Defense Rests in Lockerbie Trial after calling just three witnesses, as contrasted with the prosecution’s 230. Establishing reasonable doubt is all they had to do…

N.H. Lawmaker Alciere Resigns. The recently elected legislator (to reports about whose statements advocating the legitimacy of cop-killing I blinked below) has been forced by popular demand to resign, effective 11:59 tonight. Alciere has acknowledged posting anti-police messages on the
Internet, including one that said: “There is nothing wrong with
slaughtering a cop. Just throw the carcass into the Dumpster
with the rest of the garbage.” He’s apparently a radical libertarian who, as a condition of his resignation, demanded that the NH Legislature vote on the abolition of public education and the legalization of all drugs. Another legislator has stepped in and agreed to be Alciere’s proxy in introducing the bills, stating that the issue has been such a distraction to the Legislature that he’ll do anything to facilitate Alciere’s departure. Alciere thinks he stands a chance of being re-elected in the special run-off election that will fill the vacancy his resignation causes. Amazing that, this time, the voters might get a second chance when they squandered their first one. In all the public outcry, I haven’t heard anyone saying “I told you so” yet to them — this is what you get if you vote the party line instead of investigating your candidate’s views before electing him. In the same state, Republicans also elected a legislator who had failed to reveal his conviction and incarceration on check-forgery charges in neighboring Massachusetts in the ’80’s. Who was it who said something to the effect that a people get the government they deserve? Whether or not a government serves the people well, it serves them right, I’d say.

Intergalactic ‘Pipeline’ Funnels Matter Between Colliding Galaxies. “This visible-light picture, taken by the Hubble telescope, reveals an intergalactic ‘pipeline’ of material
flowing between two battered galaxies that bumped into each other about 100 million years ago.” Space Telescope Science Institute

“They are unique and frightening…” Found: 2 Planetary Systems. Result: Astronomers Stunned. “Astronomers
have discovered two more
planetary systems in the universe, and
they appear to bear little or no
resemblance to each other or to the
solar system.

In one of the systems, a Sun-like star is
accompanied by a massive planet and an even larger object
17 times as massive as Jupiter. If this whopper is a planet, it
is the largest ever detected, defying current theory.
Scientists suspect that it could be a dim failed star or a type
of astronomical object that has never been observed before.

In the other system, two planets of more normal size are
orbiting a small star. But their orbits are anything but normal.
The pair of planets are locked in resonant orbits, moving in
synchrony around the star with orbital periods of 61 and 30
days; the inner planet goes around twice for each orbit of
the outer one.” New York Times