Summer cabin for sale in Iceland

Dunno, the air fare might make a visit impractical, but maybe it could be a profitable rental?

The listing, in Icelandic.

This dreamy cabin a short drive from Reykjavik is up for grabs, two kayaks included in the price.

The cabin measures only 37 square metres and was built in 2012.  It stands at a small lake popular for recreation called Meðalfellsvatn and is situated on the other side of Mount Esja, the mountain overlooking Reykjavik. 

The cabin is stylishly decorated and includes a trendy SMEG fridge and stove.  But maybe black isn't a really good color, unless it's painted that way to absorb solar heat.

Plus, a fishing river right there.  I'd guess that unless there's a big waterfall downstream, there would be a salmon run.

Gather up your Icelandic Krona boys and girls, this one might be a good deal.

The crumpled remains of the rover Opportunity's heat shield on a sandy plain on Mars.

Plus two very nice springs.

Oh, I'm remembering this one.

Hey, if it gets you back to pavement...

Those tires....

Mistakes were made.

Boomity boom boom

Hat tip Xbrad

Skills. He has them.

The delightful and classy Fred Astaire

Won't see his like again.

Heh, indeed.

Wonder where these all went? It would be amazing if any were still airworthy.

For the Grindadrap...

Spyderco C89SYL Atlantic Salt, Yellow FRN Handle, Serrated

Bucket list item: Visit the Faroe Islands and see the Grindadráp, or whale hunt.

Whaling in the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic is the harvesting and slaughter of long-finned pilot whales when they are driven to swim near the islands, and has been practiced since about the time of the first Norse settlements on the islands. The whaling is mentioned in the Sheep Letter, a Faroese law from 1298, a supplement to the Norwegian Gulating law.

 It is regulated by the Faroese authorities.  Around 800 long-finned pilot whales and some Atlantic white-sided dolphin are slaughtered annually, mainly during the summer. The hunts, called grindadráp in Faroese, are non-commercial and are organized on a community level. Anyone who has a special training certificate on slaughtering a pilot whale with the spinal-cord lance can participate.  This was not necessary earlier, but because of constant criticism from animal welfare organizations, the Faroese people try to improve the slaughtering methods in order to make them more humane, or end the slaughter altogether.

 The Grind law was updated in 2015, where one of the regulations demanded that the whalers followed a course on how to slaughter a pilot whale with the spinal-cord lance.  The police and Grindaformenn are allowed to remove people from the grind area.  The hunters first surround the pilot whales with a wide semicircle of boats. The boats then drive the pilot whales into a bay or to the bottom of a fjord. Not all bays are certified, and the slaughter will only take place on a certified beach.

Archaeological evidence from the early Norse settlement of the Faroe Islands c. 1200 years ago, in the form of pilot whale bones found in household remains in Gøta, indicates that the pilot whale has long had a central place in the everyday life of Faroe Islanders. Records of drive hunts in the Faroe Islands date back to 1584.  The meat and blubber of the pilot whale have been an important part of the islanders’ staple diet. The islanders have particularly valued blubber: both as food and for processing into oil, which they used for lighting fuel and other purposes like medicine.  In older days, it was used for medicinal purposes. People also used parts of the skin of pilot whales for ropes and lines, while utilising the stomachs as fishing floats.

 The pilot whale population in the eastern North Atlantic is approximately 778,000, of which around 100,000 are around the Faroes. The Faroese catch around 800 whales a year on average, it says. The long-term annual average catch of pilot whales in the Faroe Islands represents less than 1 percent of the total eastern North Atlantic whale population, according to the spokesman for the Faroe Islands government. “It has long since been internationally recognised that pilot whale catches in the Faroe Islands are fully sustainable,” he said.

It's admittedly a bit gruesome, but not really much different than what happens in any slaughterhouse.  If you eat meat, then some version of this occurs to bring that to you, and this event is just another version of the necessary process, albeit in a very traditional, highly cultural manner, and in an exceptionally scenic location.

Hat tip to Virtual Mirage author LL for reminding me of this.  Freckles rule!

Takakkaw Falls, Alberta - another bucket list location I gotta visit.

"Takakkaw", loosely translated from Cree, means something like "it is magnificent". The falls are fed by the Daly Glacier, which is part of the Waputik Icefield. The glacier keeps the volume of the falls up during the warm summer months, and they are a tourist attraction, particularly in late spring after the heavy snow melts, when the falls are at peak condition.

You can see the Daly Glacier above the falls in this photo.

A shout out to Everybody Has To Be Somewhere,  who has a nice post on this wonderful place.

This is called rubbing their faces in it.

One Republican senator is proposing a new solution for sanctuary cities that do not follow the law: take some of their federal funding and transfer it to a budget for President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall.

Sen. Luther Strange said he believes his legislation is a “fiscally conservative” way to help provide funds for the promised border wall.

None of the funds allocated would be earmarked for other purposes other than transportation, Strange said.

“And I want to be clear about that these are not funds to pay for emergency preparedness, health care, or public safety,” Strange said. “They are transportation and infrastructure funds and they will be going to fund a major infrastructure project.”

Related:

Democrats propose cutting funding for ICE, Border Patrol.  Of course they do.  Gotta replace the native population with Third Worlders who will vote Democrat. 

Also related:

States refuse Trump Commission's request for voter data.  I wonder why?

Also also related:

Phoenix crime rate drops 20% after it renounces its sanctuary city status.  According to City-Data.com, which collects data from various government agencies, from 2008 to 2009 Phoenix's murder rate fell 27 percent, robberies by 23 percent, assault by 13 percent, burglaries by 14 percent and theft by 19 percent.