An ensuite, in use

Back in August, I discussed a word and concept I hadn't heard before, which is an "ensuite".

Have you ever heard of an "ensuite"? 

In this article, I provided several examples of ensuites (unoccupied), and suggested that it would be somewhat delightful to have a young lady take a shower in one, while sharing the accomodation.

Well, just recently, a busty Venezuelan bombshell named Francesca Larrain (worth a few looks on Instagram) demonstrated exactly why I think an ensuite can be a really good thing.

First of all, here's a nice juicy picture of Francesca:

And here's a picture of Francesca in the ensuite:

See what I mean?

England announces team for the Ashes

If you don't follow cricket, you don't know what The Ashes is, I expect.  If you do follow cricket, then you probably do know.

For those of you who don't know, but might possibly be interested, here's what it is:

The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. The Ashes are regarded as being held by the team that most recently won the Test series. If the test series is drawn, the team that currently holds the Ashes, retains the trophy.

The Ashes trophy (left) and the genuine Ashes urn (right)












ESPN has a short history of the Ashes (dated 2013).

Wikipedia (from where I got the description above) can supply the rest.

England currently holds The Ashes after the most recent series in 2015.  Has it been that long?

Anyway, here's the team:

England announce Ashes squad for tour of Australia: Ben Stokes is included despite recent arrest and there are call-ups for James Vince, Mason Crane and Ben Foakes

The most critical players for England are going to be captain Joe Root, Alastair Cook, Moeen Ali, and superstar bowler James Anderson.

Actress to watch

Haley Bennett is a young actress who happens to look a lot like Jennifer Lawrence.  She's 29 and has been creating a pretty good list of roles (as listed on IMdB).

She stood out in The Magnificent Seven, and also had important roles in Marley and Me, The Equalizer, Passages, and The Girl on the Train.

I don't think she's had the role that will make a really large section of the moviegoing public notice her and remember, but I have a gut feeling she's going to have that role soon.  She's got a high credits role in Thank You for Your Service, due out in late October.  Miles Teller will be competing against himself, because he's also starring in Only the Brave, which is going to be released one week before that.

Meanwhile, let's finish with a picture of lovely Haley Bennett.  She's chameleonic, and has some sexy young ingenue pictures out there, and it's hard to find the one picture that looks just like her, so I went with two pictures from Elle magazine.

And here's how she looked in The Magnificent Seven (with Chris Pratt).

I've seen that place

The National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year contest is underway, and I'll be keeping tabs on it.

In the Week 2 collection, one of the photographs is of Kallur Lighthouse in the Faroe Islands, which I featured as a Lighthouse of the Week back in April.

The picture, by Wojciech Kruczynski, is pretty awesome.  Click on it to super-size it.  Or go to the Week 2 gallery and download the wallpaper (like I did).

Lighthouse of the Week, September 24-30, 2017: Lighthouses and storms

Because of the recent disastrous hurricanes that have hit the U.S., and which have severely damaged a few Caribbean islands and virtually all of Puerto Rico, I'm going to take a slight departure this week from a featured lighthouse, and just feature a few amazing images of lighthouses and big storm waves.  Consider this a tribute to the people that are managing to go on in the midst of extreme difficulty caused by this spectacular forces of nature.

And if you can, contribute to the relief efforts.

For the first two pictures, I do not have an identity for the lighthouse.  The third picture is Trevose Head in the county of Cornwall, England, taken by Nik Jewell.  There are a few other lighthouses on England's South West Peninsula;  a quick survey indicates six or eight, depending on how loosely the region is defined.  So I think I've got a theme for the upcoming weeks.

Lost and found, Moon version

SMART-1 was a European lunar orbiting satellite that spun around the Moon for three years, and then conducted a controlled crash on the surface in September 2006.  Though they knew where it crashed and even got a picture of it, a picture of the crash location has never been located.

Until now.   A gentleman named Phil Stooke found the crash site in imagery from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a NASA mission still in orbit around the Moon. I don't know when the imagery was captured;  I can guarantee it was after late June 2009, when the LRO went into orbit around the Moon.

So, the article has the picture of the crash site. So that's where the mission ended.  A bit of astronomical closure.

New observations reveal a lunar orbiter’s final resting place 

A mistake made again and again

So it seems that the Republicans in Washington are going to cut taxes.

When we don't need to cut taxes.  As I noted in a previous post, according to esteemed Washington Post's economics writer Robert Samuelson, we need to raise taxes right now.

But good arguments are lost on Republicans.  So I have another argument.

First, let's look at the article.

White House plans for tax cuts moves forward

A quote from the article:

"... there is a growing willingness within the GOP to embrace controversial, optimistic estimates of how much economic growth their tax plan would create."

So, you read that, and then one single name should send shudders through anyone who is both conscious and capable of lucid thought processes:

Kansas.

And if that is not a good enough argument, another name should clinch it.

Sam Brownback.

There, I'm done, and nothing can beat that argument.

Except rank stupidity.

Which the Republicans possess in large quantities.