The Daily Mail featured king penguins (my second-favorite version of penguins, after the rockhopper) in an article, which were photographed on the Falkland Islands. As one might remember from the World Cup, Argentina is still not happy that they are affiliated with England, but England wants to keep them.
Fancy a morning dip? King penguins on the Falkland Islands spotted after their sunrise swim
One more for Uruguay, and that will get me out of May. Three more months to catch up on. So I'm finishing with Uruguay's tallest lighthouse, which the Lighthouse Directory says (as you'll see below) is one of the tallest concrete lighthouses in the world.
Thus, this lighthouse is the Isla de Lobos ("Island of the Wolves", naturally) lighthouse, which is probably on that island. Let's check by looking here. Yes, it is -- east of Montevideo. It's the most notable thing on the island, which I suspect does not have any wolves. Pictures, as well as the Wikipedia article, indicate it has lots of southern sea lions and fur seals, and it's a nature reserve. Southern right whales show up there, too.
Now, we can find out more about the lighthouse:
"1906 (station established 1858). Active; focal plane 66 m (217 ft); white flash every 5 s; the tower also carries a continuous red light at a focal plane of 53 m (174 ft). 59 m (194 ft) round tapered concrete block tower with lantern and gallery, mounted on a round stone base. Lighthouse painted white; base unpainted; lantern and watch room painted with red and white vertical stripes. ... Uruguay's tallest lighthouse, this is also one of the tallest concrete lighthouses in the world. The 1858 lighthouse was short-lived: sealers protested that it scared away the animals, so the light was moved to Punta del Este in 1860. The 1906 tower was designed by Victor Benavídez and built by José María Claret. Located on a small (36 ha, 90 acre) island about 13 km (8 mi) southeast of Punta del Este. Accessible only by boat. Site and tower closed (the island is a wildlife sanctuary protecting a huge colony of seals)."
Pictures of the big white tower are below. One is a stamp that is mentioned by the Lighthouse Directory; I didn't include that part. The lighthouse on the stamp doesn't look like the one in the island now; it appears to be based on the earlier lighthouse, shown in the black-and-white photo.
Going all the way back to Anna Nicole Smith at her best, and probably back further than that, and certainly since then (including Amanda Cerny), Guess has produced gorgeous women photographed gorgeously.
This relatively new one (I don't know exactly when she showed up in print repping Guess) is Violetta Seleznova. For all of her Instagram pictures, go to her Instagram account.
For a few selections, look below this line.
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| That's a lot of water |
I'm providing a reference to a recent paper about the continuing loss of ice from the continent of Antarctica.
Antarctica Is Losing Ice the Size of Los Angeles Every Three Years"The ice sheet has been retreating from the grounding line at an average rate of 442 square kilometers per year. The most dramatic changes occurred in West Antarctica’s Amundsen Sea and Getz sectors, where glaciers retreated 10 to about 40 kilometers. Pine Island Glacier retreated 33 kilometers, Thwaites Glacier 26 kilometers, and Smith Glacier an extraordinary 42 kilometers.
“Where warm ocean water is pushed by winds to reach glaciers, that’s where we see the big wounds in Antarctica,” explained Rignot, who’s also a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “It’s like the balloon that’s not punctured everywhere, but where it is punctured, it’s punctured deep.”
Researchers compiled data from multiple satellite missions, including the European Space Agency’s ERS-1/2 and Sentinel-1, Canada’s RADARSAT 1, RADARSAT 2 and RADARSAT Constellation Mission, Japan’s ALOS/PALSAR and ALOS/PALSAR-2, Italy’s COSMO-SkyMed, the German Aerospace Center’s TerraSAR-X and Argentina’s SAOCOM.
According to co-author Bernd Scheuchl, UC Irvine project scientist in Earth system science, the study represents a landmark achievement for NASA’s Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition program, marking the first major success involving commercial synthetic aperture radar data providers for polar research."
" “The flip side is that we should perhaps feel fortunate that all of Antarctica isn’t reacting right now, because we would be in far more trouble,” Rignot said. “But that could be the next step.”That's not something to wish for.
Continuing my extended catch-up efforts for Lighthouses of the Week, and covering lighthouses of Uruguay, the next one is the Faro de Colonia de Sacramento, which is likely the closest Uruguayan lighthouse to Argentina, which lies both to the north by land and to the south by water. This lighthouse is on a small extension of Uruguay into the Rio de la Plata, the big estuary that Buenos Aires notably lies on.
The Lighthouse Directory provides this basic information:
"1857. Active; focal plane 34 m (112 ft); red flash every 9 s. 27 m (88 ft) cylindrical brick tower with lantern and gallery, lower half square, upper half round. Lighthouse painted white; lantern painted with red and white vertical stripes. ... The lighthouse is built within the ruins of the Convento de San Francisco Javier, built by Portugal in 1682. Construction of the lighthouse began in 1845 but it was interrupted by a prolonged civil war, the Guerra Grande, which finally ended in 1852. Adjacent to the light station is the municipal museum of this historic city, which faces Buenos Aires across the broad Río de la Plata estuary. Located in the historic district of the city, on a peninsula extending into the Río de la Plata."
Due to the visual interaction with the ruins of the convent, it provides a good photographic subject.
I noted this back in February, and after I put the link to the article in this post, I'll see if there is any current status update.
To review, mercury in the environment is really bad. It's toxic at very low levels, and it makes a neurotoxin when methylated. It gets into the aquatic food chain, so higher level predators also known as game fish concentrate it in their tissues. Mercury is good for a lot of things, but being in the environment is not one of them.
Power Plants Will Be Allowed to Release More Than Twice As Much Mercury Into the Air
"The new rollback eliminates parts of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) finalized under the Biden administration. The 2024 updates strengthened limits on mercury and other hazardous air pollutant emissions from coal-burning power plants.
As a result of the repeal, coal-burning power plants will be allowed to emit more than twice as much mercury as they currently do. Specifically, they will no longer need to adhere to the limit of 1.2 pounds of mercury per trillion British thermal units of heat input (lb/TBtu) and instead must comply with the previous mercury release limit (set during the Obama administration in 2012) of 4.0 lb/TBtu.
The repeal also relaxes limits on emissions of arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, and nickel from coal-burning power plants."
"Congress has taken an active interest in recent EPA rulemaking related to the regulatory impact of HAPs standards. The stakes are high: the Trump administration's rollback of the 2012 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule will increase mercury and non-mercury heavy metal emissions while producing hundreds of millions of dollars in compliance cost savings for the power industry, according to EPA's own analysis. By contrast, EPA projected no effect on retail electricity prices from the repeal."So, more emissions, more profits for the companies, no net savings for the public.
"On the other side, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced the Fair Air Enforcement Act of 2025, which would repeal citizen suit provisions of the Clean Air Act with conforming amendments to Section 112."
So, as I said, mercury is bad.
So are Republicans.
I admit to having a fascination for the Bond movies -- they are/were entertaining, stylish, and adventurous. I found this video with commercials made from Bond footage and actual commercials, and it's great. The one which commences at the 7:15 mark is fabulous.
