Bill Murray's Blog, page 39
April 3, 2019
Photo a Day, Vietnam, Day 13
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Three boats in the Mekong delta, Vietnam. A photo a day from Vietnam for the next couple of weeks as we as we get ready to head to Saigon. These daily photos are collected here, on Earthphotos.com.
April 2, 2019
Reblog from Joshi Daniel Photography
Reblogging from Joshi Daniel’s Photography site:
A smiling old man in Senggarang Village, Bintan island, Indonesia. Join me on: INSTAGRAM | TWITTER | FACEBOOK
via Portrait of an old man in Senggarang Village — Joshi Daniel Photography
Portrait of an old man in Senggarang Village — Joshi Daniel Photography
Reblogging from Joshi Daniel’s Photography site:
A smiling old man in Senggarang Village, Bintan island, Indonesia. Join me on: INSTAGRAM | TWITTER | FACEBOOK
via Portrait of an old man in Senggarang Village — Joshi Daniel Photography
New Column at 3 Quarks Daily
My monthly column is up at 3 Quarks Daily: This month, a Russian town in the Norwegian Arctic.
Quotes: Missed April Fools Day by a Day
[image error] Sunset through the haze over Dubai Creek, United Arab Emirates.
As everyone knows, oranges is another word for beginnings.
“I hope they now go and take a look at the oranges, the oranges of the investigation, the beginnings of that investigation.”
– our American president on the Mueller report, speaking to the press on 2 April, 2019.
I know what you’re thinking. I’m being unkind, hypercritical. He really said origins and just slurred it or something.
You can watch it here.
It came during remarks with the Secretary General of NATO, the defense collective the United States set up after the second world war, of which President Trump, a hotel owner accused of profiting from the presidency, is the de facto leader.
It came on the same day as an article at ForeignPolicy.com titled The American Empire Is the Sick Man of the 21st Century: Failure at the center has left the United States up for sale to the highest bidder.
The article gently points out that in one of the president’s hotels,
“located directly between the White House and the U.S. Capitol, … a Saudi-funded lobbyist rented 500 rooms in the month after the 2016 election.”
Photo a Day, Vietnam, Day 12
Three today, with the hill tribes in the mountains of northern Vietnam along the Chinese border:
A photo a day from Vietnam for the next couple of weeks as we as we get set to spend a month in Saigon. These daily photos are collected here, on Earthphotos.com.
April 1, 2019
Photo a Day, Vietnam, Day 11
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The most recent census of Ho Ch Minh city was performed in 2009, making it difficult to know the current population. Best guess, about eight and a half million people, most of whom, at any given time, are on the road.
A photo a day from Vietnam for the next couple of weeks as we as we get set to spend a month there. These daily photos are collected here, on Earthphotos.com.
March 31, 2019
Quotes: Dumbing Down, Fast as We Can
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“TRUMP CUTS AID TO 3 MEXICAN COUNTRIES.”
It’s getting harder to argue this point, but to CS&W readers outside the United States, when the American cable network Fox News refers to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras as “3 Mexican Countries,” there are lots of us who realize that that is a mistake. Honest.
Naked Justice
A policeman in Sweden seized a fugitive on Friday while both were naked in a sauna, after stumbling upon him by chance.
“… they both recognised each other in the sauna,” Christoffer Bohman, deputy police chief in the Stockholm district of Rinkeby, told Sweden’s state broadcaster SVT.
“It’s easier to take action when you have your colleagues with you, and all your tools and equipment,” Mr Bohman said.”
And, you’d imagine, your clothes.
Brunei: Capital Punishment by Stoning
From this week Brunei will punish adultery and gay sex among Muslims by stoning. The idea of stoning is for a group of people to throw stones at a person until he or she dies from blunt trauma. By this method no one person may be identified as the ultimate killer.
I haven’t seen a how-to guide to stoning from Brunei, but from the 2008 version of the Islamic Penal Code of Iran via Wikipedia:
– An adulterous man shall be buried in a ditch up to near his waist and an adulterous woman up to near her chest and then stoned to death.
– The size of the stone used in stoning shall not be too large to kill the convict by one or two throws and at the same time shall not be too small to be called a stone.
If you do not want to patronize businesses owned by the Sutlan of Brunei, one of the world’s richest men, avoid these hotels:
The Dorchester, London, UK
The Beverly Hills Hotel, Beverly Hills, USA
Plaza Athénée, Paris, France
Le Meurice, Paris, France
Principe di Savoia, Milan, Italy
Hotel Bel-Air, Los Angeles, USA
Coworth Park, Ascot, UK
45 Park Lane, London, UK
Hotel Eden, Rome, Italy
We visited Brunei nineteen years ago. Here is what I wrote at the time.
