Bill Murray's Blog, page 13

Quotes: Armed Forces Day in Myanmar

“The army seeks to join hands with the entire nation to safeguard democracy. Violent acts that affect stability and security in order to make demands are inappropriate.”

– General Min Aung Hlaing, junta leader, observing Myanmar’s Armed Forces Day, on which the military killed at least eighty people.

Iceland Volcano Webcam

Click the photo for a great webcam feed of the little volcano on the Reykjanes peninsula in Iceland.

Happy Nowruz and welcome to spring.

Happy Nowruz and welcome to spring.

Fits and Starts

Here it comes in fits and starts, the return of travel. Beginning in late June a British cruise line will send out a ship capable of holding 3,647 passengers  and … just sail around, not stopping anywhere. More wandering than cruising.

China says it is processing visa requests from vaccinated individuals, but only from those who have been vaccinated with a Chinese-made vaccine, which are not available or approved in much of the world.

And the Icelandic government announced today that from tomorrow, visitors who can prove vaccination will be welcomed into the country with no test or quarantine. If you time it right, just before the coming big volcanic eruption, maybe you can trade where you’re stuck now for being stuck in Iceland.

Weimar Berlin, Colorized

Two minutes 47 seconds in Berlin, 1927. Trememdous.

Looking Up in Svalbard

After it’s annual four month absence, the sun returned to Longyearbyen, Svalbard yesterday.

Read about it in Svalbard’s English language newspaper Ice People.

Crazy Stuff About Flying, Falling and Surviving

“Granted, the odds of surviving a 6-mile plummet are extra­ordinarily slim, but at this point you’ve got nothing to lose by understanding your situation.”

If you’re good with that premise, here is How to Fall 35,000 feet (and Survive).

 

The Black Browed Babbler of Borneo Lives!

And he’s not that tuk-tuk driver you never should have hired.

Rumbles Around Reykjavik

Iceland Review reported yesterday that

An intense earthquake swarm started on the Reykjanes Peninsula on February 24th with an earthquake M5.7 followed by an M5.0. Since then, quite a few earthquakes over M4.0 have been detected and two earthquakes over M5.0, occurring on February 27 and March 1. The swarm is still ongoing and the SIL system has detected around 15,000 earthquakes in the area. At 2.12 AM today, an M4.1 magnitude earthquake was detected around 2 km SSW of Keilir. At 11:05 AM an earthquake M3.8 was detected 1 km SW of Keilir.

Reykjanes Peninsula is the most populated part of the country, with the capital Reykjavik in its northeast, and Keflavik, the location of Iceland’s international airport, in the far west.

From Iceland Monitor, click in the photo above for a live camera trained on Keilir mountain. They say “This is the area where an eruption is considered likely.”

In 2010, an ash cloud from eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano disrupted air travel across the Atlantic for about a month, costing the airline industry around US$1.7 billion (£1.1 billion, €1.3 billion), IATA says. 

In this case, Iceland Review thinks,

If an eruption is to occur on the Reykjanes peninsula, it will likely produce lava but no ash and won’t threaten inhabited areas.

New Travel Column at 3QD

My monthly travel column, about southwest Africa is live now at 3QuarksDaily. Read it at 3QD now, and I’ll put it up here on CSW in a few days. It’s a consideration of dodgy and disastrous colonialism in Southwest Africa, with a little flying adventure on the side.