Marty Essen's Blog, page 267
October 30, 2018
Along the Antarctica coast
Marty’s photo of the day #2701: Iceberg along the coast of Antarctica.
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October 29, 2018
White Ibis
Marty’s photo of the day #2700: This is a white ibis, photographed in the Everglades. This picture is also featured in my second book, Endangered Edens: Exploring the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Costa Rica, the Everglades, and Puerto Rico.
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October 28, 2018
Tiny Donald Trump and his childish vendetta
Tiny Trump* is coming to Montana for the fourth time to campaign against Senator Jon Tester. Only two weeks ago, he was in Missoula; now he’s going to Bozeman. Additionally, he’s sent Mike Pence here twice and Tiny Trump Jr. has practically lived in Montana for the last several months.
Montana is a sparsely populated state of just over one million people. In the past, presidential visits here were rare occurrences. Never has a president come to the state four times in just a few months, much less that many times during their entire presidency.
Why is Tiny Trump doing this? A vendetta, of course. Senator Jon Tester stood up for military veterans and opposed Trump’s nomination to promote Ronny Jackson from White House Physician to Secretary of Veterans Affairs (due to Jackson’s excessive drinking and handing out prescription drugs like candy). When Jackson withdrew rather than answer to the well-sourced accusations, Trump took it personally.
At this moment Jon Tester leads Matt Rosendale by three points, and if Tester wins, it will show the world what a loser Trump is. (Hey, Trump! We already know you’re a loser.) So because Trump can’t bear such a public loss, he’s coming back again—and at great expense to the people of Montana.
If Jon Tester wins, which I think he will, the win will be especially satisfying. And if there is a bright side to Trump’s Montana rallies, it’s that he always goes off-the-rails here more than he does anywhere else. Tiny hasn’t chosen an exact date for visit number four, but you can be sure that he will say something outrageous here that the world will be talking about the next day.
*Thanks to Stormy Daniels for the “Tiny” nickname.
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Front yard elk
Marty’s photo of the day #2699: Deb and I own 25 wooded acres, surrounding our house. Although we see animals every single day, we also miss a lot of them. Lately we’ve been seeing tons of fresh elk poo, but no elk. That changed this morning, when Deb spotted a herd of six or more elk sleeping among the trees on the far side of our “front yard.” I stalked as close as I could, but had to photograph this beautiful bull from roughly fifty yards away.
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October 27, 2018
Bizarre in Borneo
Marty’s photo of the day #2698: Here’s one of the more bizarre creatures I found on the island of Borneo: a saddleback caterpillar.
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October 26, 2018
Sneaking up on impalas
Marty’s photo of the day #2697: Photographer sneaks up to impalas. Impalas say, “Even that fat, old, deaf lion can do better than that!”
(Photographed in Zimbabwe)
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October 25, 2018
Occam’s razor solves the pipe bomb case!
While the FBI tries to figure out who mailed the pipe bombs to Democrats, I will solve the case for them, using Occam’s razor (when presented with competing hypotheses to solve a problem, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions).
Let’s examine the obvious clues:
1) The recipients were on Donald Trump’s enemies list: Who has a bigger beef with his enemies than Trump, the keeper of the list?
2) The bombs didn’t explode, so the bomb maker was incompetent: Who is more incompetent than Donald Trump?
3) Some of the packages were addressed improperly, so the bomb maker didn’t have the attention span to double-check the addresses: Who has a shorter attention span than Donald Trump?
4) Two bombs were mailed to Maxine Waters: Who, other than Donald Trump, couldn’t comprehend that his inauguration crowd was significantly smaller than Barack Obama’s inauguration crowd? Obviously the man can’t count.
5) The bombs were mailed from Florida: Who, other than Donald Trump, spends more time, seemingly doing nothing other than wasting taxpayer dollars, at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida?
6) Debbie Wasserman Schultz was misspelled in the return address on the envelopes: Who, in the history of the world, is more famous for misspellings than Donald Trump?
There you have it. Case closed. Donald Trump is the bomber. Lock him up!
The post Occam’s razor solves the pipe bomb case! appeared first on Around the World with Marty Essen.
Using Occam’s razor to solve the pipe bomber case
While the FBI tries to figure out who mailed the pipe bombs to Democrats, I will solve the case for them, using Occam’s razor (when presented with competing hypotheses to solve a problem, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions).
Let’s examine the obvious clues:
1) The recipients were on Donald Trump’s enemies list: Who has a bigger beef with his enemies than Trump, the keeper of the list?
2) The bombs didn’t explode, so the bomb maker was incompetent: Who is more incompetent than Donald Trump?
3) Some of the packages were addressed improperly, so the bomb maker didn’t have the attention span to double-check the addresses: Who has a shorter attention span than Donald Trump?
4) Two bombs were mailed to Maxine Waters: Who, other than Donald Trump, couldn’t comprehend that his inauguration crowd was significantly smaller than Barack Obama’s inauguration crowd? Obviously the man can’t count.
5) The bombs were mailed from Florida: Who, other than Donald Trump, spends more time, seemingly doing nothing other than wasting taxpayer dollars, at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida?
6) Debbie Wasserman Schultz was misspelled in the return address on the envelopes: Who, in the history of the world, is more famous for misspellings than Donald Trump?
There you have it. Case closed. Donald Trump is the bomber. Lock him up!
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What republicans mean by “unity”
On the heels of pipe bombs sent to prominent liberals, Donald Trump feigned outrage and called for national unity. Then, after realizing he let down his cult, he tweeted, “A very big part of the Anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media that I refer to as Fake News. It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!”
And that pretty much sums up today’s Republican Party: They want unity, but only on their terms. What they are really saying is, “Why can’t Democrats unify with us by loving Fox News and hating brown people, uppity women, the poor, and the environment as much as we do?”
Sorry, if that’s what it takes for unity—fuck unity! How about instead Trump and the Republicans actually give a shit about something other than power, greed, and guns?
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Don’t confuse the baboon with the buffoon
Marty’s photo of the day #2696: Chacma baboons are the world’s largest baboons. They should not be confused with Trumpma buffoons, the world’s largest buffoons.
Photographed in Zimbabwe.
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