I can see that

Yes, I have extolled the vibrant virtues of Michelle Keegan many times.  So it comes as no surprise that a British poll found her to have the best body for the beach.  The Daily Mail seems surprised that she beat out Kim Kardashian and Rihanna.  I'm not.  I can see that Michelle in a bikini comes about as close to perfection in that category as is potentially possible.

The girl from Weatherfield did good! Michelle Keegan beats Kim Kardashian and Rihanna to be crowned best beach body

Note:  men voted for her ahead of Kelly Brook and Kate Upton.  I'd vote the same way -- but I'd hate to vote AGAINST either Kelly or Kate!

Hope it's OK to quote on ENSO

Will there or will there not be a significant El Niño event this year?  The chances of having one are high, but apparently the chances of having one that would be classified "large" are marginal.  To find out why, this discussion gets right to the heart of the current state.

An excerpt:

"Another factor the forecasters are considering is the model guidance. Most climate models are predicting a weak-to-moderate event, with dynamical models slightly favoring a moderate event and statistical models favoring a weaker event.  The ensemble mean of NCEP’s Climate Forecast System, CFSv2 (Figure 3, black dashed line) has been fairly consistent in forecasting Niño3.4 anomalies in the range of 1.0-1.5°C, but, as you can see from the individual model runs (blue, red, and gray lines), there is an envelope of possible values from 0°C to slightly above 2.0°C."

Link to the figure discussed above:  it's right here.       

For a lot of reasons, I'm pulling for this one to come on strong and stay strong.

Quick cutting quote from Krugman

From Paul Krugman's (NY Times) op-ed entitled The Climate Domino":

"Claims that the effects will be devastating are, however, not just wrong but inconsistent with what conservatives claim to believe. Ask right-wingers how the U.S. economy will cope with limited supplies of raw materials, land, and other resources, and they respond with great optimism: the magic of the marketplace will lead us to solutions. But they abruptly lose their faith in market magic when someone proposes limits on pollution — limits that would largely be imposed in market-friendly ways like cap-and-trade systems. Suddenly, they insist that businesses will be unable to adjust, that there are no alternatives to doing everything energy-related exactly the way we do it now."

Yeah, that does seem inconsistent.  I wonder why they do that?

This is why we like it when Maria wins

If you follow tennis, then you're aware that Rafael Nadal won his mind-boggling 9th French Open title, and Maria Sharapova won her 2nd.  Not so mind-boggling, but it appears that Maria is learning that when Serena Williams is out of a Grand Slam tournament, then she better win it.   And I will note that Simona Halep played a very strong, gritty match -- clearly had chances to win -- and if she stays healthy, will likely win a Grand Slam soon.  (And I didn't catch a single mention of her breast reduction surgery, which was apparently one reason for her ascendancy in the rankings.  But there was an article in the Australian.)

But now back to Maria.  One of the reasons we like her winning is that she's Maria.  And that means that after she wins, she poses in Paris with the trophy, and with the Eiffel Tower behind her, and in these pictures she's wearing a short skirt and heels.

THAT's why we like it when Maria wins a Grand Slam.

Lighthouse of the Week, June 8-14, 2014: Paphos, Cyprus

This appears to be the most-photographed lighthouse in Cyprus. According to Lighthouses of Cyprus (UNC) it's also the most-visited:

"1888. Active; focal plane 36 m (118 ft); one long (1.5 s) white flash every 15 s. 20 m (66 ft) round stone tower with lantern and gallery. Entire lighthouse painted white. The lighthouse stands next to a second century Roman amphitheater.  This handsome British Imperial tower is the best known and most visited lighthouse of Cyprus. Paphos is at the southwestern corner of the island, where the lighthouse served as the landfall light for ships arriving from Britain. Located on a promontory projecting into the Mediterranean at Paphos."

This one shows the Roman ruins right next to it.  The next two below show the amphitheater in the ruins, and a view of the lighthouse from the ruins.

Chezza releases CSL video

Cheryl Cole has released the official video for her new single, entitled "Crazy Stupid Love".

Wish this would get U.S. airplay. It is a lot better than many of the other dance mix/hip hop type music that
is on the radio now, and I like this much much more than "Talk Dirty to Me".

Cheryl is a great dancer and a pretty good singer.  Wish the U.S. public could get to experience that, too.

But then she wouldn't be my little secret.

Just helping everyone stay informed and happy

These two links caught my fancy as they passed by on Twitter, so I grabbed them to provide to my legions of readers and the rest of the world public in a somewhat more stable medium of communication.

51 Sultry Facts About Sex

#7 is about one of my favorite topics to speculate on:

A far-out thought: Could you have sex in zero-gravity? Well, the idea has yet to be tested as far as anyone knows, though if the human race were to colonize another orb it'd be key, albeit, tricky. "Sex is very difficult in zero gravity, apparently, because you have no traction and you keep bumping against the walls," biologist Athena Andreadis of the University of Massachusetts Medical School told SPACE.com, a sister site to LiveScience. "Think about it: you have no friction, you have no resistance."

 How long do we have to wait for the SPACE HOTELS?

 And I also took an interest in this one:

8 Secret Things a Man Wants in Bed

I'm definitely a fan of number 6 -- not really for number 8, but if my gal wants to leave me a rose, I'll be glad to kiss her petals.

There's a lot more, of course, but some things are just better read yourselves.