Cleveland baby born at 10:11, 12/13/14

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Hey look, it's Opie Cunningham!

Today I [re]learned about an animal I'd become unaware of...

The fossa.

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From the first link:

Looks like the kind of critter you'd find out in a cold rain, bring home to a warm dry hearth, then it rips your throat out while you sleep. You know, like a cat. :p:

I know this is a strange post, but today I learned how far a continent can move in 16.6 million years !

After our family moved to Oregon in 1975, I did a bit of reading about Oregon’s geology.
Back then, geologists were argueing about the origins of two main flows of lava
in eastern Oregon at the Idaho border (now the Snake River).

Lately, I’ve been reading “ In Search of Ancient Oregon ” by Helen Morris Bishop,
and learned that back in 2002, Peter Hooper of Washington State University showed
that the “hot spot” of Yellowstone National Park actually originated with the formation
of Steens Mountain in south-east Oregon.

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And the North American continent has moved westward while the hot spot stayed in place.

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The answer is about 550 miles… thanks to Google Maps !

!!!!!!!!

I wonder if that means the Atlantic Rift has widened by that same amount during the same time period, or is Europe moving west also?

How long did that move take?

lamplighter said 16.6 million years.

Today I learned that the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, is not connected to a sewage system. They use trucks to collect all the sewage each day and truck it across town to a treatment facility.

They are doing it old school.
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Ok, not really like that.

The truth is more shocking. Dubai has no real sewage system, so trucks haul it all to a treatment facility and wait in a very long line for hours and hours and hours to drop the kids off at the pool.

Wow. I guess that's what happens when the private money explodes and no one invests in infrastructure for everyone...

Maybe they shouldn't have built on the shifting sands.

Man! what a load of shit.

That looks like a job for The Shit-men!

Today, I learned about Times Beach, Missouri.

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