South Sudan: First Setback

If you’ve been following the Update, you know all about the south Sudanese secession vote, which, the Bohunk notes, officially entered the books on Monday with an 98% voter approval tally. Repeat, no US politician can again claim a landslide victory until they enter the 90% margin of domination. With the vote comes the act of secession and the building of their independent state from scratch. The new nation suffered its first set back with the murder of its newly appointed Minister of Cooperatives and Rural Developments Jimmy Lemi. Lemi was shot dead after a man, reportedly a relative and the murdered man’s driver, burst into his office in Juba and shot him. No one can deduce any real motive for the action, and the murder greatly reduces the widespread jubilation of the south Sudan country. President Obama announced he and his government would be able to recognize South Sudan and its government by this summer, possibly July, a great boost for the growing country’s legitimacy. All the best for Lemi’s family, who cannot replace a father, husband and friend.

How Many Planets Do You Know Of?

Quick, how many planets do you know of? Eight? Are you way behind the astro-times and are counting Pluto, the disgraced loser on the edge of our solar system, as the ninth? Well, you’d still be off by about 1,242 if you were. As far back as 1995, (ancient days when you’re a spritely twenty-two like the Bohunk) astronomers began detecting some anomalous wobbles in the orbits of distant stars. The cause, they supposed, and quite intelligently, too, was gigantic, Jupiter sized “exo-planets”  too far for us to see. The Kepler satellite, or space based super telescope, was launched in March of 2009 and is now being used to discover these invisible behemoths deep in space. The device has found roughly 1,235 potential planets in a particular segment of the Milky Way. The satellite is only focused on an area that makes up only about one-four hundredth of the sky. Scientists believe that, should the satellite have the capacity to adjust its focus, it could discover other planets, even some we don’t expect to find based on gravitational anomalies. That could be up to 400,000 planets, according to researches involved with the project. Of even the supposed planets, 54 would be in an inhabitable zone, like earth- just far enough away from the star to not be scorched, but close enough to ensure water would remain in liquid form on the planet’s surface.

A not-very-clear drawing of the wobble effect of exoplanets.

However, even if we could answer these questions, and even if we could somehow find out if life was developing on that planet (and we can’t, not even close; we can’t even see these planets yet) it would still take over 300,000 years of space travel to get there. To note, differing species of man, including both homo sapiens and homo erectus only have fossil records dating back roughly the same amount of time, 300,000 years. Could there be life on these far off rocks? We don’t know everything, we know almost nothing'. The universe, my friends, is the greatest mystery.     

Super Bowl Recap: They Were Who We Thought They Could Be

You saw it, the Bohunk assumes, with your own eyes; the Green Bowl Packers are the Super Bowl Champions, just as predicted using the Cheer-Babeless Formula as broken down by the Bohunk all last week. No Cheer-Babes, no problem. The CheeseCraniums won 31-25 in one of the best Super Bowls in modern history. Scoring, big hits, turnovers, chess-match-like head games by Thieves coach Mike Tomlin (not Omar Epps) and Packers top banana Mike McCarthy. The game had it all, except, sadly, Cheer-Babes. You’ve no doubt heard the game analyzed every possible which way by every possible Talking Head since Sunday night; “Big Rapist” Ben didn’t show up, Aaron Rodgers removed the Brett Favre curse from his own legacy, the Packers overcame injuries (Chuck Woodson, Donald “DUCK!” Driver and the shortly missing Sam Shields) to win. All of these things were important. But the biggest surprise for the Bohunk was this. The biggest cheap shot artist in the league, in the biggest game in the world, against the best team he has faced, left the game without any real mention, and no personal fouls. James Harrison, the most fined player in the NFL, was non-existent against the Packers. The Bohunk put an over/under side-bet on Twitter, putting the number at 2 penalties for Mr. Harrison. The Bohunk should have put it at 2 for tackles. Harrison had one tackle and one sack. That’s it. The Talking Heads have been blasting Polamalu all week (and by that I mean mostly Monday) for disappearing; he, at least, had three tackles.

Torch Passed. Via text message.

The Bohunk game ball goes to a favorite Packer of mine, Donald Driver. The guy has been in Green Bay since 1999, just a few years after Favre took the Pack to its first title since the  Lombardi Era. Driver has been a consistent receiver and a steady face in the Packer locker room. DD missed most of the Super Bowl with both knee and ankle sprains, but no one deserves that trophy more. Congrats, Pack…Now enjoy it, cause the Lions are coming for you. (Stop laughing)