SOME INTERESTING STUFF

Kenji Sumida sent me the following interesting stuff.  Below are only some of them.  He even is responsible for the title, and said these types of pupus (Hawaiian for appetizers) are what he generally learns from this blog site.  I've actually cited some of them in the past.

1.  Alaska

More than half of the coastline of the entire United States is in Alaska

2.  Amazon

The Amazon rainforest produces more than 20% of the world's oxygen supply. The Amazon River pushes so much water into the Atlantic Ocean that, more than one hundred miles at sea off the mouth of the river, one can dip fresh water out of the ocean. The volume of water in the Amazon river is greater than the next eight largest rivers in the world combined and three times the flow of all rivers in the United State

3.  Antarctica

Antarctica is the only land on our planet that is not owned by any country. Ninety percent of the world's ice covers Antarctica. This ice also represents seventy percent of all the fresh water in the world. As strange as it sounds, however, Antarctica is essentially a desert; the average yearly total precipitation is about two inches. Although covered with ice (all but 0.4% of it, ice.), Antarctica is the driest place on the planet, with an absolute humidity lower than the Gobi desert.

4.  Damascus, Syria

Damascus, Syria, was flourishing a couple of thousand years before Rome was founded in 753 BC, making it the oldest continuously inhabited city in existence.

(Perhaps you can now better appreciate the land of Bashar al-Assad.)

5.  Los Angeles

Los Angeles ' full name is:
El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula
-- and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: L.A.

6.  New York City

The term 'The Big Apple' was coined by touring jazz musicians of the 1930s who used the slang expression 'apple' for any town or city.
Therefore, to play New York City is to play the big time - The Big Apple.

There are more Irish in New York City than in Dublin, Ireland; more Italians in New York City than in Rome, Italy; and more Jews in New York City than in Tel Aviv, Israel .

7.  Rome

The first city to reach a population of 1 million people was Rome, Italy in 133 B.C. There is a city called Rome on every continent.

8.  Sahara Desert

In the Sahara Desert, there is a town named Tidikelt, Algeria, which did not receive a drop of rain for ten years. Technically though, the driest place on Earth is in the valleys of the Antarctic near Ross Island. There has been no rainfall there for two million years.

9.  Russia

The deepest hole ever drilled by man is the Kola Superdeep Borehole, in Russia. It reached a depth of 12,261 meters (about 40,226 feet or 7.62 miles). It was drilled for scientific research and gave up some unexpected discoveries, one of which was a huge deposit of hydrogen - so massive that the mud coming from the hole was boiling with it.  (I like his photo better than mine.)

10.  United States

The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.

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