Hot Jumping Jupiter

     I have no specific topic to write about this time, just impressions.  I watched a show called Edge of the Universe, a three part program dealing with outer space issues.  The first episode deals with the search for extrasolar planets.  In 1995 a Swiss astronomer found the first one, a Jupiter-like gas giant orbiting the star 51 Pegasi.  The discovery was startling enough, but the conditions of that star and its companion amazed astronomers.  The planet orbits its star at a mere distance of four million miles.  By comparison, our planet closest to the Sun, Mercury, is thirty-six million miles out and is one hot motherfucker of a planet.  51 Pegasi's planet is a ball of superheated gases and metals.  Astronomers think the planet migrated inwards toward the star over time and is in the process of being evaporated.
     Since the 1990s, hundreds of planets have been found, including gas giants much farther out from their parent stars, like Jupiter and Saturn.  Earth-sized planets have been found, as well as "super-Earths," rocky planets like ours, but huge, reminding me of science fiction writer Jack Vance's novel, Big Planet, taking place on a huge terrestrial world.
     In our galaxy are approximately 200 billion stars.  The universe's profusion of galaxies multiplies this number exponentially.  Astronomers, for the past two decades, have been finding scores of planets of many types, indicating the now obvious: there are trillions of planets, life is probably a common phenomenon, as are worlds of unimaginable hostility to life.  Did God make all this?  Did God throw the dice or invent the combinations that chance made infinite?  I have no idea nor do I care.  I point out what's real in the spacetime continuum we inhabit.  The possibilities, oh they are endless.  If you listen to early Genesis you'll hear Peter Gabriel sing, if you listen to later Genesis, you'll hear Phil Collins.  Both eras of that band are worth listening to.
     Someone once told me that my talk in conversations goes on tangents.  I mention things that pop into my head that don't necessarily follow the topic.  I do this because I'm a scatterbrain.  I like Jackson Pollack's paintings because they look like organized arrangements of randomness.  His artistry appeals to me, but a scatterbrained politician is not what I want running anything important.  Think of Donald Trump's Twitter account as his canvas.  He tweets something last month, something important, like saying James Comey better hope "there are no tapes of our conversations."  This tweet caused Congress to ask Trump to release all "tapes," if any.  Today, he tweeted that there are no "tapes."  (I put "tapes" in quotation marks because we live in a digital era and reel to reel and cassette tapes are old-fashioned except in the lingo of middle-aged to old people).
     The "tapes" tweet led to Comey taking action to cover his ass, knowing he would someday be asked under oath about his nine conversations with Trump.  Comey, testifying, said he hoped there are tapes.  This left Trump with no leverage regarding these alleged tapes.  In fact, as has been proven today, he used the "tapes" tweet as a threat against Comey, an attempt, now proven lame, to put the scare into the former FBI director, a man who's now proven he's not intimidated by dickheads like Donald Trump whose idea of talking tough comes from movies.
     Trump's admission today, in a tweet, that there are no tapes of his conversations with Comey, shows him to be a buffoon.  He brought up the "tapes" idea in the first place, just as he manufactured the "wiretapping" of Trump Tower claim.  Throw out to the news media an idea of being persecuted, let the news people and politicians chew on it, distract us from what's important, like health care legislation, infrastructure spending, the overreach of the military industrial complex, the endless war against multiple countries that America wages for profit, gun craziness, the poisoning of water supplies.  The main thing for Trump is to distract his audience (us) from his own corruption.  From the unethical business practices of his past, from his likely connections to rich Russian bastards he had to borrow money from because American investors have long regarded him as a bad risk.  Trump went bankrupt six times.  Yet, in spite of his horrible record with finances, he has lots of money, and his "brand" has, as Trump's son Eric puts it, "never done better."
     Foreign dignitaries play golf at and get pampered at Trump's many resorts.  This kind of disgusting exploitation of the dignity of the Executive Branch may some day be fully investigated.  It's possible that the Special Investigator in the Russia Probe, Robert Mueller, is digging into enough piles of dirt on Trump that actual crimes will be exposed, and hey, here's an idea, prosecuted, with years of prison time for Trump and his sons Donald Jr. and Eric, and maybe Ivanka too and her husband Jared Kushner.  I expect this to not happen.  Rich people avoid jail like nobody's business.
     Trump sent Jared Kushner to Israel to talk peace with Benjamin Netanyahu, something akin to having Henry Kissinger meet with Heinrich Himmler to discuss how peace can be brought about by killing everyone of a certain race.  Problem solved if the Palestinians just continue to accept that they're damned and would be better off walking into the Mediterranean Sea en masse.  Jared Kushner, emissary of peace.  A news anchor (sounding like an idiot) on MSNBC a few days ago wondered, right before going to commercials, if Kushner will be able to accomplish anything related to peace in the Middle East on this trip.
     The answer is no.
     Kushner a short while back made a phone call to Lockheed Martin's CEO which developed into the 110 billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia.  Kushner is thus complicit in the mass murder of Yemeni civilians, but so is his father-in-law, and Barack Obama.  They should all play golf together.  In Hell.
     I may have written above about 51 Pegasi's weird hot planet because it reminds me of the smallness of everything here.  This is just one world out of trillions.  The possibilities that exist in regard to intelligent life are unlimited.  Worlds may exist with political situations that would make us shudder to think about, or maybe we would recognize situations we've experienced.
     I had an idea for a story that involves super-powerful telescopes picking up images and transmissions from a distant planet going through a worldwide war.  The transmissions get broadcast on our various media.  We can just observe as the planet goes through hell in its war, but it becomes a very popular reality show here as we spend time contemplating the destruction of distant aliens annihilating themselves over questions of nationality, resources, religion, and race.
     Here and now we have a reality show in Washington with a reality show host who has no moral center, someone any sane person wouldn't leave alone with their daughter.  Yet, because he's the president, we're supposed to show respect, even though, like Richard Nixon, he really does look exactly like the crook that he is.

                                                                              Vic Neptune