The iceberg breaketh

 

Update on the travels and travails of Iceberg A68A.  Here's a satellite view from January 27, where you can see the big piece and the primary fragment (colloquially named "the finger"):

After I captured this, I saw the following article, but I haven't confirmed visibility with the satellite images yet.  It's clearly visible in radar;  the article has some superb radar shots.

Is this the end of the A68a iceberg? Enormous block of Antarctic ice that was once three and a half times bigger than LONDON suffers another major split

Jaws bites

 

Mid-January 2021 there was a BIG storm in the Pacific Ocean, followed by BIG waves in Hawaii.  They were surfed of course, with various skill levels and various levels of success.

Here's an article from the Daily Mail about one of the lesser levels of success.

'Wipeout of the year': Heartstopping moment surfer is crushed by 62 ft wave on Hawaii’s north shore but miraculously survives after spending more than a minute stuck under water

I couldn't find a way to directly link the video here, but if you go to the photographer's Instagram, the video is there.

You have to look quick to see the surfer written about in the article;  he shoots by at the top of the wave just before the windsurfer sail goes down.

Here's a picture of outstanding female big wave surfer Justine Dupont on this day.  At the Instagram link, there's a video of an incredible ride where she escapes a Jaws tube that looked like it was destined to swallow her.

On Highway 41 / Lake Shore Drive in Chicago: Montrose Harbor

 

Moving up the lakeshore to another harbor, Montrose Harbor. I'll show the view from the highway, and then a lakefront view on the "steps".

Looking toward the harbor and Montrose Avenue.

Now under Highway 41, on Montrose Avenue, with a nice fish mural in the underpass.

By the harbor on Montrose Avenue.

The lakefront steps. I don't know why they are here, I just know they are.

We will keep plowing northward in Chicago, though there's no snow in the StreetViews.

Should we ever be surprised by Republicans?

 

You would think, after all of the events since the election of President Joe Biden, that Republicans would be a little bit chastised about doing things that aren't good for the country.

Well, not Senator Mitch McConnell.  He's trying to distance himself from the pitiful former POTUS, but he won't distance himself from the tactics and strategy that got us here, and got us him -- divisiveness and party above both principle and patriotism.

This is not the time for that.  There are too many problems, and too little time, to waste it on petty politics and maneuvering for advantage.  Shouldn't a Republican Party -- and leadership -- looking to get back on the right side of history realize that?

Apparently they haven't realized that yet. Specifically, Mitch McConnell hasn't realized that yet.

Fight over the rules grinds the Senate to a halt, imperiling Biden’s legislative agenda

Excerpt one:

"Two days earlier, he [McConnell] had notified his Republican colleagues in the Senate that he would deliver Schumer a sharp ultimatum: agree to preserve the legislative filibuster, the centerpiece of minority power in the Senate or forget about any semblance of cooperation — starting with an agreement on the chamber’s operating rules."

Excerpt two:

"But most of those Democrats — who watched McConnell exempt Republican nominees from filibuster rules where he saw fit under Trump, after using them to the GOP’s advantage for six years before that to block Obama’s legislation and nominees — now find his early power move to be infuriating.

“We’re not going to go along with it,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), who was among those who signed the 2017 letter. “There will be some kind of resolution that does not involve Mitch McConnell getting what he wants.”

Schumer said as much Friday on the Senate floor, telling McConnell that he considered any guarantee surrounding the filibuster to be an “extraneous demand” departing from the arrangement that the two parties worked out the last time there was a 50-50 Senate, in 2001.

“What’s fair is fair,” Schumer said, noting that McConnell changed Senate rules twice as majority leader. “Leader McConnell’s proposal is unacceptable, and it won’t be accepted.”

So that's where we are.  Despite losing the majority due primarily to major fed-uppedness with their tactics (and it will be sweet to see Merrick Garland come up for AG confirmation as a reminder of those tactics), the tactics of obstinacy, of standing in the way of what needs to be done NOW, continue.

So I came up with a T-shirt design, even though I'm not really a T-shirt designer.  Maybe someone can do better with the same basic idea.

Well, it's a start.

Lighthouse of the Week, January 24 - 31, 2021: Fangyuan, Taiwan

 

Sometimes it requires a bit of ingenuity to maintain variety in this pursuit of lighthouses around the world to feature.  So this week, I decided to search for lighthouses painted with vertical stripes.  Horizontal and spiral stripes aren't uncommon, but I didn't recall very many with vertical stripes.  The search indicated there are a few.  The first one I found looked pretty interesting, but when I searched on the name, it looked like it had been repainted all white.  I won't reveal which one it is, because I'll likely feature it shortly.  

So after a little more searching, I found the one I'm featuring this week, the Fangyuan lighthouse on Taiwan's west coast.  It's quite prominent, as it is tall and isolated.  Plus, it has black-and-white vertical stripes.

So, here's the Lighthouse Directory info.

"1983. Active; focal plane 36 m (118 ft); white light, 5 s on, 5 s off. 37 m (121 ft) octagonal concrete tower with lantern and double gallery. Tower painted with black and white vertical stripes; lantern painted white with a black dome."

The short notes also say that the current light came from a different lighthouse.

So, let's see where it is.  The nearest large city is Taichung City.

Below, three pictures and a stamp.

Is this a dagger I see before me?

 

Though I found out about this find from a Daily Mail article, I found a more detailed article about the find that I am linking below.  

I try to be clever.

Archaeology dig in Spain yields prehistoric 'crystal weapons'

So here are some details:

"Structure 10.042-10.049 is another large two-chambered megalithic construction made from slate slabs. In the second chamber archaeologists found the body of a young male aged between 17 and 25 lying in the foetal position along with a large set of grave goods. These included an undecorated elephant tusk laid above the young man's head, a set of 23 flint blades, and numerous ivory objects. Additionally, red pigment made from cinnabar had been sprayed over the body and the objects surrounding it. The "remarkable crystal dagger blade", however, was not found with these grave goods, but instead in the upper level of this chamber.

The rock crystal dagger blade appeared in the upper level of Structure 10.049 of the PP4-Montelirio sector, in association with an ivory hilt and sheath, which renders it an exceptional object in Late Prehistoric Europe... The blade is 214 mm in length, a maximum of 59 mm in width and 13 mm thick. Its morphology is not unheard of in the Iberian Peninsula, although all the samples recorded thus far were made from flint and not rock crystal..."

It's easy to find a few pictures of this in a lot of different sources;  the article linked above actually has a microphotograph that indicates how the dagger was fashioned.

 

Yes, still in Chicago on Highway 41

 

Let's check out a couple more Chicago views on the end-to-end Streetview Trek on Highway 41, which while in the city of Chicago is also Lake Shore Drive.

Now on the bridge over the entrance to Diversey Harbor. On the lakefront up ahead is a statue of a Native American (the "Signal of Peace" monument), on the Lake Shore Drive side of the copse of trees, and an unusual modern art piece called the Chevron Sculpture, on the lake shore side of the same trees.



Passing by the Chicago Yacht Club at Belmont Harbor. It's not called the "Gold Coast" for nothing.

The next views form a set of four, so I'll post them next, separately and shortly.