Cory Doctorow: ‘The Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office has offered Occupy protesters a get-out-of-jail card: all they need to do to skip their court dates is pay $355 for private “free speech lessons” where they will be taught a highly selective version of Constitutional law that holds that the First Amendment doesn’t include the kind of protest they enjoy. It’s like they combined traffic school with Maoist “self-criticism sessions” from the Cultural Revolution to make something worse than both combined.’ (via Boing Boing).

Related:

• The Irony of Free Speech in California (jonathanturley.org)
• LA City Attorney to Occupy: pay for brainwashing lessons on limits of free speech and we’ll drop the charges (boingboing.net)
• #OccupyLA: Take ‘Free Speech’ Class After Arrests for Exercising Freedom of Speech (crooksandliars.com)
• City offers to teach Occupy L.A. protesters a free-speech lesson (latimesblogs.latimes.com)

There was some buzz last week in astronomical circles that SETI (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) had discovered a candidate radio signal. In this this post, Phil Platt (Bad Astronomy) explains why the detected signal did not originate with an ETI and, in so doing, gives an informative explanation of some of the principles of SETI.

Related:

• dustinmartian: Image of the Day: 1st Kepler “Search for… (kellysutton.tumblr.com)
• First Kepler SETI Signals ID’d: No Aliens – PC Magazine (pcmag.com)
• Kepler Receives First Images; Looks To Be From An Alien Civilization, But Isn’t (techie-buzz.com)
• First Alien Signals Found By SETI (disclose.tv)
• Deus Ex Alpha Centauri: Buy Euros Now As SETI May Have Discovered Aliens (zerohedge.com)
• SETI’s Search for Intelligent Alien Life Resumes (livescience.com)