Something to not look forward to

 

In the past couple of days, and also weeks, Texas has been slammed with flooding rains and a very powerful storm packing both tornados and downbursts that brought down office building windows in Houston.  Meanwhile, strong storms and tornados have blasted through the Midwest and the "northern" Southeast, including Kentucky, Tennessee, northern Alabama and northern Georgia. Driving these storms is above-normal heat, higher-than-normal Gulf of Mexico temperatures, and increased moisture in the atmosphere.

All of which makes this predictive article from the New York Times a couple of weeks ago a bit more alarming. Oh look -- it's even in the headline!

‘Alarming’ Ocean Temperatures Suggest This Hurricane Season Will Be a Daunting One

" It’s the Colorado State researchers’ biggest April prediction ever, by a healthy margin, said Dr. Klotzbach. While things could still play out differently, he said he was more confident than he normally would be this early in the year. All the conditions that he and other researchers look at to forecast the season, such as weather patterns, sea surface temperatures and computer model data, are pointing in one direction.

“Normally, I wouldn’t go nearly this high,” he said, but with the data he’s seeing, “Why hedge?”

If anything, he said, his numbers are on the conservative side, and there are computer models that indicate even more storms on the way."

 

Don't agree

 

As a perusal of my political postings proclaims, I'm a pretty liberal person. But I don't agree with transgender athletes, particularly biological men who identify as women, competing against biological women after puberty and all the physiological benefits it provides to men, which confer an athletic advantage over women. And I say this as a full supporter  LGBTQ rights and against discrimination for virtually everything else. 

(Before puberty, it really doesn't matter.)

It's simply not fair, and that's been demonstrated as pretty obvious in many different competitions.

So I don't agree with this veto by the Wisconsin governor. 

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers vetoes ban on transgender athletes competing in high school sports as Riley Gaines and Libs of TikTok slam politician for not caring if 'daughters get beat up'

Oh, and I pretty much support anything else Tony Evers is for, and I'm likely against virtually everything else he opposes.  Because he and I are liberals. And I'd vote for him every time over whoever the GOP ran against him. 

Still, I agree with this:

"During testimony last year, state Representative Joel Kitchens said: 'Men have major physical advantages. They're bigger, they're stronger, they're faster.'

'Title IX was created so that women can have the same access to the same advantages, the same character building that takes place (in sports) that men always have experienced.' "

Still hot, and now she's single

 

Let's check back with Maura Higgins (who I posted about a few weeks ago).

Maura Higgins flaunts her incredible figure on display in racy bikini snaps as she shows Hollywood stuntman ex what he's missing after shock split

I doubt she'll have any trouble finding dates. 

A higher level of ludicrousness

 

Obviously, I am strongly hoping that this ludicrousness doesn't have a chance to happen.

Sadly, at the moment, at still has a chance of happening.

Trump allies want racism protections for white people: Ex-president's inner circle plotting focus on 'anti-white racism' in civil rights if he is elected to a second term

"A key figure in providing a template for action is [Stephen] Miller, who helped shape Trump's 'America First' ideology and who served as a main driver for immigration policy during Trump's White House tenure, and who has been mentioned as a potential top official in a second term."

Yes, this Stephen Miller.

It's going to be an issue this November

 

I haven't seen much about this recently, but I know from the reaction at the time that there is going to be a massive campaign to get reasonable abortion rights in Florida, and it could put the state into play for the Presidency.  We shall see.

Florida Supreme Court allows one of nation’s strictest abortion bans to take effect

"The ruling reflects a major shift for the Florida Supreme Court, which has struck down several abortion restrictions over the past few decades. It has recently been reshaped by DeSantis into what many consider one of the most conservative courts in the country. Several judges who ruled to uphold the abortion ban have roots in the antiabortion movement.

One of those justices, Charles Canady, is a former Republican congressman who sponsored legislation to outlaw abortions later in pregnancy. His wife, state Rep. Jennifer Canady (R), co-sponsored the six-week abortion ban.

Even if voters decide to add abortion protections to the constitution in November, the battle for abortion rights in Florida could be far from over, said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California at Davis who specializes in abortion.

In the ruling on the amendment, Ziegler noted, the justices emphasized that any new constitutional protections for abortion could conflict with “personhood rights as applied to the unborn child.”

I need to point out here that this was recently a problem in Alabama. Like I said, we shall see.

Go, Florida, go!

Lighthouse of the Week, May 12 - 18, 2024: Cape Reinga, New Zealand

 

Back in 2019, I wrote a blog post about lighthouses based on an article about lighthouses that were very photogenic.  

I subsequently featured some of these lighthouses in Lighthouse of the Week blog posts. However, one of the lighthouses I didn't feature was the one I'm featuring this week: the Cape Reinga lighthouse of New Zealand.

Here's where it is located. Basically, it is in one of the greatest locations in the world to put a lighthouse.

Let's get the story (which is not very long) about this one, from the Lighthouse Directory. 

"1941. Active; focal plane 165 m (542 ft); white flash every 12 s. 10 m (33 ft) octagonal concrete tower with lantern and eight ribs. Tower painted white; lantern roof is black. ... This light on Cape Reinga replaced the 1879 Cape Maria van Diemen lighthouse as the main landfall light at the northern extremity of New Zealand. It carries the original Maria van Diemen lantern, but the 1st order Fresnel lens has been replaced by a small modern lens. It stands on a spectacular site overlooking the Pacific to the northeast and the Tasman Sea to the northwest. The surrounding area is included in the Te Paki Recreation Reserve."

A couple of other sites:

The Ivory White Lighthouse at Cape Reinga

The Cape Reinga Lighthouse - Pukenui Holiday ParkThe Cape Reinga Lighthouse - Pukenui Holiday Park

Lots and lots of pictures to choose from, so here are four.

And a video: 

Who's the statue?

 

In the city of Nancy, France, there is a large city square called the Place Stanislas.

There are many pictures of it; here's one of them.

You will notice that there is a statue in the center of the square.  The picture below has a closer look. 

So, you are hopefully wondering by now, who is the statue?

As you might be able to guess, the first name of the man depicted by the statue is Stanislas.

He was Stanislas Leszczyński, born in Ukraine and formerly King of Poland (twice), and then exiled a long way away, in France.  He married his daughter to Louis XV, invested a lot in the city of Nancy (because he was the Duke of Lorraine, where Nancy is located), and then died when his robe caught fire, but he had a long life -- he was the longest living Polish king. Wikipedia has the details.

I'm glad that I've informed three or four of my blog readers of this story. 

This could still be bad

 

I've still been endeavoring to catch up on news, and this ship sank in the Red Sea after being hit by Houthi rebel missiles. It's carrying an enormous amount of fertilizer, which if released could markedly change the low-nutrient waters of the Red Sea.

As far as I can tell, there hasn't been any news since it went down. That's good, I think, but it may be that in the turmoil of the Middle East, it's just been moved down the priority list. And getting that fertilizer out of the hull could be difficult.

So, here's hoping it stays there. In one piece.

Fears of environmental disaster rise as ship sinks after Houthi attack

" “As well as any further leaks of fuel oil from the engines, the sinking of the vessel could further breach the hull, allowing water to contact with the thousands of tons of fertilizer, which could then be released into the Red Sea and disrupt the balance of the marine ecosystems, triggering cascading effects throughout the food web,” Jreissati said."

Clouds don't get in the way

 

Cumulus clouds, the puffy white cotton-candy kind, are called "fair weather" clouds.  They form (via condensation) when there's some rising moisture, with a bit of heat coming from the ground.  And when that cools off, they disappear.

So when the ground cools off as the eclipse shadow approaches, they disappear.

If you watched the recent total solar eclipse, did you notice that? Obviously it depends on where you were. 

Low-Level Clouds Disappear During a Solar Eclipse

Lighthouse of the Week, May 5 - 11, 2024: Rivingen, Norway

 

Norway has a LOT of lighthouses. Just checking the front page of the Lighthouse Directory will confirm that, because it has a large number of regional sections of Norway to deal with all of them. 

That means there are many to choose from, and I chose this one: Rivingen. It's perched on some hard rocks on a small island, and it's actually a 2-for-1, with a new little lighthouse in front of the older building.

This is the location (near Grimstad). It's also on the wide opening of the Skagerrak, the water passageway to the Baltic Sea.

So there's two descriptions.

The old one:

"1886. Inactive since 1925. Approx. 8 m (26 ft) square cylindrical tower with a sharply pyramidal roof and a spire, attached to the front of a 1-1/2 story keeper's house. Building painted white; the tower roof is a dark maroon metallic. ... The active light stands in front of the house, which is now a private summer residence."

The new one:

"1925 (station established 1886). Inactive since 2022. 5 m (17 ft) square wood tower with lantern and gallery, painted white; lantern roof painted red."

The pictures are below, and there are some good ones. And there's one strange thing; in the last picture, the little lighthouse is gone. The last picture was taken from a boat (the site is called "Boatview"), and fairly recently, in 2022.  Did it get taken down or knocked off the rocks by a big wave?  I don't know.

The true Republican agenda

 

Be aware.  And Democrats need to run on this.

Trump can’t remember much. He hopes you won’t be able to, either.

"The Heritage Foundation-run Project 2025, to which Trump has unofficially outsourced policymaking for a second term, said that a “glitch” had caused its policies — including those embracing a mifepristone ban — to disappear from its website. The Biden campaign said it was “calling BS on Trump and his allies’ shameless attempt to hide their agenda,” and the missing documents returned — including the language calling abortion pills “the single greatest threat to unborn children” and vowing to withdraw regulatory approval for the drugs.

About 7 in 10 Americans believe the abortion pill should be legal. So it’s easy to see why Trump might wish to erase his plan to ban the pill — just as he would like to erase his calls for the repeal of Obamacare, which has the support of 6 in 10 Americans.

The extremism isn’t just at Project 2025, stocked with former Trump advisers. The House Republican Study Committee, which counts 80 percent of House Republicans as members, put out a budget last week that would rescind approval of mifepristone, dismantle the “failed Obamacare experiment” and embrace a nationwide abortion ban from the moment of conception.

Yet here the [Republican Study Committee] RSC is, embracing a nationwide abortion ban without exceptions; a ban on the abortion pill; an increase in the retirement age for Social Security; defunding the police (through cuts to the Community Oriented Policing Services program); ending Amtrak funding and selling it off; eliminating broadband provided by the Affordable Connectivity Program; and blocking the “red flag” provisions that keep guns from dangerous people."

Seriously, how can anyone not see the potential danger?

And the answer to the question is ...

 

Here's the question, also the title of an op-ed in the Washington Post:

Should anti-Trump Republicans endorse Biden?

The answer is an obvious "YES".

Let's expand on that a bit:

"It’s notable that the left isn’t rushing to welcome Pence into the Trump resistance movement just yet. “Pence’s announcement that he won’t endorse Trump is particularly weak because he refuses to rule out voting for him,” Zeeshan Aleem writes for MSNBC. “That means, if he casts a ballot, he’ll vote either for a third-party candidate or for Trump. By publicly refusing to rule out a vote for Trump, his non-endorsement looks more like performative piety than it does a punch at his former boss — and a far cry from fomenting resistance within the GOP.” "

So if Pence really had what's best for the country first and foremost in his mind, he's endorse Biden. But he still can't quite Trump, despite knowing how bad for the country another Trump Presidency would be.

Trump called him a different name, but I'll stick with ... wimp.

No pants beach

 

Gorgeous model Sofía Alegre Costa (see her Instagram for verification of that) poses provocatively on the beach, and it is much appreciated. Her tan lines are much appreciated, too.

Turning the nuke back on

 

Reignite the atoms

This is one way of cutting fossil fuel emissions from power plants; turn decommissioned power plants back on.

Shuttered Michigan nuclear plant gets $1.5bn federal loan to restart operations by 2025 - and could power at least 800,000 homes

Just make sure the control rod seals are fixed first!

MIT Technology Review has an article about it too.

How to reopen a nuclear power plant

"The state funding and federal loan will help support the fixes and upgrades needed for the plant’s equipment and continue paying the approximately 200 workers who have stayed on since its shutdown. The plant employed about 700 people while it was operating, and the company is now working on rehiring additional workers to help with the restart, Culp says."

But still, small modular reactors are the key to the future.

I'm glad I wasn't on this plane

 

I guess they walked away from it, but I'm sure a few of them had weak knees.  Hopefully not weak stomachs.

TAP Airbus A321neo lands nose first as pilot battles wild Madeira winds: video

Here's the video.  Make sure your seats are in the upright and locked position and that your seatbelts are fastened.

Tight.

You have to repeat the lie, even if you don't believe it

 

Apparently today's Republican Party has some new requirements for management positions:  you have to at least state that you believe the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.

Even though it wasn't.

The revamped Republican Party turns Trump’s lies into a loyalty test

"New reporting from The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey suggests that fealty to this Trumpworld idea is becoming a litmus test for people seeking (or hoping to retain) jobs with the Republican Party. The effective ouster of Ronna McDaniel as the party’s chair and Trump’s confirmation as the GOP presidential nominee meant an overhaul of the party itself. Among the changes: quizzing at least some potential employees on their views of the 2020 election."

Further down in the column, a sign of authoritarism is discussed:

" “[L]ies can help ensure the loyalty of subordinates who are forced to repeat them,” Marquez wrote, more than three years before the 2020 contest. “These kinds of lies need not be credible at all to people outside the regime. The more incredible a lie is, the more it can credibly signal loyalty to a political leader in conditions of low trust. When a subordinate repeats an obviously ridiculous claim he or she is degraded, and bound more closely to the leader.”

George Orwell’s famous quote from “1984” comes to mind: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

From the top down, to be a true member of the GOP, you have to believe a lot of lies. Or at least say you do.

It's a crater!

 

New insight on the Luna structure in India, now identified as a meteorite impact crater, and potentially one of the biggest whacks on Earth in the last 50,000 years.

Deciphering India's Luna Crater

"The Luna structure is situated in India’s Gujarat state in a grassland called the Banni Plains. The Great Rann of Kutch, an expansive white salt desert, lies just to the north. Parts of these low-lying areas are submerged for much of the year, and the Luna crater often contains water. Researchers took advantage of a dry period in May 2022 to collect samples from throughout the structure."

Here's the paper with the results:

The Luna structure, India: A probable impact crater formed by an iron bolide

Abstract:

The Luna structure of India has been rumored to be an impact crater for more than a decade without any convincing evidence. This structure (1.5–1.8 km) is prominently visible in the low-lying Banni Plains of the tectonically active Kutch Basin as a circular morphological feature with a less-prominent rim. Luna area is strewn with melt-like rocks having high specific gravity and displaying wide range of magnetic properties. It contains minerals like wüstite, kirschsteinite, ulvöspinel, hercynite, and fayalite. The whole rock analysis denotes PGE enrichment, with notably higher average concentrations of Ru (19.02 ppb), Rh (5.68 ppb), Pd (8.64 ppb), Os (6.03 ppb), Ir (10.63 ppb) and Pt (18.31 ppb). The target is not exposed at Luna, owing to the overlying thick sequence of Quaternary sediments. The mineralogical and geochemical signatures points to an impact into a target, which is rich in clay with elevated calcium and silica (sand/silt) content. Geochemical data suggests an iron or stony-iron meteorite as the potential projectile at Luna. The silt layer containing plant remnants, underlying the strewn layer, yielded a radiocarbon age of 6905 years, making Luna the biggest crater to result from an iron bolide within the last 10,000 years.