Wednesday, February 28, 2018

In Iceland, strong winds blow waterfalls away

Making sandbags like a boss

Missile balloons for your car


Why are journalists such boobs when they get around a gun.

My God, watch this guy.  He's not using the sights, which probably doesn't matter since he's grimacing so severely.  He's not holding the stock against his shoulder, and he doesn't have a firm grip on the gun, as it's bouncing around like crazy.  He's leaning way back like he's intimidated by it and the idea of recoil. I also see some poor trigger discipline.  Jeez.  Snatch that rifle away from him before he hurts himself or someone else.

This looks like my stove on many a morning.


Lord have mercy on me should I ever find something like this for sale reasonable.


Do not harass the predator


Or just good for any occasion




Exercising fiscal sanity, the state of Maine now has 1 billion dollars stashed in the bank.

The amount of money in the cash pool varies from day to day as revenues come in and expenditures go out, but State Treasurer Terry Hayes, an independent, said the average monthly balance has surpassed the $1 billion mark in all of the past seven months except August 2016. Hayes, a former Democrat who was elected in December to a second two-year term as treasurer, said that in addition to a slowly improving economy, the lofty balance is because of work by the Republican-controlled executive branch under LePage.
California, take notice.

Yellow is for fast


The Wing Commander's straight razor, fresh from a professional honing




When do you ever have all the facts?



Father Cajus, regimental chaplain of a Tyrolean Rifle Regiment (Tiroler Kaiserjägerregiment), in trenches on the Italian Front, 1916.


More good freckles


Speedy Police Dog

Lane optimization on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Today's shave is the black Allentown straight

Cryogen Shave Soap, Excelsior Cerda Pura boar brush.  I'm gonna strop that thing about 50 - 60 times before I scrap it across my face.



Panhard Armored Reconnaissance Vehicles of the French Foreign Legion patrol the Sahara desert, through the mountainous massifs of Djanet, Algeria, in February 1958.






Large Iridescent Roman Glass Vase, 2nd-4th Century AD

Looks very much like a modern piece. 


Haunted Meayll Hill Stone Circle, Isle of Man

             The spooky stories sound like something out of a Lord of the Rings chapter.  
Great view for sure.



Meayll Hill (Mull Hill) is not a true stone circle, but a unique group of Neolithic chambered tombs built around 3500 BC. These tombs are characteristic for Neolithic farmers in the British Isles, but the arrangement of 12 of them in ring formation is very unusual and no one knows why they were arranged this way. A group of stone foundations of Neolithic huts can be found nearby to the east with an ancient pathway running between the two sites.
According to local lore, some visitors have had unpleasant paranormal experiences at Meayll Hill, including the feeling of sudden disorientation. Others have seen unexplained moving lights and heard strange sounds, like the cadence of invisible horses trotting or galloping by. One tale says that a phantom army of horsemen has been seen riding along the circle.
The site is located just outside the village of Cregneash at the southern end of the Isle of Man, in the Irish Sea between England and Ireland.


Great Reads









Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Freckles are good


Your happy thought for the day


Everest summiters have a 4% fatality rate. K2 is 25%. 

There's a new sheriff in town, with a new deputy named Mad Dog.

The Russian government has downplayed the recent strikes on Russian mercenaries in Syria, however, recordings from fighters on the ground reveal just how hard U.S. forces hit them.

A great and entertaining summary of the action here.

Professionals versus amateurs.  The result is always the same.

“One squadron fucking lost 200 people … right away, another one lost 10 people … and I don’t know about the third squadron but it got torn up pretty badly, too … So three squadrons took a beating,” a man believed to be a Russian contract soldier said.

“They beat our asses like we were little pieces of shit!” 


“They were all shelling the holy fuck out of it and our guys didn’t have anything besides the assault rifles … nothing at all, I’m not even talking about shoulder-fired SAMs or anything like that… they tore us to pieces, put us through hell,” the man in the recording revealed, calling the incident a “total fuckup, another humiliation.”
“We got our fucking asses beat rough. The Yankees made their point,” he said. “What were they hoping for, that the Yankees are just going to fuck off? … It’s bullshit. Some people can’t even be fucking ID’ed.”
“Nobody gives a fuck about us,” a man in the recording explained.
“Out of all vehicles only one tank survived and one BRDM (Armored Reconnaissance Vehicle) after the attack, all other BRDMs and tanks were destroyed in the first minutes of the fight, right away.”
He said they were flown back on specially equipped military cargo planes which can each accommodate two or three intensive care cases and several dozen less severely wounded patients.
Yevgeny Shabayev, leader of a local chapter of a paramilitary Cossack organization who has ties to Russian military contractors, said he had visited acquaintances injured in Syria at the defense ministry’s Central Hospital in Khimki, on the outskirts of Moscow, on Wednesday. 
He said the wounded men had told him that the two units of Russian contractors involved in the battle near Deir al-Zor numbered 550 men. Of those, there are now about 200 who are not either dead or wounded, the wounded men had told him.
To add insult to injury, the Kurds control a large dam upstream, and they opened the gates, released a flood, and washed the mercenary's pontoon bridge away, requiring them to ford a flooded river with all their wounded to get back to their side.

Diana Rigg


Street artists turn blank walls in public places into something amazing.


Palmitas, Mexico


Le Puy en Velay, France


Glasgow, Scotland


Good guy with an AR-15 stops bad guy with a knife.

From Fox 8:
Dave Thomas saw the suspect attack another person inside his apartment building in Oswego Township on Monday. Thomas said he went inside and got his rifle before ordering the suspect to stop.
“I poked my head out the door. There was a pool of blood, blood was everywhere in the hall. There was still a confrontation going on, there were about three or four people involved at this point,” Thomas told the station. “So I ran back into my house and grabbed my AR-15. I grabbed the AR-15 over my handgun — bigger gun, I think a little more of an intimidation factor. Definitely played a part in him actually stopping.”
Even better? No shots were fired, which is exactly what you’d want in a situation like this. The perp gave up when he saw the rifle.

Monday, February 26, 2018

Catalina, riding low on the water.


I have never heard of something like this before, but in a cold house or cabin, it might just be the cat's meow


It's like a fireplace TV/ room heater that you hang like a picture.





  • EASY INSTALLATION: Designed for wall-mounting, this 50-inch-wide electric fireplace only weighs 46 pounds, so one person can easily hang it on the wall using the step-by-step instructions provided. Once it has been mounted to your wall, all you need to do is hang and secure your fireplace with the drywall screws. You no longer need to stack firewood or clean up ashes, as the Touchstone Onyx® Electric Fireplace is powered by remote control. Overall dimensions: 50.4” W x 21.65” H x 5.5” D
  • TWO HEAT OPTIONS: Touchstone Onyx® Electric Fireplace features two heat settings (high and low) that can heat any room of up to 400 feet, blowing heat out of the top of the unit. This allows you to control the amount of warmth produced to create a cozy atmosphere. A five-flame brightness setting that ranges from a dull ember glow to a full blazing light lets you adjust the flames depending on your desired luminosity. The Onyx® also can run with no heat as well.
  • REALISTIC LOG SET: Amaze your guests with the lifelike flames of this wall-hanging electric fireplace. Its realistic flames are set in a pile of faux logs or crystals (both included) that lends the homey appeal of an authentic fireplace. The log set or crystals lie behind durable tempered glass with a contemporary black frame. Enjoy smoke-free air while feeling warm during a cold night.

Cruise missiles are loaded under the wing of a B-52 Stratofortress


Awfully clean


Canada's boy Prime Minister and his family enjoyed their dress up when they visited India recently.

I guess the Indians can dress like Mounties when they return the favor.




I can't wait for the Trudeau/Castros to visit Papua New Guinea.


Air Force takes out a Taliban hideout.

The moment of ignition


In Technicolor.


Valhalla, or Denali





I like this for it's sense of industrial art. And because it's shiny.


'Murica!


Come on, guys! Manage your message better than that.


This looks like fun

Keeping a weather eye open is a good thing.



The Art of Speed


The Wing Commander was crossing Puget Sound yesterday and he sent this to me. Very atmospheric