Well, it's an eye-pleasing theme.
Three of these women are also natural mothers (i.e., they've given birth). Can you figure out which ones they are?
Heather Monique
The filibuster should go. Its time has passed. I've become convinced of that.
An op-ed like this helps. (As does the quote from Alexander Hamilton, below the link, which is taken from the column.)
"If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good."
Despite the fact that I peruse the daily offerings from the Instagram account of the astonishing and improbable Demi Rose Mawby, I have endeavored not to feature her TOO often on this lightly read blog. But every now and then, she provides something that can't be ignored.
This is one of those times.
Demi Rose sizzles as she flaunts some serious underboob in a tiny top and silk skirt while posing in Ibiza
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
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.
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.
We will keep plowing northward in Chicago, though there's no snow in the StreetViews.
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
"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."
"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.”
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.
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.
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.
I just saw this today. After reading it, I'm putting this on my destination list, and I can get there in approximately a quarter day (if I don't stop anywhere). I've heard of it before, mainly because of the bridge over the gorge, but I'd never considered if I should try to visit.
I could make a long weekend of it and also visit Natural Bridge State Park in Kentucky. That would make it a pretty long drive back, though.
New River Gorge: America’s newest national park is one of West Virginia’s hidden gems
"The New River Gorge is located in southern West Virginia, roughly five hours southwest of D.C. The new designations [as a national park and preserve] encompass 53 miles of the New River (locally called simply “the New”) and the rugged tangle of Appalachian forest around it, which is crisscrossed by hiking and mountain biking trails, railroad tracks, and winding country roads. The area has been administered by the National Park Service, which maintains several visitor centers on the gorge, since it was given conservation status as a national river in 1978."
There are great photos in the article; here's another one I found.
These caught my ear (and also my eye when I went back and re-read them):
One:
"Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire, destroying everything in its path. Every disagreement doesn’t have to be a cause for total war. And we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured."
Two:
"Recent weeks and months have taught us a painful lesson. There is truth and there are lies, lies told for power and for profit. And each of us has a duty and responsibility, as citizens, as Americans, and especially as leaders, leaders who have pledged to honor our Constitution and protect our nation, to defend the truth and defeat the lies."I'm going to try and keep on defending the truth about the science of climate change, a truth that is becoming more apparent every day and month, and defeat the lies of skeptics and deniers, even as they defy the truth of data and their own senses.
Location wise, Castle Island is a small island off of the much larger and better known (and more easily findable) Acklins, also an island of the Bahamas. Confused?
To locate it more accurately, click right here.
To make things slightly confusing, there is also a Castle Island Lighthouse in Freeport, Bahamas. Or at least there's one according to Google Maps. I'm not actually sure there is a lighthouse there, but there is a castle, called Cooper's Castle, which is both an occupied home and a tourist attraction, because it is a big, recently-built home that looks like a castle.
But that is not the subject of this post; the lighthouse on the little island is the subject.
Here's what the remarkable Lighthouse Directory tells us about it:
"1868. Active; focal plane 40 m (131 ft); two white flashes every 20 s. 34 m (112 ft) round brick tower with lantern and gallery, painted white; 1st order Fresnel lens (1934)."
Wow, a first order Fresnel lens! The Directory also informs that it might be endangered (i.e., not maintained well), and it that is used to have red stripes.
Since Acklins is one of the lesser Bahamian islands, there aren't a lot of pictures here, so it might be a nice place to get away to.
I also found a 3+ minute video, so enjoy your trip.
Salma Hayek has got a lot -- acting career, artistic accomplishment, offspring, wealthy and devoted husband, plus ...
regal looks and a still luscious voluptuous figure.
The Daily Mail is all over that.
Salma Hayek shows off her famous curves in a plunging green dress to celebrate 17M Instagram followers
In my discussions with climate change skeptics and deniers on Twitter (and elsewhere) -- a pastime I plan to return to soon -- I've frequently brought up the trends in winter ice cover on lakes as a sure sign of warming. I've not pursued, as much, the problems that the loss of ice cover can lead to.
The Weather Channnel did it for me.
Northern Hemisphere Lakes in Danger of Losing Their Ice
To watch the video, you'll have to click the link; I can't embed that video here. However, here's the transcript of the video."The Great Lakes could go from this to ice-free by the end of the century; a new study looked at 51,000 lakes in the Northern Hemisphere using temperature projections to determine whether they would lose their ice.Researchers found that nearly 5,700 lakes are in permanent danger of becoming ice-free by the centuries end. 179 of them could lose their ice by 2031. The study also found ice on some large bays in Lake Michigan and Lake Superior could be gone by 2055, and even though no ice fishing would be a bummer that problem is much bigger than that.Ice cover helps water in lakes from evaporating during the winter, so if it disappears the water disappears quickly too, and winter ice helps regulate water temperatures in the summer. If the water gets too warm, algae blooms like this become more frequent and more intense. Depending on the lake, changes like these could be disastrous; Lake Michigan alone supplies water to 10,000,000 people."
As I said in the previous Highway 41 post, Chicago's Lincoln Park is featured in these StreetViews.
After Iceberg A68a briefly ran aground on the shallow shelf south of South Georgia Island, it broke. Then it drifted southeastward, and broke again.
Now, there's three main pieces. The first small piece that broke off after it grounded on the shallows is still there. The biggest piece is southeast of the island, but the narrow "finger" piece has taken off and is now northeast of the island.
Clearly and fascinatingly, this is related to the ocean currents in that region, and the depth that the various pieces of the berg reach below the surface.
Here's that situation on January 14:
Well, this headline made me realize that I can still be dumbfounded.
"In his letter Lankford said he had not realized that attacking the integrity of election results from Atlanta, Philadelphia and Detroit, all majority minority, would be seen as an attack on black voters.
'What I did not realize was all of the national conversation about states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, was seen as casting doubt on the validity of votes coming out of predominantly Black communities like Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Detroit,' Lankford wrote, in a letter obtained by the Tulsa World."
Must not have been paying attention then.
'After decades of fighting for voting rights, many Black friends in Oklahoma saw this as a direct attack on their right to vote, for their vote to matter, and even a belief that their votes made an election in our country illegitimate,' Lankford said.
'I can assure you,' he continued. 'my intent to give a voice to Oklahomans who had questions was never also an intent to diminish the voice of any Black American.' 'I should have recognized how what I said and what I did could be interpreted by many of you,' he said. 'I deeply regret my blindness to that perception, and for that I am sorry.'
Well, we can be thankful for that at least. He's still an idiot.
Well, Rand Paul is in the news, saying that if the Senate impeaches soon-to-be-thank-God-ex President Donald Trump, then about 1/3 of the people in the Republican Party would leave the Republican Party.
I think that would basically end the Republican Party as a functional political force.
So I want to ask Rand, is he sure about that? Because if he is, then well, more power to the impeachment.
(If there was an easier way to make sure Donald Trump didn't run for President again, like a heart attack, then impeachment might not be necessary. But maybe it should be necessary, just to break up the Republican Party.)
Anyway, here are links to two articles. I'm basically going to grab the text of the second one to annotate, and point out how many good things there are in it.
Rand Paul warns ONE THIRD of Republicans will leave the party if McConnell allows Trump to be convicted in impeachment trial as president plans revenge on ten GOP lawmakers who voted against him
Note: this is Seal Island, Canada, not Seal Island off the coast of Maine, which is also known as Machias Seal Island.
This week's lighthouse is ostensibly in Nova Scotia, but it's really an island well south of Nova Scotia, named Seal Island (as I am guessing you have guessed by now).
So click here to see where. It's zoomed WAY out so it's possible to see where it is in relation to Nova Scotia.
Here's what Lighthouse Friends has to say about it: Seal Island Lighthouse It has been there awhile, dating back to 1831. Apparently there's a rock nearby named Blonde Rock that has caused a few shipwrecks. Well, that wouldn't be the first time a ship full of sailors has gotten into trouble because of a blonde.
(A stretch, I know.)
I couldn't find an actual picture of Blonde Rock, but here's a picture of the HMS Blonde, which wrecked on the rock and gave the rock its name.
Now back to our lighthouse.
According to Lighthouse Friends, "The old lantern and [Fresnel] lens were taken to Barrington and installed atop a replica of the top half of Seal Island Lighthouse that now serves as Seal Island Light Museum."
I'll make a turn to the Lighthouse Directory (what a great resource) to get basic specifications.
"Active; focal plane 31 m (102 ft); white flash every 10 s. 21 m (68 ft) octagonal pyramidal wood tower with lantern and gallery, painted with red and white horizontal bands; lantern painted red."
The Lighthouse Directory notes that the lighthouse is endangered due to both remote location and poor maintenance.
So now, pictures of this historic, remote, endangered lighthouse. There aren't very many; a lot more of the one in Maine are findable. There are quite a few more of the replica in Barrington, which is half-size.
First picture is from the National Trust of Canada, which is linked above on the word "endangered".
And two more
Cute, vivacious, and talented Dancing with the Stars pro Witney Carson just had her baby. She delivered two months after her slightly taller and slenderer fellow Utahn (and probably Mormon) dancing pro Lindsay Arnold had her child.
(BTW, I don't care that Lindsay went on vacation. If she and the fam can, and they want to, they should.)
Meanwhile, back to Witney. She delivered by Caesarean (as did Arnold), which may mean a bit more time before she's back on the boards. And I have to say, the nearly-there picture in the article is rather impressive; the female body is capable of pretty amazing things other than dynamic dancing.
Dancing With The Stars pro Witney Carson reveals the name of her newborn son after welcoming her first child with Carson McAllister
I'm sure that's something everybody asks themselves regularly. And (semi-seriously), the UK has produced some of the world's most famous and well-paid models over time. Twiggy (aka Dame Lesley Lawson); Kate Moss; Naomi Campbell; Abbey Clancy; Stella Maxwell; Lily Cole -- just a few notable names in a long list. And those names exclude numerous crossovers, like model-actress, model-singer, model-singer-fashion designer, model-activist, etc.
So, it can be news about who the current highest-paid fashion model in the UK is.
And the answer is, for 2020: Cara Delevingne (who of course has done some acting, too).
Cara Delevingne becomes Britain's top paid model after raking in a whopping £16M last year... eclipsing the earnings of veteran supermodel Kate MossNot a lot to notably quote; she earns big money (about 16 million pounds), and also is a director for her father's real-estate portfolio worth about 45 million pounds.
Not a great title, but a great city, and the great Highway 41 runs right along the storied Chicago lakefront. Now we'll see a place that has a lot of stories to tell (as well as more that I wish I could hear, if the walls could talk).
Around the curve
Since Camila Giorgi is from Italy, and I know I haven't featured a lighthouse in Italy for roughly awhile, I will feature a lighthouse from Italy this week.
And the one I've chosen is the Capo D'Orso lighthouse on the mainland of Italy (the Amalfi Coast, actually). I state that upfront because there is also a Capo D'Orso lighthouse on Sardinia, and they do not look the same at all.
This one is perched on a cliffside, which given that's what a lot of the Amalfi Coast looks like, should not be surprising.
It's also for rent, according to this undated article from Italy magazine, and according to that same article, it's the most requested.
It's not very accessible (as you'll see), and it's fairly high up on the cliffside, so it's not easy to photograph from at sea. Thus, there aren't a lot of photos of it.
So, I'm also providing a link to the Google Maps satellite view, in which you should note the stairs down to the sea: Google Maps satellite view. This will also enable figuring out where it is on the Amalfi coast. If you're curious, it's about 30 km from Positano (tell Diane Lane), but the drive is estimated to take more than an hour. When you see the road, you'll figure out why.
How about some quick stats from the Lighthouse Directory?
"1882 (station established 1862). Active; focal plane 66 m (217 ft); three white flashes every 15 s. 2-story stone keeper's house, with a white lantern mounted on a platform or porch in front of the house. The house is painted red with white trim."
And here's two pictures. Wikipedia has a couple more.
The headline of this Daily Mail article caught my eye, and thus required further investigative effort.
Italian tennis star Camila Giorgi who reached the Wimbledon quarter finals is targeted by sexist trolls who say her raunchy lingerie snaps make her look more like a 'porn star than an athlete'
First, my comment.
Sickening. Atrocious. Ridiculous. (And in the greater scheme of things right now, January 9, 2021, kind of inconsequential. But still -- nauseating.)
Trump to give ally Nunes the Presidential Medal of Freedom"Nunes has long supported some of Trump’s more outlandish conspiracy theories, including claiming that the intelligence community improperly “unmasked” the identities of several officials working on Trump’s presidential transition."
"The White House announcement of Nunes’s garlanding is remarkable for many reasons but specifically for its historical claims and the in-your-face aggressiveness of its language.
Nunes deserves the honor, it reads, for his actions to “thwart a plot to take down a sitting United States president”; for his efforts to “unearth the crime of the century”; for exposing “the full power of the Deep State.” It concludes that he is “a public servant of unmatched talent, unassailable integrity, and unwavering resolve. He uncovered the greatest scandal in American history.”
"Translation (if I may): He worked like an amphetamine dervish to thwart a government investigation into Russia’s connivance in President Trump’s election and, later, to keep Trump in office after pellucid evidence surfaced that he tried to blackmail a U.S. ally to help him crush a political rival. Or more concisely: The “deep state” did it."
Exactly.
When you see the list of who has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom (not counting those who Trump gave it too), it's pretty clear that both of our opinions are valid; Nunes is getting it for trying to thwart a valid investigation into Trump's corruption, and that's just plain sickening.
Three more StreetViews as Highway 41 / Lake Shore Drive (now North Lake Shore Drive) proceeds northward parallel to the Lake Michigan shore in Chicago.
I just saw this article that the government of Puerto Rico is going to recover and refurbish the heavily damaged Arecibo radio astronomy telescope.
Fallen alien-hunting Arecibo Observatory will be rebuilt as Puerto Rico commits $8 million to its reconstruction'The government of Puerto Rico is convinced that the collapse of the radio telescope brings a great opportunity to redesign it taking into consideration the lessons learned and the recommendations from the scientific community to make it relevant for decades,' said Vázquez Garced, through La Fortaleza's official website.
Let's all hope it works.
In case you don't follow the news of erupting volcanoes around the world, Hawaii's Kilauea decided to provide a Christmas gift of a summit eruption. In the collapsed caldera (collapsed and deepened after the big flank eruption that ended about two years ago), vents opened on the side of the crater, and poured lava into the bottom, where there had been a lake of water. That didn't last very long.
Since then, the lava lake has filled and deepened, to the point that the lower vents have been submerged, but are still pumping out lava, raising the level of the lake.
The lake even has a floating island of solidified lava, which if I remember correctly was a feature of the famous Halemaumau lava lake described by Mark Twain more than a century ago.
If you want to see what happened, dial back the time machine in the Kilauea Photo and Video Chronology.
Here's a photograph from December 30; one of the vents is still above the lake surface, spattering lava as the lake circulates.
Let's see a few more sights on Chicago's Lake Shore Drive as we start the New Year.
I had thought I have expressed my admiration for actress Aly Michalka on this blog, and I was stunned to discover that apparently I haven't. However, I can note that she and her sister A.J. also have a long-running musical partnership. So, since I just posted about the crash and breakup of iceberg A38a, this particular post about their updated adult version of "Potential Breakup Song" (featuring more profanity) was also worth noting.
