Eideard

The Manneken-Pis, a bronze statue of a young boy urinating that is a symbol of Brussels and a major tourist attraction, has had to stop peeing because of sub-zero temperatures…

Officials turned off the flow of water through the statue, which has stood on a Brussels corner since the 1600s, out of concern the cold might damage its internal mechanism.

Temperatures in the Belgian capital were set to fall to minus 10 Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) Wednesday night, far below the average minimum for February.

“It all depends on the weather, if the temperatures go up again it will work again,” a tourist office spokeswoman said.

The statue, which is on the site of a 15th Century drinking fountain, has more than 800 specially made outfits which city officials use to dress it up during the year. It is one of Brussels’ most popular attractions.

I have been in circumstances when I worried about it being too cold to pee. Normal pressures won out over weather.

This “Winter Road” garage door cover by style-your-garage.com makes it look like a long road stretches through a snow-covered landscape behind your garage. The brainchild of Thomas Sassenbach, “Style-Your-Garage.com” has updated its collection of designs for the holiday season. This is the first time that the German firm has produced a Christmas collection to add to its popular tromp l’oeil garage coverings.

Near and dear to my heart.

Garage doors more so than the winter solstice holidays.

Since the Cold War, Denmark has staked its claim to northern Greenland – and its untapped mineral wealth – with dog sledge patrols. This is the Sirius Patrol in numbers…

Each autumn, six dog sledge teams – each manned by two soldiers from the Royal Danish Navy – spend up to six months patrolling an area of 160,000 sq km. They are the only people in a vast wilderness about three times the size of Denmark, or the equivalent of Britain and France combined.

During winter the sun disappears for two months. The average yearly temperature is -10C and the mercury can dip as low as -55C – the lowest recorded temperature in the area.

There are up to 14 dogs in each team, and a day’s patrol will typically cover 30km. At night the soldiers retire to a hi-tech tent. The dogs sleep outside, even in the depths of winter.

The unit selectively breeds Greenlandic dogs for endurance and strength. Each dog works for five years. By the time it retires, a dog in the Sirius Patrol will have pulled sledges for more than 20,000km.

During a two-year placement with the unit, the soldiers are paid a monthly salary of 22,000 Danish kroner after tax. That’s a little over $3,700. Their arctic training includes dog handling, building emergency snow shelters, and hunting for food…

In 1950, with the Cold War cooling international relations, Denmark decided to establish a permanent military presence. Initially christened Operation Resolut, it was renamed Sirius in 1953 after the brightest star in the dog constellation.

The Cold War has long since ended, but Greenland remains a desirable territory, rich in oil and precious metals. The environment is too extreme for current mining technology, but the patrols secure Denmark’s claim to this valuable wilderness simply by their presence.

Their presence is tolerated by the newly independent government of Greenland. It’s handier than spending your own money on the military. The dogs are always welcome.

What do you need to generate a lot of electricity from photoelectric solar cells? A lot of surface area. What is a lot of the surface of the United States covered in? Roads. Put those two ideas together, and the idea of turning the nation’s highways into solar farms doesn’t sound too odd, does it? Well, maybe it doesn’t until you consider that you’re talking about taking electronics – electronics that are typically somewhat delicate and rather expensive – and purposely putting them on the ground where heavy vehicles will zoom over them at high speed…

Replacing crushed stone and tar with LEDs and capacitors seems so unlikely that when Solar Roadways was awarded $100,000 to construct a small, 12′ by 12′ prototype system in 2009, infrastructure blog The Infrastructionist gave the effort its “Dubious Green Scheme” award and labeled Solar Roadways not just “harebrained” but “totally batshit crazy.”

As it turns out, that initial panel impressed the Department of Transportation enough that Solar Roadways has now been given $750,000 to take it to the next step: a solar parking lot. Constructed out of multiple 12′ x 12′ panels, the smart parking lot will do more than the asphalt alternative. It will warm itself in cold weather to melt away snow and ice. A layer of embedded LEDs can be used create traffic warnings or crosswalks. Electricity leftover from those tasks could be used to charge electric vehicles or routed into the power grid. The electrical components will be embedded between layers of hardened, textured glass – this may sound fragile, but is already tough enough that some areas use the material for sidewalks.

Parking lots, driveways, and eventually highways are all targets for the panels. If the nation’s system of interstate highways was surfaced with Solar Roadways panels, the results would be more than three times the amount of electricity currently consumed. Of course, at $100,000 per 12′, costs would need to come down significant bit before that could happen.

Obviously, the editors never compared the cost of building solar roadways to typical American highway boondoggles. The record is held by a project near and dear to my heart – Boston’s Big Dig. A three-and-a-half mile tunnel that ended up costing over $14 billion.

Plus he’s extrapolating from the first 12′ x 12′ panel. The parking lot project will reduce square foot cost as will further ramping up towards capacity production. All of which he doubtless knows.

High temperature, here in La Cieneguilla, New Mexico, was 3ºF. Wind chill hit -19ºF.

Click on the picture for the really large image -

- then, wander over to the nasa.gov site for the details. Impressive work.

Over a thousand South Korean civilians braved sub-zero temperatures around the country to take part in boot camps run by a special commando unit, hoping to get into shape and improve their self-discipline.

The boot camps, which run for three days and have been held since 2003, are aimed at “educating” civilians about national security in a country that shares a heavily-armed border with North Korea…

About 250 people, including some high school students, took part in the boot camp at Bucheon, just west of Seoul, one of six run around the country.

Instead of staying warm at home during their winter break, participants wearing camouflage dragged parachutes, underwent training in a tear-gas filled hut and took part in “flying fox” exercises from a wooden tower. The cold was unforgiving, with temperatures hitting 14ºF in Seoul and surrounding areas…

South Korea has a mandatory conscription policy for men, who have to complete 24 months of military service between graduating from high school and turning 30.

The boot camps have been running since 2003 and 18,000 people have taken part. The oldest was a 49-year-old housewife, army officials said…

“After the training, we expect them to live life with hope and challenge themselves, rather than feeling abandoned and frustrated, while thinking about the camp slogan: ‘Make the impossible possible’”…said Lieutenant Colonel Kim Jong-tak.

Some participants said the training had in fact changed their outlook on life.

“Once I get out of here, I will be good to my mother. I will be good to my mother and father and willingly help them,” said 15-year-old Woo Seung-yeon.

Otherwise they may send you back, eh?

You may tire of photos of some of the places I walk with Rally. I always seem to return to my favorite places.

Actually what caught my eye is the willow thickets maturing in the river bosque which seem to be getting redder through each succeeding winter – since their restoration from grazing range.

…staffers get to play in the water, as well!

There is a classic Italian “peasant” soup called ribollita (which, literally translated, means “re-boiled”) that you’ll often see on posh Italian restaurant menus these days. I’m not knocking it, as it remains one of my favourite soups for cold nights (not to mention a great way to use up stale bread), but with all the lashings of extra virgin, parmesan and pancetta, I can’t help questioning its working class commitment …

Serves 6

10 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
100g pancetta, diced (optional)
2 red onions, diced
2 carrots, diced
4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
Bunch of flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1 tin of borlotti beans
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
500ml light chicken or veg stock
Half a small savoy cabbage, cored and roughly chopped
250g ciabatta, crusts off and torn into chunks (preferably a day old)
A fat nugget of parmesan, with rind

1 Heat half the oil in a large, wide pan. 2 Once hot (but not smoking) add the (optional) pancetta, followed a couple of minutes later by the onion, carrot, garlic and parsley. Give it a good stir. 3 Put a lid on it and cook slowly for 20-30 minutes, stirring regularly. 4 Tip half the beans in with the veggies and mash the other half with a potato masher before stirring them in too. 5 Pour in the tinned tomatoes and the stock, and chuck in any old rind of parmesan (it’s wise to keep these as they are a great source of flavour). 6 When the soup has come to the boil, stir in the roughly chopped cabbage leaves and turn down to the lowest heat. 7 Season well, stir in the chunks of bread and put the lid back on the pan. Don’t play with it too much as you want nice chunks of bread. 8 After 10 minutes, turn off the heat, pour in another healthy glug of olive oil and let it sit with the lid on for a good 5 minutes before serving with yet more oil and some grated parmesan.

OK. Jump over to here for many more recipes for soups and stews. The GUARDIAN does folks a service by reminding us how easy and substantial cold weather cooking can be.

Enjoy the recipes.