Bill Murray's Blog, page 47
November 29, 2018
Northern Lights Webcam. Sometimes.
“Enontekiö – the land of northern lights & polar night.” Click this static image for the live webcam:
Enontekiö is here:
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November 28, 2018
Endeavor Found?
The ship Captain Cook used to ‘discover’ Australia may have been found — sunken in a U.S. harbor.
And while we’re down under (in more ways than one), how about a spin through 409 photos, like this one, from around Australia, at EarthPhotos.com.
Quotes: The American President on Pollution
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“You look at our air and our water and it’s right now at a record clean. But when you look at China and you look at parts of Asia and you look at South America, and when you look at many other places in this world, including Russia, including many other places, the air is incredibly dirty, and when you’re talking about an atmosphere, oceans are very small. And it blows over and it sails over. I mean we take thousands of tons of garbage off our beaches all the time that comes over from Asia. It just flows right down the Pacific. It flows and we say, ‘Where does this come from?’ And it takes many people, to start off with.”
From an interview with Donald Trump in The Washington Post.
November 27, 2018
Crossing the Black Sea
Because Ukraine is back in crisis this week, with some of its military ships impounded by Russia during an attempted trip from Odessa through the Kerch Strait, this might be a good time to revisit a trip from several years back between Istanbul and Odessa by overnight ferry. Here’s how that went:
From 2007:
Today we’d sail on the Yuzhnaya Palmyra, a ship of the UKRFerry shipping company, on once weekly service Istanbul to Odessa. It was to be an approximately 28 hour crossing of the Black Sea south to north, although we’d have to see about the timing.
Departure was set for 9:00 on the web, 10:00 on our ticket (a hard copy they insisted on sending via DHL for $70 from Ukraine to the U.S.), and 11:00 by the people at the hotel, who made some calls on our behalf. So arrival as well, I suspected, ought to be approximate.
We presented ourselves down at the Karakoy docks shortly past 8:00 a.m. “Actual Time,” as the reception clock had it. We had ample time for a spin up and down ship, stem to stern, and an extended goodbye to the mosques filling the Istanbul skyline, lying at anchor, as…
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Quotes: On Vladimir Putin
‘If he was that sure of himself,’ Obama said, ‘he wouldn’t have his picture taken riding around with his shirt off.’
Ben Rhodes in The World as It Is.
November 20, 2018
EU Coalition Explorer
A fascinating document for Europhiles, with charts, graphs, survey results. It just goes on and on.
Rake News from Finland
Little Known Fact: Visitors to Finnish forests are not allowed in until first being trained on the proper use of a rake by a Finnish Rake Ranger. @realDonaldTrump #RakeAmericaGreatAgain #ClimateChangeIsReal #CaliforniaFires #CaliforniaWildfires #finland pic.twitter.com/BDzqNy97j2
— Gary Cascio (@garycascio) November 19, 2018
In Finland even small kids rake forests.#raking #finland #forestrake #rakefinlandgreatagain pic.twitter.com/1eG7sJdLqM
— Anders Furu (@ATFuru) November 18, 2018
Just finished #raking in forest in my neighborhood. Compulsory here in Finland , at least 2 hours a day raking or wildfires would burn whole country. Rake America great again, Mr President Trump #RAGA pic.twitter.com/FzZ1Us2U5k
— Raking Citizen Halo
November 18, 2018
November 16, 2018
Faroe Islands
Finding local.fo, “the only English-language news media in the Faroe Islands reporting Faroese news” is a plenty good reason to share a couple of photos of one of earth’s most beautiful places. Local.fo is also on Twitter @faroesenews. Above is the famous waterfall at the Faroese village of Gásadalur. Below, the capital, Tórshavn, and at bottom, the village of Tjørnuvík. Click ’em to make ’em bigger.
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There are a few more Faroes photos here, and here’s an excerpt from my book Out in the Cold, about a trip to the village of Saksun.
Tying yourself up in knots – how not to run a country.
Love this piece on Brexit from the blog myusuf2016 and I’m happy to reblog it here so you can consider it, too.
On Wednesday the cabinet agreed a pathway to Brexit. After five hours of talking. I don’t know about you but I’d go crazy in a five hour meeting and would probably agree anything just to get out of the room. And it was a majority decision. In other words some in the cabinet disagreed with the proposals contained in the 500 plus page document. How did we get to this stage?
We have to go back to the referendum campaign where all sorts of wild promises were made. I know lies were told on both sides. But in politics no one remembers what the losers said. Once the vote is counted people look to the victors to deliver on their promises. Amongst the promises made were that you could leave the EU, stay in the single market and end free movement of people across the borders. Boris Johnson in an…
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