The next three stops on Highway 41

Although in the next few days Hurricane Irma might make the next stops on Highway 41 look considerably different than they do in these StreetView scenes, I will carry on. Note that in this stretch of the highway, it's also called the "Tamiami Trail".

If you don't remember the Valujet 592 crash on May 11, 1996, it was notable partly because the plane basically got swallowed up by the Everglades.  (An article is here, and a picture is here.) Until I undertook this Highway 41 project, I was unaware that there was a memorial at the crash site.  But there is, and Highway 41 goes right past it.  Zoom in with the "+" to get a closer look.




 The next stop is the entrance to the Shark Valley Visitor Center (Shark River being the main still existent Everglades "river of grass").  There's an observation tower, not visible from here.  Feel free to drive down the entrance road to find it.

And finally, just east of the Kirby Storter Roadside Park, I found this very Gladesy view.




Next stops: the road to Everglades City, and the road to Marco Island.

Florence has moons

I remember the first time it was discovered that an asteroid had moons, when a review of Galileo data indicated that Ida, which Galileo had flown by, had a little companion moon that was subsequently named Dactyl.  I don't think anyone was really surprised that asteroids had moons, as there are so many little chunks of rock in the belt that it's not a shock a little chunk got gravitationally bound to a much bigger one.

So, when asteroid Florence came close by Earth a few days ago, a relatively routine radar scanning observation program revealed that Florence has not just one, but two little rocky companions.  Which means that there are probably hundreds of asteroids with mini-moons, even if we can't see them.

Read about it here:

Close Encounter by the [Big!] Asteroid Florence

And here's a radar image of the big one and the little ones along for the orbital ride.

Sometimes you find something you weren't looking for

Neat story happened last week when construction workers in Denver happened upon a Triceratops skeleton.  They've already extracted some of it and are examining it and taking care of it at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  Rather than try to explain it, I'll let the articles do the explaining.

Triceratops skull, skeleton dug up by workers building new Thornton police, fire station

Thornton triceratops to go on display at Denver science museum this weekend

Thornton triceratops fossils draw crowds to Denver Museum of Nature & Science

Here's what they've found so far:

"The collection includes two brow bones, a lower jaw beak, parts of the frill (the shield behind the dinosaur’s head), shoulder bones, vertebrae and ribs. As of Thursday afternoon, arms and legs had not been found, according to Denver Museum of Nature and Science curator of dinosaurs Joe Sertich."

Picture:

and Video:

Lighthouse of the Week, September 3-9, 2017: San Sebastian Light, Argentina

Last week I noted that while searching for a blue lighthouse, I found one painted with yellow and blue stripes in Argentina, specifically in the far southern reaches of Tierra del Fuego.  I indicated that I'd probably visit that lighthouse for the Lighthouse of the Week, and so here it is.

It turns out there isn't a lot to know about this one, which is the San Sebastian light, on the southern coast of the Bay of San Sebastian, near the town of San Sebastian.  If you want to see where that is on Google Maps, click here.

Here's what the Lighthouse Directory says about its specifications:

"1949. Active; focal plane 60 m (197 ft); three white flashes, separated by 5 s, every 40 s. 11 m (36 ft) round cylindrical concrete tower with lantern and gallery. Lighthouse painted with blue and yellow spiral bands; lantern painted black."

There aren't very many pictures of this one, unlike the other Argentinian lighthouse I featured.  Below are three.  The first one is from a ham radio call sign expedition to this lighthouse near the end of the world.

Finding Julianne

Julianne Kissinger is a model and Instagram hottie who is curvaceously captivating.  I've posted about her once before (here), but she's been recently expanding her desirable domain, with a private Snapchat and Supe location.

Here are some links for this lovely being.

Official Web site

Instagram 

The reason for this post is that I accidentally encountered a provocative photograph of Julianne on Yandy.com somewhat by accident. The picture is directly below.  She has both a great bosom (recently augmented, which was well done) and a great derriere, and here the latter is shown off to good advantage.  I believe this was pre-boobjob.

This picture below, however, is post-boobjob.  As you can see, she's got more up top to go with the well-rounded natural assets down below.   Let's also note that her face is exquisitely symmetrical with big brown eyes and full lips, and she has a great head of hair, too.  Superb package.

The West Indies cricketeers astonish England

I haven't been following cricket as much as I used to, and I commonly posted about cricket here on the blog. Truth is, I really only followed English cricket because the Daily Mail includes news about cricket in their sports section. And I just pay attention to Test cricket and not the shorter one-day events, which are reputedly more entertaining (but they aren't part of the lore, history, and heroism of Test cricket). Oh, I occasionally tried to figure out who was ranked where, and whether or not Tendulkar had gotten 100 centuries, but by and large I just followed what England was doing. Later this year they go down to Australia for the Ashes Test series, which I usually pay attention to.

They've been getting ready for that by playing their usual summer Test series. Most recently, they've been playing the West Indies, which is not the power it used to be, even though it has a rich history and some of cricket's most noted players. In the first Test, England handled the "Windies" pretty easily. And in the second Test, at Headingley, despite a slow start, they looked to be headed toward another win. They built up a 322-run lead in their second innings (each team bats twice), and late on the fourth day of the five-day test, they "declared" at that point, which meant that the Windies had to get 323 runs to win, 322 to tie, and anything less than that would be a loss. Going after a point total is called a "chase".

Well, the Windies chased, and caught. It was surprising, it was good cricket, and England was a little bit miffed.

Here's the day 5 recap. But basically, two youngsters from Barbados, Kraigg Braithwaite and Shai Hope, scored 95 runs and 118 runs, respectively, and that was what did it.

There's one more Test in this series to go. Anything less than a series win would be a disappointment for the Brits. We'll see who spins and who misses.

Samuelson puts it simply

Even while President Trump was tramping through the puddles left near Hurricane Harvey's path of destruction in coastal Texas, he was also talking about tax reform. At least that's what he and the Republican fuzzy thinkers in Congress are calling it. In reality, as several pundits have noted, it isn't really tax reform. It's a plain ol' tax cut, and the benefits, as would be expected, go primarily to the top 1% of wealthy households in the nation.

The thing is, as the Washington Post's Robert Samuelson so well explains, we don't need a tax cut. In fact, we need money, via higher taxes -- as the necessity of providing disaster relief to Harvey victims indicates. And paying for more troops in Afghanistan. And building up the Navy.  And improving programs to address climate change.  (Ha, just kidding on that last one. Ugh.)

Here's what Samuelson says:

"Second, we cannot afford a net tax cut. If we are to lower tax rates and simplify complex tax provisions, we must offset the revenue losses by plugging loopholes, raising other taxes or cutting spending. Under current policies, the Congressional Budget Office has projected $10 trillion in deficits from 2018 to 2027. Trump’s tax plan, including provisions that would raise revenue, would add an additional $3.5 trillion in deficits over a decade, estimates the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center (TPC)."

Why do we need higher taxes, not a tax cut?

"The truth is that we need higher, not lower, taxes. When the economy is at or near “full employment,” the budget should be balanced or even show a slight surplus."

Pretty simple to understand! But the Republicans are pretty stupid, so pretty simple is over their heads.