Thursday, April 25, 2019

Babe Week 2019: Susanna Canzian


Susanna Canzian is an absolutely astonishingly beautiful glamour model, from Italy.  And that truly is about all the information I can find out about her.   (Well, actually I found a little more;  she's 28 years old and 5 feet, 5 inches tall, and her bra size is 34C.)

But there are lots and lots of pictures of her (and a lot of pictures misidentified as her, too).  Here are some that I am sure are her, all in black-and-white to mix things up a little.









Snake baits birds with spider-shaped tail


Life on Earth is amazing, and this story really illustrates that.

Meet the snake that hunts birds with a spider on its tail





Wednesday, April 24, 2019

Babe Week 2019 Day 4: Hope Beel


Hope Beel is a very fit, very pretty fitness model and product representative.  (She has her own Instagram page -- don't they all?)  She recently combined glamour and fitness for a photo set in the magazine Fitness Gurls.








BBQ joints on Highway 41 as we approach Chattanooga


Well, you've got to eat on a long trip, right?

The Hickory Pit BBQ



The Choo-Choo BBQ! (Remember, just outside Chattanooga)



By the way, right now the highway is numbered 41, 76, and 8.

That's confusing.


Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Babe Week 2019 Day 3: Jocelyn Binder


Today's Babe Week post features Jocelyn Binder, who I have featured by herself once here:

"What makes a picture sexy?" 

and with a couple of other pictures here and there.  She is lithe, slender, graceful, elegant, and apparently a model that doesn't have a problem finding jobs.  She has a unique look with cat-like eyes.  She was in Playboy while in college, and was recently featured in Playboy Australia, and she's been in other international versions, even on the cover, as shown by the Playboy South Africa cover below. 

She also occasionally replies when I comment on an Instagram picture; that's nice of her to do.

What I just found out about Jocelyn is that she's also a cancer survivor.  Not just any cancer, but she survived breast cancer, with a double mastectomy.  She has implants/prosthetics, and whoever her doctor was, he was good at what he does, because they appear natural and pretty, and her modeling career is doing great.

Unfortunately, I can't show what they look like in their full nude glory here, but it isn't hard to find if you know how to look.  Before that, though, you can enjoy these selected pictures.       

Her derriere is just about perfect, too.
                                                         








Lighthouse of the Week, April 21-27, 2019: Point Bolivar, Texas, USA


I discovered that I only featured one lighthouse from Texas before on my blog;  it wouldn't take long to feature all of them, because they are only five left.  This one is the Point Bolivar lighthouse, located by Port Bolivar, and it hasn't been active since 1933.  The Fresnel lens that used to be in the lantern room is now in the Smithsonian.  Port Bolivar is on the northern side of the pass that allows entrance into Galveston Bay.

It's also big and tall, at 116 feet.  Here's the excerpted info from the Lighthouse Directory:
"1873. Inactive since 1933. 117 ft (36 m) cast iron tower (brick lined). The 3rd order Fresnel lens used from 1907 to 1933 is on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in Washington DC. Two 1-story keeper's quarters are used as private residences; one was being restored to its historical appearance in 2003."
OK, 117 feet.

Three pictures below, and a StreetView drive right up to the base of the lighthouse.






Monday, April 22, 2019

Sony Photography Award contest winners


The Daily Mail comes through with the winning shots from the Sony Photography Award contest.


Over 300,000 entries have been whittled down to these stunning winning images for the 2019 Sony Photography Awards

Here is a direct link to this year's winners and runners-up:

2019 Winners and Shortlist Galleries

An intriguing one is below.










Babe Week continues with five pictures of Valenti Vitel


Valenti Vitel is a globe-traveling model that I've mentioned here once before. Via Instagram accounts in which sometimes they include pictures of themselves together, it is clear that she also has a sister with very similar figure characteristics, to whit, they both are amazingly slender, with very narrow waists, abs tighter than a timpani, long legs, derrieres that define the word "pert", and well-proportioned and well-carried bosoms.  Now, I'm not certain that the bosoms are entirely natural, but they definitely attract attention, and they sure look nice.

So, here are five pictures of V2

looking fantastic.























Sweet dreams are made of these

Sunday, April 21, 2019

Ali Rose kicks off Babe Week


The scrumptious and lush glamour model Ali Rose kicks off Babe Week 2019. 




True blue













The few yet perspicacious readers of this blog may remember that I am somewhat fascinated by large and unusual diamonds. 

Because of that, they will not be surprised that I immediately paid attention when I saw the announcement of a new and spectacular blue diamond, about 20 carats, named the Okavango Blue.

Simply put, it's spectacular, and obviously rare.  In an interview (shown below), there was no attempt to speculate on how much it might sell for.  The expectation is a LOT, and I think that's reasonable.

Articles about the find:

Rare 20-carat blue diamond unveiled in Africa

Biggest blue diamond ever in Botswana  (meaning it's the biggest ever found in Botswana, not the biggest blue diamond ever).

Video:




Well and truly safe


The Crystal Palace FC has survived again, officially now, to stay in the Premier League for another year.  They did this with a 3-2 upset over Arsenal.   Meanwhile, Cardiff City, the only remaining time in the PL relegation zone that could escape, lost (but put up a good effort) against Liverpool.

Palace storm the Emirates

They received goals by Benteke, Zaha, and McArthur for the win.

In other news, apparently Crystal Palace is finally willing to let Zaha go to a club willing to pay a deservedly high asking price, and then (hopefully) they can use that money to add a couple of younger lesser talents that will nonetheless maintain the presence of the team in England's top-tier league.




Friday, April 19, 2019

Well, I guess I wish I'd known beforehand


On April 19, I read an article dated April 17, about a bus-sized (big bus) asteroid that zipped by Earth within the Moon's orbital distance on April 18.

Well, obviously nothing happened.  But still, I'd like to have known about it.

They actually knew about it on April 10 (as mentioned here).  But I saw the article about it on the 19th (today as I'm writing this).


Another April sonnet, "consorted harmony"



consorted harmony

When this was understood, that on this day
and place within disaster, he would be
unlike the life of any other man
because of what was offered him, what she
according to their own unspoken plan
awarded there -- and though we cannot stay
with them, and only think to know his place
and stature, e'en if he was not aware
himself when he became more than his own
acquaintance would admit; when he did share
this love and bed a single night, the throne
a goddess grants to mortals when their space
converges and their stark distincton flows
and then dissolves amidst the fire-lit glows.


An April sonnet, "A-C"



A-C

She is so beautiful, that were she nude
we might not even notice it! and yet
the fineness of her figure makes a crude
assessment difficult, for if we let
our lusts o'erwhelm our eyes, then we would lose
the joy of pure appreciation she
invokes -- as if we watched the fleshly hues
of life pervade a sculpture and then free
a marble maiden to receive the views
of her admiring followers, she would
be real, and thus revealed could not refuse
what had before been known and understood --
she is so far above the human norm
that we must adulate her face and form.


Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Highway 41 crosses another border


The Highway 41 end-to-end StreetView trek crosses the Georgia-Tennessee line in this blog post. So after spending a really long state, we are finally in the third state.  Not very far, yet, but it is indeed Tennessee.  There will be lots of posts in the next couple of weeks, as I try to cover some miles this and the next month.



Entering Tennessee! (They don't make a big deal of it, but you can get a Krystal Stacker).



Crossing WEST Chickamauga Creek



And of course, Highway 41 crosses over I-75 again.





Lighthouse of the Week, April 14-20, 2019: Anse-à-la-Cabane, Quebec, Canada


After three lighthouses in the Philippines, I headed north to Quebec, Canada.  I found this one on the Îles de la Madeleine, which is an isolated group of narrow islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, north of Prince Edward Island and west of New Brunswick, population about 13,000.

The lighthouse is Anse-à-la-Cabane, which I've also seen written as l'Anse-à-la-Cabane.  It's the biggest lighthouse on the islands.

Here is a Web site about it:
https://www.tourismeilesdelamadeleine.com/en/activities-attractions/lighthouses/anse-a-la-cabane-lighthouse/

And here are some excerpts from that Web site (I don't always use Lighthouse Directory)
"The lighthouse at Anse-à-la-Cabane was built in 1870 and 1871. It is the oldest lighthouse of the archipelago that is still in service. It is also known as the Millerand or the Havre-Aubert Island lighthouse.

This type of lighthouse is characterised by an hexagonal wood structure and a slender shape. This shape was abandoned after 1871 in favour of a square design that was cheaper and easier to build. The lighthouse at Anse-à-la-Cabane was likely one of the last of its type built in Canada.

With a height of 17.1 metres, the lighthouse is the tallest one on Les Îles de la Madeleine. With the keeper's house and other outbuildings, the lighthouse à Anse-à-la-Cabane forms a grouping that is unique on the archipelago."

And herewith, the pictures.




















Friday, April 12, 2019

Anchialine, not anchovy


For my entire life, until I read this article, I did not know that there was a word anchialine, and of course, since I didn't know the word existed, I didn't know what it meant either.


What is an anchialine pool?

The Kanonone Waterhole, near the far southern point of Hawaii's Big Island, is one such pool.


















(Oh yeah, an anchialine pool is an enclosed body of water connected to the ocean. Now you're satisfied.)



A couple of StreetViews north of Ringgold, Georgia


Still on Highway 41, and can't wait to get to Tennessee.  Two more views in this post.

Crossing South Chickamauga Creek



A side trip from Indian Springs, a small town north of Ringgold, could be the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, but 41 swings by to the north.  Don't worry, there are more battlefield opportunities to come.


Crossing Peavine Creek



Tennessee is nigh.



Thursday, April 11, 2019

Good news for the oceans?


Good news about the warming, plastic-ridden, and overutilized oceans is in short supply these days, but this seems to be something good, even if it's not a done deal.

First ever high-seas conservation treaty would protect life in international waters

Speaking of dealing:
"One key issue facing negotiators—who met for the first time late last year and are scheduled to gather twice more over the next year—is how much of the high seas to protect. Existing preserves cover about 5% of the world's oceans, mostly in territorial waters. Under a different U.N. agreement, nations endorsed a goal of expanding reserves to cover 10% of the entire ocean by 2020. But many conservationists and scientists—as well as the government of the United Kingdom—argue the new pact should go bigger, placing 30% of the high seas off limits to unregulated exploitation."

We'll see how this goes, won't we?  I'd be very happy with 25%.



Whole lotta meltin' goin' on


Very sadly, there is a new quantification of how much glaciers around the world have melted in the past 50 years.  Not only are they unique, beautiful, and scenic features of Earth's landscape, they also provide water resources for millions of people, and their melting also creates natural hazards.

Simply put, This Is Not Good News.


Glaciers Lose Nine Trillion Tons of Ice in Half a Century



Some news from Maryland


If you hadn't heard, the Speaker of the House of Delegates in Maryland, Michael E. Busch, died due to prostate cancer a few days ago.  He also died near the end of the session, and some of the causes he cared about were the subject of legislation.

Md. lawmakers boost oyster sanctuaries, renewable energy; overhaul UMMS board

One of the things they did was to override a veto of a bill to create oyster sanctuaries in the Chesapeake Bay.  Not only would this be good for oysters, but over time (unfortunately, over quite a bit of time), bigger and healthier oyster populations will improve the Bay's water quality and probably the habitat for many different kinds of fish that live there.

As you'll see below, watermen (who harvest oysters) said the sanctuary bill would be bad for business.  Well, forgive me for saying so, but having no oysters in the Bay would be bad for business, too. 

A quoted excerpt is below:
"Environmentalists heralded the sanctuary bill as key to helping revive the bay, but watermen said it would jeopardize their livelihood. Republican lawmakers were muted in their criticism of the measure in deference to Busch, who led the chamber for 13 years.

The Democratic-majority General Assembly also voted to require that 50 percent of the state’s energy come from renewable sources ..."

About that last part ... sure wish they included nuclear energy, because we DO have a working nuclear power plant in this state, one that has operated with very few problems.  But the energy sector is currently fascinated with solar and wind -- and yet they haven't thought much about my remarkably useful idea to put solar panel farms over parking lots.  Search this blog for "PLUGS-In". 



Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Brace yourself for more conspiracy theories


Paul Waldman, writing on the Washington Post's Plum Line, predicts that we'll be hearing about a lot more conspiracies from Donald Trump in the next couple of years.


In 2020, Trump’s conspiracy theorizing will only get worse

The part I liked was so good I made it a special feature.












That applies to so many things that Republicans and conservatives believe are true, but really aren't.


Lighthouse of the Week, April 7-13, 2019: Cape Bojeador, Ilocos Norte, Philippines


So for the last of my Philippines lighthouses for awhile, I went with a Spanish heritage lighthouse.  Now, the first of the three, Corregidor Island, was a Spanish lighthouse, but it was rebuilt. The Cape Bojeador light, featured this week, has been renovated recently -- there are numerous pictures of this one on the Web, many of them taken before it was renovated, but enough after it was renovated to make it clear that it was renovated.

So where is it?  Here is where it is.  It is on far northern Luzon, the northern main island of the archipelago.

Here's what the Lighthouse Directory says about it:
"One of the best known of all Philippine lighthouses, located at the northwestern corner of Luzon. It is a 65 ft (20 m) octagonal stone tower completed in 1892. The original lantern and lens remain, although the lens was badly damaged by an earthquake in 1990; the active lens is outside the lantern, I believe. This is one of the few Philippine lighthouses still staffed, although the principal function of the keepers is to lead tours."
And now the pictures I've selected - and a short drone video, too!
























Safe and nearly safe


A couple of sports teams I've been following have hit some milestones.  The Hershey Bears American Hockey League team, the affiliate of the Washington Capitals, clinched a playoff spot.  I wrote about them before, when they were on an amazing hot streak, and they rode that to the playoff position.    And at the beginning of the season, they were BAD - started with 5 straight losses, and on December 21 of last year, they had the worst record of all the teams in the league.

Quite a comeback.

My Premier League interest, Crystal Palace, moved into a nearly safe position, meaning that they likely won't be relegated to the next league down, called the Championship.  They now have 39 points, after winning, losing, winning, losing, and then most recently winning.  Nothing like consistency.  They were the sacrificial team when Tottenham Hotspur had their first official game in their new stadium, but they won their next outing.

The bottom three teams are the ones that get relegated, and of those three, Cardiff City has the most points, at 28.  Each team has 6 games left, and in the Premier League, a win is worth three points.  So if Crystal Palace didn't win another game, Cardiff would have to win 4 of their last 6 games (12 points) to catch them.  Two of Cardiff City's last six games are against the power teams Liverpool and Manchester United, and they also play Crystal Palace.  So it would be pretty miraculous for Cardiff to catch CP.  However, Cardiff City could still avoid relegation, as the two teams just above them in the standings, Brighton and Hove Albion and Southampton, only have 33 points.

So it will be interesting to watch the final stretch.




Thursday, April 4, 2019

True of so many things


Paul Waldman, from this op-ed in the Washington Post entitled "In 2020, Trump's conspiracy theorizing will only get worse",  provided a paragraph that is sadly true of many different things in this modern era of post-scientific thought, politics, and philosophy:

"It’s important to appreciate that the conspiracy theorist doesn’t just believe a set of outlandish stories. He has adopted an entire way of thinking about the world, one in which there are always a dozen layers of lies concealing the hidden truth. The fact that most everyone believes something becomes evidence that it’s probably false. Trump constantly feeds into this worldview not just by offering a steady stream of preposterous lies but by characterizing settled questions as deep mysteries whose truth is waiting to be uncovered."
I underlined that one sentence, because I have heard and seen many different behavioral examples of it.

Wednesday, April 3, 2019

Back on Highway 41, near the end of the Great Locomotive Chase


The Highway 41 end-to-end Streetview trek continues - now headed north of Dalton, toward the locations of the final stages of the Great Locomotive Chase in the Civil War.  And we are also getting closer to Tennessee!

But the trek is not there yet.


I-75 again!



Mill Creek Gap, by the Johns Mountain Wildlife Management Area



Near the Tunnel Hill tunnel.  Having gone through Dalton, one potential place that the raiders could have damaged and caused serious problems to the rail line was the Tunnel Hill tunnel.  But they didn't have time, because their pursuers were right behind them.



You guessed it - I-75



By South Chickamauga Creek, south of Ringgold



The railroad tracks near Ringgold




Ringgold Depot



Downtown Ringgold.   The Great Locomotive Chase passed through Ringgold and ended north of the town, when the General ran out of fuel. The raiders were captured, some of them escaped, some of them were executed as spies.


Onward and northward!

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

Oh yeah, Kelly Brook


STILL one of the most gorgeous and sexually magnetic women in the world, Kelly gets sensual on the beach, as we approach Spring Break Babe Week on WM&E !





Pretty women get pregnant


Lovely Miranda Kerr, former Victoria's Secret angel and former wife of Orlando Bloom (with one child from that relationship) has announced a second pregnancy by virtue (well, not exactly) of her second husband, whose name I don't remember and really don't have to.   (To clarify, that's one with Orlando and now the second of two with the new guy.)

Two articles about that, showing the early pregnancy glow:

Miranda Kerr announces she's pregnant with her second child to Snapchat founder husband Evan Spiegel

Oh yeah, Evan Spiegel.  Well, he WAS part of the process, and probably didn't mind being part of the process at all.

Miranda Kerr cradles her blossoming baby bump in elegant cape gown in Germany as she's seen for the first time since announcing her pregnancy


Actress Amy Jackson, who I featured here once before, is also pregnant.  Based on a different article I saw recently, apparently she hasn't reached the glowing stage quite yet.  She's engaged, as the title indicates, but obviously the couple behaved like a married pair in certain ways, and I would bet that her betrothed didn't mind being part of this process, either.


Supergirl's Amy Jackson announces she's pregnant with her first child in sweet Mother's Day post three months after confirming her engagement to multi-millionaire George Panayiotou




Let's not get confused


After World War II, the global economy revved up fast and strong.  Part of the reason for this rapid industrialization was the need to rebuild war-torn countries and cities, and also to build housing and infrastructure for the burst in population that followed the war.

The energy for this industrial accelaration was coal -- dirty coal, loaded with sulfur.  London was famous for killer fogs in the '50s, but the problem was worldwide.  And what the sulfur made was sulfur aerosols in the atmosphere, and they caused a slight global cooling period, which famously became the global cooling "scare" that the current crop of climate change skeptics and their bad brood ilk, climate change deniers (I think they should be grouped differently, because one group is misinformed and the group peddles disinformation) continue to misunderstand and/or promote. 

This article is not about that.  This article examines the question of whether the smoke from all the burning cities near the end of the war could have caused some climate cooling in the year of 1945 and a couple subsequent.


Did Smoke From City Fires in World War II Cause Global Cooling?

You could read the abstract at that link if you want to, but the bottom line (literally, from the abstract) is:
"Although the climate record is consistent with an expected 0.1–0.2 K cooling, because of multiple uncertainties in smoke injected to the stratosphere, solar radiation observations, and surface temperature observations, it is not possible to formally detect a cooling signal from World War II smoke."

Monday, April 1, 2019

Lighthouse of the Week, March 31 - April 6, 2019: Sabtang Island, Phillippines


I thought I'd stick around the Phillippines for a couple more weeks. I was looking for historical lighthuoses, but when I saw a picture of an exposed lighthouse on a rocky outcrop, I had to feature it.

It turns out this is a relatively modern lighthouse built to attract tourists.  It's on a small island in a small group of islands, the Batanes, between the northern Phillippine island of Luzon and Taiwan.  As you might expect, given the title of this post, the island the lighthouse is on is named Sabtang Island.

Here is what we know about it, from the remarkable Lighthouse Directory. I'm not sure if they even turn the light on!  I did find one picture taken at twilight where it looked like the light was on, so I don't know for sure.
"2006. Listed as inactive by PCG; focal plane unknown; flash every 5 s, either white (NGA) or red (PCG). Approx. 18 m (56 ft) round rubblestone tower with lantern and gallery. The tower is unpainted; the watch room and trim are painted white and the lantern red."
Pictures below, and a bonus scenic highlight, which is Nakabuang Beach, also on Sabtang Island, with a scenic sea arch.