It is especially delicious that his remarks came on Australian television, too. So much for ever showing his face down under again — except as a… laughing-stock.

So it goes.

Grinning — at how sad a lil’ sycophant he’s become.

The Mole Is Completely Buried, On Mars — Mining To Begin Anew — Perhaps Before New Years…?

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Most of the InSight lander’s mission has gone off without a hitch, returning excellent data on everything from the hum of the wind on Mars, to the subtle vibrations of Marsquakes, in the lower bedrock layers. Kudos to the JPL and German engineering teams.

However, the little drill/mole. . . still hasn’t been able to reach its planned five meter depth. But it is now firmly buried by the regolith, and with a cold Martian winter likely firming / freezing the topsoil, with an at least temporary layer of a harder crust, it may, when re-activated near New Years, gain enough traction to start making depth with its percussive hammerhead. We shall see, but here is the latest from the team — and a bit:

. . .Now that the heat probe is just below the Martian surface, InSight’s arm will scoop some additional soil on top to help it keep digging so it can take Mars’ temperature.

NASA’s InSight lander continues working to get its “mole” – a 16-inch-long (40-centimeter-long) pile driver and heat probe – deep below the surface of Mars. A camera on InSight’s arm recently took images of the now partially filled-in “mole hole,” showing only the device’s science tether protruding from the ground. . . .

As for the learnings on Marsquakes, we’ve read this — about a year ago, though I did not mention it then:


. . .Mars trembles more often — but also more mildly — than expected. SEIS has found more than 450 seismic signals to date, the vast majority of which are probably quakes (as opposed to data noise created by environmental factors, like wind). The largest quake was about magnitude 4.0 in size — not quite large enough to travel down below the crust into the planet’s lower mantle and core. Those are “the juiciest parts of the apple” when it comes to studying the planet’s inner structure, said Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator at JPL. . . .

It took months after InSight’s landing in November 2018 before they recorded the first seismic event. By the end of 2019, SEIS was detecting about two seismic signals a day, suggesting that InSight just happened to touch down at a particularly quiet time. Scientists still have their fingers crossed for “the Big One.”

Mars doesn’t have tectonic plates like Earth, but it does have volcanically active regions that can cause rumbles. A pair of quakes was strongly linked to one such region, Cerberus Fossae, where scientists see boulders that may have been shaken down cliffsides. Ancient floods there carved channels nearly 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) long. Lava flows then seeped into those channels within the past 10 million years — the blink of an eye in geologic time.

Some of these young lava flows show signs of having been fractured by quakes less than 2 million years ago. “It’s just about the youngest tectonic feature on the planet,” said planetary geologist Matt Golombek of JPL. “The fact that we’re seeing evidence of shaking in this region isn’t a surprise, but it’s very cool. . . .”

Between now and New Years, then. . . be excellent to each other. We await now a forty-first passing event, in the coming week — with a wide smile, and recoveries from sugar comas of last evening. . . here and there. All the best to your momma, too. . . . with fond wishes, only. . . .

And as I go, I’ll leave here below a time lapse of the now-buried head of the percussive miner’s probe:

Grinning still, at ghouls and cartoon heros, ear to ear. . . .

नमस्ते

In Interstellar Space, There Is Likely 40% More Hydrogen Than We Thought: New Data From New Horizons

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The “Pluto and Beyond” mission continues to pay new dividends, in the form of space science. And this is a jammin’ gif animation below right, too! So… “What’s not to like,” I ask?

I was smitten, as many remember, with New Horizons’ whizzing-flyby of Pluto, offering us a heart-shaped topographical feature, nearly the size of one quarter of the orb, one no human eye had ever seen to that moment, as not even then mighty Hubble could resolve tightly enough to show us the surface in such detail — see at left. Now, Goddard / NASA reports that ionization data from the craft, well out in the Kuiper Belt now, pretty much confirms that past the bow-shock of interstellar space, we are in fact flying through a much more dense cold hydrogen fog than we earlier thought, based on the pair of Voyager’s more rudimentary instruments and data.

Do go read it all — it is helpfully all told in fifth grade (or so) science level prose:

…Just as Earth moves around the Sun, so our entire solar system hurtles through the Milky Way, at speeds exceeding 50,000 miles per hour. As we cruise through a fog of interstellar particles, we’re shielded by the magnetic bubble around our Sun known as the heliosphere. Many interstellar gases flow around this bubble, but not all.

Our heliosphere repels charged particles, which are guided by magnetic fields. But more than half of local interstellar gases are neutral, meaning they have a balanced number of protons and electrons. As we plow into them the interstellar neutrals seep right through, adding bulk to the solar wind.

“It’s like you’re running through a heavy mist, picking up water,” said Eric Christian, space physicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. “As you run, you’re getting your clothes all soggy and it’s slowing you down.”

Soon after those interstellar atoms drift into our heliosphere, they are zapped by sunlight and slammed by solar wind particles. Many lose their electrons in the tumult, becoming positively-charged “pickup ions.” This new population of particles, though changed, carry with them secrets of the fog beyond.

“We don’t have direct observations of interstellar atoms from New Horizons, but we can observe these pickup ions,” said Pawel Swaczyna, postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University and lead author of the study. “They are stripped of an electron, but we know they came to us as neutrals atoms from outside the heliosphere….”

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, launched in January 2006, is the one best suited to measure them. Now five years past its rendezvous with Pluto, where it captured the first up-close images of the dwarf planet, today it ventures through the Kuiper belt at the edge of our solar system where pickup ions are the freshest. The spacecraft’s Solar Wind Around Pluto, or SWAP instrument, can detect these pickup ions, distinguishing them from the normal solar wind by their much higher energy….

Out there, it is all… “powdered with stars” — and Milton was so much more right, than he then knew… making all the difference, here 346 years from the day Milton passed, to the out there — into the powder — into the Infinite.

नमस्ते

East Bay III TRO Extended Past Election Day Now: Overnight Order From Able USDC Judge Jon S. Tigar In SF

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More and more of the most-able federal jurists seem to believe almost all of the most meritless and vexatious (federal government-inititated) litigation on their respective dockets will likely evaporate — if Election Day 2020 ends the way most expect.

We see this effect, likely again in evidence, in East Bay III, overnight — where Judge Tigar extended an agreed TRO an additional two weeks — protecting migrant families, again… until Trump has lost. Here’s the full order, and a bit:

…Upon further consideration, however, and in light of the complexity of the case, the need to carefully consider the parties’ arguments, and the lack of prejudice to the enjoined parties, the Court finds good cause to extend the TRO until the Court issues its decision on Proposed Intervenors’ motion or through November 14, 2020, whichever is sooner. See Nat’l Urb. League v. Ross, No. 20-cv-05799-LHK, 2020 WL 5578931, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 17, 2020); Coal. for Econ. Equity v. Wilson, No. C 96 4024 TEH, 1996 WL 691962, at *3 n.8 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 27, 1996); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(b)(2).

IT IS SO ORDERED….

Dated: October 29, 2020….

On all fronts, we sorely need competent, ethical leadership — but we especially need it as to those people who remain the most vulnerable among us. Onward. Do vote if you haven’t already. Be heard. And thus, help bend the arc of the silvery river of US history, once again… toward… progress.

नमस्ते

Osiris Sample: All Buttoned Up — And Heading Home, Come March 2021…

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The departure window, from the vicinity of Bennu, opens on March 22, 2021 — which is to say, the shortest gravity assisted path back to Earth will be in alignment, by then. And OSIRIS will gracefully turn about on her heels, and head for home.

So now, with the over-flowing container of dust, rocks and regolith from Bennu tucked snugly in the belly of its Earth side lander tub. . . OSIRIS-REx will just float along — essentially idling (as we almost all are here on the lil’ blue dot, during the ongoing COVID-19 “minimal movements” duration), in neutral — before firing its engines for home around March 22, 2021. The mission has come off completely without a hiccup thus far. Current-, and future- generations of astro-geologists will now have a pristine and copious sample of what the first few million years’ worth of our solar system’s cooled, rocky raw materials looked like — all buttoned up, by early-2024 (assuming a routine parachuted drop in, for a NASA Earth side ocean pick up).

Here’s this afternoon’s confirm, announcing and celebrating it all — from NASA / Goddard Space Center:

…On the afternoon of Oct. 28, following the backout check, the mission team sent commands to disconnect the two mechanical parts on the TAGSAM arm that connect the sampler head to the arm. The spacecraft first cut the tube that carried the nitrogen gas that stirred up the sample through the TAGSAM head during sample collection, and then separated the collector head from the TAGSAM arm itself.

That evening, the spacecraft completed the final step of the sample stowage process –closing the SRC. To secure the capsule, the spacecraft closed the lid and then fastened two internal latches. As of late Oct. 28, the sample of Bennu is safely stored and ready for its journey to Earth.

“I’m very thankful that our team worked so hard to get this sample stowed as quickly as they did,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona, Tucson. “Now we can look forward to receiving the sample here on Earth and opening up that capsule.”

The stowage process, originally scheduled to begin in early November, was expedited after sample collection when the mission team received images that showed the spacecraft’s collector head overflowing with material. The images indicated that the spacecraft collected well over 2 ounces (60 grams) of Bennu’s surface material, and that some of these particles appeared to be slowly escaping from the head. A mylar flap designed to keep the sample inside the head appeared to be wedged open by some larger rocks. Now that the head is secure inside the SRC, pieces of the sample will no longer be lost.

The OSIRIS-REx team will now focus on preparing the spacecraft for the next phase of the mission – Earth Return Cruise. The departure window opens in March 2021 for OSIRIS-REx to begin its voyage home, and the spacecraft is targeting delivery of the SRC to Earth on Sep. 24, 2023….

Onward. . . with lil’ munchkins to walk, in distanced celebrations… and visions of wild turkeys trotting by… now six ago… grinning; eight ago, as well. We will await the return of this graceful voyager.

नमस्ते

Meanwhile, Off World: Perseverance Is Half-Way To The Copper Planet…

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Everything is five by five — and the Perseverance Rover is now halfway to Mars, humming along flawlessly. In addition, OSIRIS-REx is now almost done stowing the copious sample it obtained of Bennu, for the about three year journey home, from 200 million miles out.

So all in all, much of high promise to report, from out there in the inky black of space. Here’s a bit from NASA, on the Mars halfway marker — 146 million miles traversed; same distance left to sail:

…NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission has logged a lot of flight miles since being lofted skyward on July 30 – 146.3 million miles… it turns out that is exactly the same distance it has to go before the spacecraft hits the Red Planet’s atmosphere like a 11,900 mph (19,000 kph) freight train on Feb. 18, 2021….

“At 1:40 p.m. Pacific Time October 27, 2020, our spacecraft will have just as many miles in its metaphorical rearview mirror as it will out its metaphorical windshield,” said Julie Kangas, a navigator working on the Perseverance rover mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California…. Next stop, Jezero Crater….”

Grinning ear to ear, with little ones perparing Halloween costumes, for both distanced-real-life, and virtual- walk-about parties, nationwide….

नमस्ते

Hinderaker Thinks The Existence Of Our First Amendment Hinges On Who Is President…

~ condor ~ 1 Comment

Tonight, John suggested that if Trump were (albeit quite improbably, at this point) to win re-election, he would, in the visage of Sen. Cruz, come after Twitter — and Facebook (as he already has, impotently, re TikTok and WeChat). Charming.

Where I’m from, that’s seen as government retaliation against those private actor platforms that made it more difficult for Trump to propitigate, and others amplify, his lies.

In sum — content-based government regulation — of thought.

I actually am quite at ease about it all. And not even because Mr. Biden will win. Though he will. No….

I am comfortable that every federal judge would see Amendment One’s free speech / expression clauses as a primary (and likely, THE primary) of American values, and block Trump’s efforts to retaliate. But why waste the time and judicial resources?

The law is well settled. Fiddling with the statutory and FCC rule based immunity for just being a neutral platform — if that is what Sen. Cruz / Trump / Hinderaker intimate… is frankly… childish.

It won’t change the bill of rights. And if a few morons like Trump sue, claiming that Twitter is mean to them… they will lose — either way. Or. if Jack has to sue to enjoin lawless executive orders, or unconstitutional legislation, he will. And he will win.

So, like much of the latter day Trump / Cruz bluster (and Hinderaker!) this falls… impotent.

Hilarious — but it is tragic that John thinks only Trump may violate the Constitution with impunity.

Smiling at a soaking but warmish rain to the south this late evening…. out.