The world record for shearing sheep has just been won - at 517 sheep in 9 hours
Amtrak is set to establish the first new service east of New Orleans. Rather than extending the old Sunset Limited line, this is is a brand new line servicing Mobile and points between.
Rhode Island has an area of 1,034 sq mi, and Luxembourg, 999 sq mi, which is remarkably similar in size. It looks like crossing the state (Pascoag to Little Compton) is about 56 mi and typically 1h5m to 1h20m, while crossing the country (Weiswampach to Rumelange) is about 59 mi and typically 1h5m to 1h15m.
Excellent comparison!
Funnily enough, you chose “the hard way” to cross the country, north to south. From east to west, the expressways are much more robust, with only a bit of a detour-loop as the A6 rings around Luxembourg City in the middle. So by contrast with your north-south route, if you start in Grevenmacher on the eastern border (with Germany) and head west, you’ll reach the IKEA just across the Belgian border in less than 40 minutes.
The message is, “Don’t be afraid of bronze!”
Yeah, bad fact checkers. The detector is for neutrinos. It’s deep enough underground that cosmic rays aren’t an issue there, but radiation from the surrounding earth could be. The relevance of cosmic rays is that the lead was mostly shielded from cosmic rays all this time by the water.
My mistake; it’s actually a third attempt at establishing the Gulf Coast Limited. The previous two didn’t last long.
Yes, I was trying to bolster the claim that Luxembourg (and Rhode Island) are not as small as most Americans think. But there are faster ways to cross them, for those so inclined. 
Why do they make fun of Luxembourg being small when there’s Liechtenstein?
Andorra?
San Marino?
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta?
Monaco? Vatican City?
I mention these just so that I can point out that I have been to Monaco, Vatican City, San Marino and Andorra.
And Malta, but that’s relatively huge.
j.
ETA - I just checked. Andorra is bigger than Malta. Ooops
So I deduce that you have never been to Liechtenstein? Never mind, I have never been to San Marino.
In Valetta, Malta, there is an estabishment called The Pub, which has its walls heavily adorned with Oliver Reed mementos, being the place where he fell off the barstool upon bendering himself literally to death.
No, never been to Liechtenstein. But here’s a slightly interesting fact about San Marino. I went there on business - the manufacturer we were visiting had a main factory in San Marino (established there for tax reasons) and a second factory about five km away in Italy. If you worked in the Italian factory you got paid more, because you had to pay Italian taxes.
j
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But I kinda like the music.
Speaking of music, I just this minute read a brilliant story about the Stones on tour and the late great Charlie Watts.
One anecdote relates that in the mid-1980s, an intoxicated Jagger phoned Watts’s hotel room in the middle of the night, asking, “Where’s my drummer?” Watts reportedly got up, shaved, dressed in a suit, put on a tie and freshly shined shoes, descended the stairs, and punched Jagger in the face, saying: “Never call me your drummer again. You’re my fucking singer !”
From: Charlie Watts - Wikipedia
j
Nor me. But did I read somewhere that one of its principal products is false teeth?
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller wanted to include the bizarre parody “Italian Spiderman” as a character in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, but Marvel’s lawyers wouldn’t let them.
