Month: January 2018

Moscow’s 2017 December was its ‘darkest’ on record

Markozen.com Weather
Snowstorm in Moscow, 8 Jan 18Image copyrightEPA
Image captionMoscow’s dark and snowy winter continues

December set the record for the least amount of sunshine seen in Moscow, Russian weather experts say.

“The sun didn’t come out even once for the entire month,” said the weather website Meteonovosti.

According to Russia’s main weather centre, the sun did shine for six minutes. But normally Muscovites get dozens of hours of December sunshine.

Russian winters are famously freezing, but this week the cold in Yakutia, in the far east, dipped below -60C (-76F).

It is about -7C in Moscow.

Anastasiagav/Instagram
Image copyrightANASTASIAGAV/INSTAGRAM
Image captionAnastasia Gruzdeva in frozen Yakutia: Her photo was widely shared on social media

Yakutia – a remote region also known as the Sakha Republic – is historically the coldest part of Russia.

“Even for the Sakha Republic, famous for its harsh cold, this temperature is abnormal,” Meteonovosti said.

On Tuesday, the temperature remained below -50C across the vast region, whose capital Yakutsk lies 4,900km (3,045 miles) east of Moscow.

Russian children are usually kept indoors and schools are shut when the cold plunges below -50C.

Sign warning of slippery road in Yangutum, Siberia - 2016 picImage copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image caption Siberia is known for bitterly cold winters and scorching summers

Roman Vilfand, head of the Russian Meteorological Centre, attributed Moscow’s exceptionally overcast weather in December to big cyclonic air masses, which had moved in from the Atlantic.

Moscow’s previous record for December darkness was in 2000, when the capital got just three hours with the sun breaking through the cloud.

Russia’s hot tips for cold weather:

  • Don’t drink spirits – drunkenness causes great heat loss
  • Wear loose clothing to keep blood circulation normal
  • If you feel frost-bitten on a walk, find any warm place – a shop, cafe, doorway – and warm up
  • Don’t remove your boots if your feet are frozen – they’ll swell up and you won’t be able to get your boots on again. Get to a warm place as quickly as possible. You could shove your frozen hands in your armpits to warm them up
  • If your car breaks down far away from habitation, you should stay in your car and phone for help or wait for another vehicle to come along the road
  • Avoid the wind, as it increases the risk of freezing
  • When children are outdoors they should return to the warmth every 15-20 minutes.

Source: Russian Emergencies Ministry

BBC

Downtown Moscow

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California Speeding

Markozen.com Bizarre, Offbeat
A car dangles off the upper floor of a building after hitting a road divider in California.Image copyrightREUTERS
Image captionThe car was catapulted into the upper floor of the building

A speeding car in California was hurled into the upper floor of an office building after it hit a road divider, reports say.

The crash, which left one half of the vehicle hanging out of the building, occurred early on Sunday morning.

Both people in the car survived the crash but suffered minor injuries, according to police.

Police told US media outlets that the driver had allegedly used drugs and was in hospital for observation.

One of the two people was able to get out of the car but the other was stuck inside for more than an hour until rescuers arrived.

The crash also set off a small fire which was put out by fire officials, who tweeted photos and updates through the day.

Images

Markozen.com Images

Juxtaposition

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Same bull, bottom photo taken 5 years after the top one.

jan 14

Apartment building

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Plain clothes New York police officer arresting a mugger, circa 1970’s.

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Older fella walks into an hardware store holding a grungy old cat, when he gets to the front of the line he plops the feline on the counter. Clerk doesn’t look like a cat lover.

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Enterprise

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Kids with their new backpacks

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Border Collie convention

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Eerie looking clouds

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Slippery Slope

Markozen.com Aviation

Panic broke out on a passenger jet when it skidded off the runway at a Turkish airport and plunged down the side of a cliff overlooking the sea.

The Pegasus Airlines Boeing 737-800 with 168 passengers and crew had flown from Ankara and landed at Trabzon on the Black Sea coast late on Saturday.

Everyone on board was evacuated safely, provincial governor Yucel Yavuz said. No injuries were reported.

The cause of the accident is being investigated, officials said.

State-run Anadolu news agency said there was panic on board as the plane went out of control.

Pictures show the jet lying nose down on a muddy slope just metres from the water’s edge.

“We tilted to the side. The front was down while the plane’s rear was up. There was panic, people shouting, screaming,” passenger Fatma Gordu was quoted as saying.

Mr Yavuz said the airport was closed for several hours while investigations took place.

In a statement Pegasus Airlines said the plane “had a runway excursion incident” as it landed at Trabzon.

I would have died from a heart attack. Unless I would have had 6 alcohol drinks in me, then I would have enjoyed it.

Pegasus Airlines aircraft pictured after it skidded off the runway at Trabzon airport by the Black Sea, Turkey, January 14, 2018Image copyrightREUTERS
Image caption It is not yet clear why the plane careered off the runway
BBC

Reality TV Personalities Vying for the White House in 2020

Markozen.com Fake News, Politics

Trump was the first Reality TV celeb to make it to the White House, good or bad depending on your political stripes. Now Oprah Winfrey is hinting she may make a run for President in 2020. Only in America, television celebrities with good ratings are the heroes that achieve anything they want.

Crystal Ball 2019

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News Bulletin Sun-Times: Donald Trump was impeached and sent to prison on various rape and sexual molestation convictions. Former President Trump was out of the 2020 White House race.

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Oprah Winfrey pounced on the opportunity and declared her candidacy for president. Being the smart strategist that Oprah is, she realized her running mate should be another likable reality TV star.

Non other than Cesar Milan!

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Oprah surmised that she could garner redneck votes by bringing a dogman onto the ticket.

With Trump cooped up at Sing Sing prison in New Jersey, the Republicans decided to follow the Democrats tactics.

The GOP ticket for 2020 would be made up of Pawn Stars head honcho Rick Harrison for president, and the running mate would be the Ghost Hunter RotoRooter plumber. Harrison’s political views are to the right of Heinrich Himmler. He is a rabid capitalist whose life source is sustained by massive gobs of cash.

It has been purported that he prays nightly at his own private money temple in his Las Vegas mansion. The temple is made up of pure gold and silver with a gigantic dollar sign in the middle. When he is done worshiping the god Mammon begging for more money he gets to work on his super computer bitcoin mining machine, most of the time assisted by the chubby Chumlee.

What a team! Every bald man’s dream team!

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The GOP figured they could garner redneck votes by having a plumber on the ticket.

Strange Unique Airports

Markozen.com Aviation

Engineers tasked with building an airport are faced with countless challenges: The ideal location needs ample space, endless flat ground, favorable winds and great visibility. But spots in the real world are rarely ideal, and engineers are forced to work with what they have, making sure that the end product is the safest possible structure for pilots. A survey of airports around the world turns up a mixed bag, ranging from dangerous and rugged landing strips to mega-size facilities that operate like small cities. Here, PM explores the world’s most remarkable airports and why they stand out.

 

Kansai International Airport

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(PHOTOGRAPH BY TDK)

Osaka, Japan

Background:
Land is a scarce resource in Japan, so engineers headed roughly 3 miles offshore into Osaka Bay to build this colossal structure. Work on the manmade island started in 1987, and by 1994 jumbo jets were touching down. Travelers can get from the airport to the main island of Honshu via car, railroad or even a high-speed ferry.

Why It’s Unique:
Kansai’s artificial island is 2.5 miles long and 1.6 miles wide—so large that it’s visible from space. Earthquakes, dangerous cyclones, an unstable seabed, and sabotage attempts from protestors are just some of the variables engineers were forced to account for. As impressive as the airport is, Stewart Schreckengast, a professor of aviation technology at Purdue University and a former aviation consultant with MITRE, cautions that climate change and rising sea levels pose a very real threat to the airport’s existence. “When this was built, [engineers] probably didn’t account for global warming,” he says. “In 50 years or so, this might be underwater.”

 

Gibraltar Airport

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Gibraltar

Background:
Between Morocco and Spain sits the tiny British territory of Gibraltar. Construction of the airport dates back to World War II, and it continues to serve as a base for the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force, though commercial flights land on a daily basis.

Why It’s Unique:
Winston Churchill Avenue, Gibraltar’s busiest road, cuts directly across the runway. Railroad-style crossing gates hold cars back every time a plane lands or departs. “There’s essentially a mountain on one side of the island and a town on the other,” Schreckengast says. “The runway goes from side to side on the island because it’s the only flat space there, so it’s the best they can do. It’s a fairly safe operation as far as keeping people away,” he says, “It just happens to be the best place to land, so sometimes it’s a road and sometimes it’s a runway.”

 

Madeira International Airport

airport

Portugal

Background:

Madeira is a small island far off the coast of Portugal, which makes an airport that is capable of landing commercial-size aircraft vital to its development. This airport’s original runway was only about 5000 feet long, posing a huge risk to even the most experienced pilots and limiting imports and tourism.

Why It’s Unique:
Engineers extended the runway to more than 9000 feet by building a massive girder bridge atop about 200 pillars. The bridge, which itself is over 3000 feet long and 590 feet wide, is strong enough to handle the weight of 747s and similar jets. In 2004, the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering selected the expansion project for its Outstanding Structure Award, noting that the design and construction was both “sensitive to environmental and aesthetic considerations.”

Don Mueang International

don mueang international airport bangkok thailand

Bangkok, Thailand

Background:
From a distance Don Mueang International looks like any other midsize airport. However, smack-dab in the middle of the two runways is an 18-hole golf course.

Why It’s Unique:
Schreckengast, who has worked on consulting projects at this airport, says one of the major problems is that the only taxiways were located at the end of the runways. “We recommended that they build an additional taxiway in the middle, from side to side, and they said ‘absolutely not, that will take out a green and one fairway.'” The airport and the course were originally an all-military operation, but have since opened up to commercial traffic. Security threats, however, have limited the public’s access to the greens.

 

Ice Runway

ice runway antarctica

Antarctica

Background:
The Ice Runway is one of three major airstrips used to haul supplies and researchers to Antarctica’s McMurdo Station. As its name implies, there are no paved runways here—just long stretches of ice and snow that are meticulously groomed.

Why It’s Unique:
There is no shortage of space on the Ice Runway, so super-size aircraft like the C-130 Hercules and the C-17 Globemaster III can land with relative ease. The real challenge is making sure that the weight of the aircraft and cargo doesn’t bust the ice or get the plane stuck in soft snow. As the ice of the runway begins to break up, planes are redirected to Pegasus Field or Williams Field, the two other airstrips servicing the continent.

 

Congonhas Airport

congonhas airport sao paulo brazil

(PHOTOGRAPH BY MARIORDO)

Sao Paulo, Brazil

Background:
Most major cities have an airport, but rarely are they built just 5 miles from the city center, especially in metropolises like Sao Paulo. Congonhas’ close proximity to downtown can be attributed in part to the fact that it was completed in 1936, with the city experiencing rapid development in the following decades.

Why It’s Unique:
While having an airport only 5 miles from the city center may be a convenience for commuters, it places a strain on both pilots and air traffic control crews. “It becomes a challenge in terms of safety to just get the plane in there,” Schreckengast says. “Then you throw on noise restrictions and these terribly awkward arrival and departure routes that are needed to minimize your noise-print and it becomes quite challenging for pilots.” Fortunately, Sao Paulo’s many high-rise buildings are far enough away from the airport that they aren’t an immediate obstacle for pilots landing or taking off.

 

Canadian, Texas

Markozen.com Geography

Canadian is a city in and the county seat of Hemphill County, Texas, United States. The population was 2,649 at the 2010 census. It is named for the Canadian River, a tributary of the nearby Arkansas River. Incorporated in 1908, Canadian is sometimes called “the oasis of the High Plains.” Canadian is on the eastern side of the Texas Panhandle adjacent to Oklahoma.

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canadian

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It is unclear why the river is called the Canadian. On John C. Fremont’s route map of 1845, the river’s name is listed as “Goo-al-pah or Canadian River” from the Comanche and Kiowa name for the river (Kiowa gúlvàu, (IPA: [gúdl-p’ɔː]) ‘red river’). In 1929 Muriel H. Wright wrote that the Canadian River was named about 1820 by French traders who noted another group of traders from Canada (Canadiens) had camped on the river near its confluence with the Arkansas River.

According to the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, Spanish explorers in the 17th and 18th centuries called it the Rio Buenaventura and the Magdalena. The upper part was called Rio Colorado by the Spanish.

A more recent explanation comes from William Bright, who wrote that the name is “probably derived from Río Canadiano”, a Spanish spelling of the Caddo word káyántinu, which was the Caddos’ name for the nearby Red River.

The name could be of Spanish origin from the word cañada (meaning “glen”), as the Canadian River formed a steep canyon in northern New Mexico and a somewhat broad canyon in Texas. A few historical records document this explanation. Edward Hale, writing in 1929, considered the French origin of the name most probable.

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I’m pretty sure there is no American in Canada. But there is a Arizona, Manitoba.

Church is an Alien Space Ship for Reptiles

Markozen.com Paranormal

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Authorities in Michigan arrested a man after he allegedly shot out a window at a church because he believed that it was an alien space ship!

The bizarre incident occurred yesterday morning at the Zion Church in the city of Troy and would have likely been chalked up to an unsettling case of vandalism had things not taken a turn for the strange.

After police investigated the broken window and returned to the station, they received a phone call from a proverbial ‘person of interest’ claiming to be behind the shooting.

“He was talking very strangely about how the Zion Church is an alien space ship for reptiles,” police chief Bob Redmond told TV station Fox2.

Unfortunately for the aspiring member of the reptilian resistance, the cops weren’t quite sold on his story as Redmond mused that he listened for “about 30 seconds and that was the end of that.”

They were, however, able to trace the call and promptly took the person into custody for a mental health evaluation, since his reptilian-based reasoning for the shooting rightfully struck them as rather troubling.

Just give the Reptilian Aliens a seat in the United Nations and we can get them to participate in a peaceful and meaningful way.

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