A, Zip, and Zinnia are great pals; Zip loves to ambush Zinnia in the morning by hiding somewhere and reaching out to catch her by surprise. Zinnia is always startled but never mad. She has the sweetest disposition of any dog I’ve ever had. Zip is savvy; he used a fence for cove … | Continue reading
My two favorite flowers to photograph are the Callas, as they are apparent, and the Iris, which has climbed up the list recently and radically. I’ve learned much about how to take my photos, the Iris fits, and the Callas regarding design and shape, especially color and depth. Sue … | Continue reading
The Petitions of the Week column highlights some of the cert petitions recently filed in the Supreme Court. A list of all petitions we’re watching is available here. Nearly 25 years ago, the Supreme Court upheld a federal restriction on the amount of money political parties can s … | Continue reading
The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a Biden-era rule regulating so-called “ghost guns” – untraceable weapons without serial numbers, assembled from components or kits that can be bought online. By a vote of 7-2, the justices held that the Gun Control Act of 1968 allows the Bure … | Continue reading
Following opinion announcements, the Supreme Court will hear arguments this morning in FCC v. Consumers’ Research, a challenge to a FCC program that subsidizes telephone and internet services to schools, libraries, and underserved areas. The case has the potential to significantl … | Continue reading
On Wednesday, March 26, we were live as the court released opinions in Bondi v. VanDerStok and United States v. Miller. Click here for a list of FAQs about opinion announcements. | Continue reading
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Wednesday in a major challenge to the federal “E-rate program,” which subsidizes telephone and high-speed internet services in schools, libraries, rural areas, and low-income communities in urban areas. The stakes are high, not only b … | Continue reading
The justices this morning will hear two disputes on which federal courts should handle lawsuits over the Clean Air Act, Environmental Protection Agency v. Calumet Shreveport Refining, LLC and Oklahoma v. Environmental Protection Agency. Listen live at 10 a.m. EDT. Each weekday, w … | Continue reading
The Trump administration came to the Supreme Court on Monday morning, asking the justices to pause an order by a federal judge in San Francisco that would require the federal government to immediately reinstate more than 16,000 probationary employees who were fired from six agenc … | Continue reading
The Ethics of Spreading Life in the Cosmos by Paul Gilster | Mar 25, 2025 | Astrobiology and SETI | 9 comments We keep trying to extend our reach into the heavens, but the idea of panspermia is that the heavens are actually responsible for us. Which is to say, that at least the p … | Continue reading
The Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause gives defendants in criminal cases the right to “be confronted with the witnesses against” them. The Supreme Court on Monday morning declined to decide when a statement that is made out of court to an agency responsible for making bail r … | Continue reading
It was not clear at oral arguments on Monday how the Supreme Court will rule on a challenge to Louisiana’s latest redistricting plan. The state and a group of Black voters ask the justices to reinstate a congressional map, enacted by the Louisiana legislature last year, that crea … | Continue reading
The Supreme Court's March session will begin this morning with oral arguments in voting rights case Louisiana v. Callais. The justices will then hear Riley v. Bondi, a dispute over the 30-day deadline to seek review of a Board of Immigration Appeals ruling denying withholding of … | Continue reading
Just over two years ago, following the launch of ChatGPT, SCOTUSblog decided to test how accurate the much-hyped AI really was — at least when it came to Supreme Court-related questions. The conclusion? Its performance was “uninspiring”: precise, accurate, and at times surprising … | Continue reading
In 2022, the Louisiana legislature adopted a congressional map that included only one majority-Black district among the six allotted to the state, though a third of the state’s population is Black. The map was challenged in federal court as a dilution of the votes of Black reside … | Continue reading
The Supreme Court on Friday threw out a ruling by a federal appeals court in Chicago that upheld the conviction of Patrick Daley Thompson, who served four months in a federal prison for making false statements to bank regulators about loans that he took out but did not repay. In … | Continue reading
The court released two opinions this morning. In Delligatti v. United States, the court ruled against a former associate of the Genovese crime family that an attempted murder-for-hire was a violent crime eligible for a firearms sentencing enhancement under federal law. And in Tho … | Continue reading
On Friday, March 21, we were live as the court released opinions in Delligatti v. United States and Thompson v. United States. Click here for a list of FAQs about opinion announcements. | Continue reading
The Relist Watch column examines cert petitions that the Supreme Court has “relisted” for its upcoming conference. A short explanation of relists is available here. The Supreme Court is hitting its stride in sorting through the relists. At its last conference, it granted review o … | Continue reading
The Supreme Court has tapped a former clerk to Justice Sonia Sotomayor to defend a lower court ruling in next term’s Barrett v. United States, a New York man’s challenge to his robbery convictions and sentences under two federal laws. The federal government, which prevailed in th … | Continue reading
Why Do Super-Earths and Mini-Neptunes Form Where They Do? by Paul Gilster | Mar 20, 2025 | Exoplanetary Science | 12 comments Exactly how astrophysicists model entire stellar systems through computer simulations has always struck me as something akin to magic. Of course, the same … | Continue reading
Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles and commentary related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Thursday morning read: White House calls on Supreme Court to rein in judges blocking Trump's agenda (Steve Holland & Nandita Bose, Reuters) Trump administration unfazed b … | Continue reading
Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles and commentary related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Wednesday morning read: Top US Supreme Court justice rebukes Trump's call to impeach judge (Kayla Epstein, BBC News) Louisiana puts man to death in state’s first nitrogen … | Continue reading
A divided Supreme Court declined to block the execution of Jessie Hoffman, who was put to death on Tuesday night in Louisiana. Four justices would have put Hoffman’s execution on hold – one short of the five needed for a stay. Hoffman was sentenced to death for the 1996 kidnappin … | Continue reading
Chief Justice John Roberts criticized a call by President Donald Trump for the impeachment of a federal trial judge who temporarily barred the federal government from deporting noncitizens pursuant to an executive order published on Saturday. The rare public statement was the lat … | Continue reading
Deep Space and the Art of the Map by Paul Gilster | Mar 18, 2025 | Deep Sky Astronomy & Telescopes | 18 comments NASA’s recently launched SPHEREx space telescope will map the entire celestial sky four times in two years, creating a 3D map of over 450 million galaxies. We can hope … | Continue reading
Are Supernovae Implicated in Mass Extinctions? by Paul Gilster | Mar 14, 2025 | Deep Sky Astronomy & Telescopes | 21 comments As we’ve been examining the connections between nearby stars lately and the possibility of their exchanging materials like comets and asteroids with their … | Continue reading
Quantifying the Centauri Stream by Paul Gilster | Mar 11, 2025 | Interstellar Medium | 2 comments The timescales we talk about on Centauri Dreams always catch up with me in amusing ways. As in a new paper out of Western University (London, Ontario), in which astrophysicists Cole … | Continue reading
Spaceline: A Design for a Lunar Space Elevator by Paul Gilster | Mar 7, 2025 | Culture and Society | 34 comments The space elevator concept has been in the public eye since the publication of Arthur C. Clarke’s The Fountains of Paradise in 1979. Its pedigree among scientists is o … | Continue reading
A New Class of Interstellar Object? by Paul Gilster | Mar 5, 2025 | Deep Sky Astronomy & Telescopes | 12 comments Peculiar things always get our attention, calling to mind the adage that scientific discovery revolves around the person who notices something no one else has and say … | Continue reading
Shaping the Sail: Metamaterials and the Manipulation of Light by Paul Gilster | Mar 3, 2025 | Sail Concepts | 6 comments Experimenting on beamed energy and sailcraft is no easy matter, as I hope the previous post made clear. Although useful laboratory experiments have been run, t … | Continue reading
Experimenting on an Interstellar Sail by Paul Gilster | Feb 27, 2025 | Sail Concepts | 6 comments The idea of beaming a propulsive force to a sail in space is now sixty years old, if we take Robert Forward’s first publications on it into account. The gigantic mass ratios necessar … | Continue reading
Ernst Öpik and the Interstellar Idea by Paul Gilster | Feb 25, 2025 | Culture and Society | 19 comments Some names seem to carry a certain magic, at least when we’re young. I think back to all the hours I used to haunt St. Louis-area libraries when I was growing up. I would go to … | Continue reading
“This is an absolute necessity for anybody today. You must have a room, or a particular hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers; you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a … | Continue reading
Above, Kim, a volunteer, is quite often the face of the Cambridge Pantry. She ensures every visitor is welcomed warmly and feels safe and comfortable. She learns their names and ensures they get to the bathroom if needed. She also arranges free tax help. Feel free to message her … | Continue reading
I miss my outdoor time with Zip, so I’ve decided to go out on the back porch – he comes quickly, scratch his head, and listen to the purring. He loves this (we sat outside together every day in warm weather), which makes me feel excellent and pleased. I’m just pretending it’s Spr … | Continue reading
This is our first official broadcast of “This Is Us,” a new video that airs every Friday Morning (this is an exception). We’re not trying to be movie stars or TikTok influencers; we’re us as we are, talking about our lives, victories, and struggles on Bedlam Farm. Thanks for taki … | Continue reading
A Good News Medical Scare: I had a doctor’s appointment this afternoon and told her about my new cough. It was sometimes intense. She said this was sometimes an indication of cancer or pneumonia and told me I needed to go to the Intensive Care Center and get a chest and lung scan … | Continue reading
SETI’s Hard Steps (and How to Resolve Them) by Paul Gilster | Feb 21, 2025 | Astrobiology and SETI | 26 comments The idea of life achieving a series of plateaus, each of which is a long and perilous slog, has serious implications for SETI. It was Brandon Carter, now at the Labora … | Continue reading
“Who is healthy? Whoever enjoys what they have.” – Ancient prophet.” White Hen is holding her own. It’s no longer a Hospice Chicken Stall but more like a Hen Assisted Care Facility. She is eating, sleeping, and defecating correctly. Zip visits her daily to check on things; he s … | Continue reading
We helped to fill the Cambridge Pantry shelves last week. Thank you. Here are Sarah’s two requested items for today. The urgent need of the day item is below: Puffs Plus Lotion Facial Tissues, 8 Family Boxes, 124 Facial Tissues Per Box, Allergies And Colds, $13.28. Sparkle Tear-A … | Continue reading
Sue has had a rough winter, for sure. Her car was smashed up; she got sick, she’s been shoveling for hours, sliding and driving on ice, and finally hurt her shoulder. But she never complains or loses her love of teaching and gratitude for our support. The kids always come first … | Continue reading
My friend Sue got me another bunch of white and yellow callas today. Of course, I couldn’t resist. I worked with them and some roses and other things today. I’ve found my landmark, but it won’t be my only thing. I don’t want to do it over and get bored. Thanks for all your very [ … | Continue reading
If people have been abused as children, almost anything they see or hear can trigger awful images of the past and bring the victims right back to it – anywhere, any time. At the moment, our politics are a trauma all their own, and the mind doesn’t distinguish between violent abus … | Continue reading
Not surprisingly, Maria has begun a new potholder series, White-Hen-Walk-A-Way Potholder, inspired by the heroic recovery of our Hospice Hen, the White Hen. Maria is a good witch. She can turn the saddest and oddest things into gold with vintage fabric that people have sent her o … | Continue reading
“Charity Is The Tree Of Life...” The Kabbalah. Above, Kyle is unloading yet another load of diapers for the pantry babies. The pantry volunteers repeatedly tell me that you are all a blessing. Bless you. For the first time, they can store some for a week or two. They never had th … | Continue reading
Photo Journal: It’s a tradeoff. Beautiful light in exchange for bright sun and a beautiful sky. A photographer’s dream. Zip joins Maria in the morning feed. He likes to check in on the White Hen and his buddy sheep and donkeys. Our small apple tree in the pasture, I love this … | Continue reading
“Every challenge we face is sent by the universe for only one reason: For us to become the best version of ourselves.“- The Spiritual Principles Of The Kabbalah. ___________ While meditating in front of the birds late last week, I heard my voice saying, “Don’t be a battlefield.” … | Continue reading