Slashdot Mirror

So, 13,000 gallons per second of fresh water flow and we can get around 100MW. Let's go on a math exercise, shall we?

The average combined cycle plant is (at a minimum) around 400MW. Not including co-gens, etc. Just normal power plants sitting out in the middle of nowhere. Fukishima is around 4900MW. Fukishima isn't really fair because it is, by any measure, a large nuke plant. But, 400-1200MW is not an unreasonable range for "typical" power plants in the US, regardless of the technology used (coal, nuke, combined cycle, direct fire, etc)

At 400MW, you are talking 52,000 gallons PER SECOND of water flow. That, by any measure, is a shitload of flow. At 1200MW, we are talking 156,000 gallons per second.

For comparison, I just looked up the flow rate of the Mississippi river at the high water dam near Lake Itasca. Going thru the Upper St Anthony's falls lock and dam, the flow rate is around 90,000 gal/sec.

So for ONE reasonably sized power plant, you would need fresh water flow that is the equivalent of the Mississippi River.

As I said, it's a scale problem.

They already put their Japanese citizens in concentration camps for "national security", so I'm not convinced your plan will work.

Robert Pollard may suggest Mammoth Caaaave

I wonder if this could help explain the origin of invasive pythons in Florida. If so, these findings may also lead to improved methods for regulating snake populations.

You are correct, Wikipedia is not the arbiter of names, but in this case I would have to say that the US National Parks Service, which runs and maintains all of the federal memorials, is the one who would set the official name. According to the US National Parks Service it is indeed the "Lincoln Memorial".

That may well be true, however, the Colorado experience has shown that enough people buy Hunting and Fishing licenses to fund the system well enough. Currently the NPS isn't charging for rescues (with the exception of Denali which is actually a user fee that is specifically designed to pay for rescue support).

Having what amounts to be an 'insurance' fund could help the park system cope with the rash of bozos^Hstranded hikers a bit better.

James J. Hill would disagree with you. You'll note that the Great Northern took no federal subsidies, got no land through eminent domain or land grants, and was only one of a handful of railroads that didn't fail in the Panic of 1893 (a run on banks caused by overexpansion of railroads, similar to the bubble caused by overexpansion of housing we're currently experiencing - kind of odd that federal subsidization are core to both, but, well, who needs history to avoid repeating things?).

It's also worth noting that The Pacific Railway Act was horribly inefficient, encouraging the railroads to build shoddy track and in the most inefficient routes possible. A good chunk of the transcontinental railroad had to be rebuilt before it was even usable and despite all the subsidies, both the Central Pacific (entirely leased out in 1885 to avoid bankruptcy proper) and Union Pacific (1880 and 1893) railroads went bankrupt shortly after finishing.

Just a little history that most people are never taught these days.

In other news, the sky is BLUE! OMG, it's BLUE!!!!!!!!

Why the heck we have to have this sort of crap in the news after every tiny little tremor is beyond me. Yeah, the Pacific Northwest (where I live) is one of several areas in the world where major earthquakes happen every so often, geologically speaking. There's also a nice juicy volcano just waiting to blow its top. ZOMG, what next? Tornados? Oh wait ... that happens every so often also.

Someone wake me when we have a real disaster.

It's not necessary to make new lies when the old ones still work. The lies are just a pretense that the citizens and taxpayers matter.

Quote from Dwight D. Eisenhower, former U.S. President, former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex." -- Farewell Address, Jan. 17, 1961

Full speech

Taxpayers ignored that warning, and now the U.S. government is more corrupt than ever before.

The U.S.S. Arizona is losing about a quart per day. It's tanks had about 1.5 million gallons when it was bombed at Pearl Harbor. Some of that burned but it's not clear how much.

One thing to remember though, the 1,000 or 5,000 gallons per day estimate that this well is losing is probably as low as is remotely justifiable. BP gains nothing by overestimating the amount of the leakage, they do however gain something by underestimating it.

I wouldn't mind at all living in the Presido!

There's a great one near San Francisco.

[T]he Obama administration is abandoning its policy of using nationality alone to determine which US-bound international air travelers should be subject to additional screening...

They're actually now trying to correlate security screening with specific, known information about actual suspects, rather than saying, "So you're from Pakistan? Would you mind coming with me, sir?" The new policies will be far from perfect, I'm sure, but they seem more sensible than a "random" screening based solely on nationality.

Yea, it's imperfect. Not only that but the Constitution of the USA does not give the federal government these powers.

Every time technology makes another leap forward, we have to reclaim the Fourth Amendment, and often we have to reclaim the entire Bill of Rights, because technology gives [the authorities] powers that were not envisioned by the Founding Fathers.

Fair enough, but I think the founding fathers would also have had a difficult time envisioning several dozen unrelated people climbing into a flying metal tube to cross the ocean in a matter of hours. They also probably didn't foresee the rise of ideologies that make those flying tubes attractive targets for persons armed with concealable explosive devices. Saying that the Founding Fathers were poorly-versed in 21st century technology and geopolitics doesn't mean much by itself. I'm willing to bet the passengers on any of the airplanes that have been subject to terrorist attacks in the past few years would have been willing to undergo a full body scan if it meant the bad guy couldn't get on the plane with them.

Then amend the Constitution. Don't treat it like TP. As for what the Founding father envisioning, they easily envisioned government goons knocking down doors and dragging away the people inside. As for terrorists, as President, Thomas Jefferson sent the Marines to fight Barbary pirates in North Africa. Between them and what the British did the Founding Fathers knew what the enemy was capable of. British Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton of the Green Dragoon wasn't known as a butcher for nothing, he "practiced total war -- burning houses, destroying crops, the end justifying the means".

Falcon

Not just their design, but ANY 5 interlocking rings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_symbols#Intellectual_property

Almost makes you wonder when they're going to sue the state of Washington or the U.S. National Park Service. http://www.nps.gov/olym/index.htm

I drove over to the Canaveral National Seashore for this launch. The position of the sun made it very hazy from where I was. This shot is geotagged if you're so inclined to see exactly where it was taken. I didn't see that sonic boom wave and no one I was with made any mention of it either. That's really spectacular.

FWIW, I really love this photo of the launch which was taken by a guy in the same spot where I was. It captures the Atlas V flying past the sun which I thought was perfect given the nature of this mission.

-S

Ya, no global warming since 1995, but in the last 15 years the island of Sagar has been losing ground to rising oceans.

So what? There are two effects to keep in mind here. First, apparently the island is being rapidly eroded away. That's a common process for islands exposed to ocean to experience. For example, it happens on the eastern coast of the US quite frequently. Human activity probably has resulted in the loss of protective wetlands too (much as has occurred along the coast of Louisiana and elsewhere along the Gulf of Mexico). It says nothing about the sea level. Second, the island appears to be in a delta region. That often results in sinking of the land due to the weight of new river sediment.

According to Wikipedia, sea level has risen 20 cm in the past 120 years. While that is a significant amount, there's no way that it can explain the current problems with Sagar Island.

Except the Everglades, Big Cypruss, Timucuan, and Biscayne are FEDERAL LAND. The FEDERAL GOVERNMENT should pay for it. You are also paying for coral reefs off the coast of the Keyes and a bunch of other stuff too. You think that Wyoming should pay for Yellowstone? You think that Wyoming should be able to devolp Yellowstone if they want, to the loss of the rest of the country?

http://www.us-national-parks.net/state/fl.htm
http://www.nps.gov/state/fl/index.htm

...in South Dakota. The cool thing is that the tours are small (6-8 people), and are led by folks who were actually in the bunkers when they were active. Fascinating stuff...like how the escape hatch actually led to a spot under the parking lot asphalt.

Thing is, it does a lot more damage than the dreaded corn plantations:

ECOLOGICAL THREAT Cogon grass can invade and overtake disturbed ecosystems, forming a dense mat of thatch and leaves that makes it nearly impossible for other plants to coexist. Large infestations of cogon grass can alter the normal fire regime of a fire-driven ecosystem by causing more frequent and intense fires that injure or destroy native plants. Cogon grass displaces a large variety of native plant species used by native animals (e.g., insects, mammals, and birds) as forage, host plants and shelter. Some ground-nesting species have also been known to be displaced due to the dense cover that cogon grass creates.

Also, it won't just stay together in a patch but it reaches out. WP dixit:

It spreads both through small seeds, which are easily carried by the wind, and rhizomes which can be transported by tilling equipment and in soil transport.

Nasty thing.

If anywhere near Kentucky, then Mammoth Caverns, otherwise whichever cave you pass along the way. You'll learn about geology, karst, minerals, environment (water cycle), natural history, unusual wildlife, natural formations, local lore, climate (cave temps average of region), etc.

Plan your drive around the missile test schedule http://www.wsmr.army.mil/wsmr.asp?pg=y&page=202

The drive out to the VLA is worth it to see the telescopes, though there's not much in the way of a museum there. http://www.vla.nrao.edu/

I've also heard good things about lanl's Bradbury Museum, but I've never been there. http://www.lanl.gov/museum/

Spaceport America was originally scheduled to have a hangar and terminal in 2010, so there might be something there worth checking out. http://www.spaceportamerica.com/

Yeah. The National Park Service was so pissed off by Adams' blatant ripoffs of their scenery that they sued him, keeping an army of copyright lawyers busy for years, finally forcing him to release all his negatives into the public domain. Oh, wait, instead they named a Wilderness after him and still allow his family to run a gallery/gift shop in Yosemite.

I was obsessed with the NS Savannah recently because she is such a beautiful ship - I love ships and this cargo ship looks like a yacht. Whilst I am not a fan of the Nuclear Industry in it's current form her reactor appeared to be reasonably well constructed and whilst designed to cruise at 21 knots, she outperformed her design spec by steadily cruising at 24 knots - pretty fast for a cargo ship. Check page 16 of the MARAD documentation (warning - pdf).

There is significant historical information about her operation. Until 9/11 she was part of the National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF) but her reactor was permanently disabled due to concerns she could be used as quite a convenient weapon of terror. Sadly, her hybrid design condemned her to a short operational life (10 years) and she is now a ghost ship. There are plans to make her a museum ship whilst waiting for her decommissioned reactor to cool down for eventual disassembly, but no one seems interested in the project. Despite that the seafarers Union have been working to maintain the ship by improving her general appearance.

NS Savannah's crew dispute was because the executive officers traditionally got paid more than the engineering crew on board the ship, this dispute, high running costs, low oil costs all contributed to her eventual demise. An interest group (with mailing list) is looking for photos and artefacts whist she was in operation.

lots more photos, her community organisation, glory days, historical landmark program, service history and specifications, floorplan and schematics, current status, passenger lounge, reactor control room, dry docked , and finally a flickr photo stream and a rather excellent photo essay of the NS Savannah. A little bit of history for you to enjoy.

I don't know about Mingo County WV. I also live in Southwest Virginia and the rules are a little stricter here but mining is mining. We have both strip mining and underground mining are gonna cause damage.

One of the main problems with underground mining is that it destroys the water table in the local vicinity. The residents sue every year and every year they get paperwork that says the mines are not responsible for their bad water.

Before you put us down, guess who owns the mineral rights in coal country? Mostly people from up north that more or less waged a little civil war with the government on their side to take what they wanted by force if necessary. That was a long time ago, but these rights are perpetual.

Oh and the severance taxes that the state levies from them to make things better for us, guess where that goes? To build shit up in the Northern Virginia DC area because there is more people that vote up there than there are here.

But... saying all of that is giving the world a distorted picture of Appalachian Culture. And coal mines aren't everywhere because coal ain't.

Now, this is a pretty cool place to live if you can make any money at all the cost of living is low and there is plenty to do.

We have real nice parks pretty damn close to those mines. A mine is a mine. You wouldn't have half of the comforts that you have if it were not for someone doing this dirty work.

And at least here your description mine reclamation is complete bullshit. These days you would get put out of business completely if you did that. Of course there are areas like that from the 70's and before that that look like that.
Putting top soil back and almost everything else like it was is a requirement here in Virginia.

I have been to WV too. Some of it is nice as hell.

http://www.nps.gov/cuga/

http://www.breakspark.com/

http://www.kingdomcome.org/kcsp/

It ain't like this any more. Read the book too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t9V227meio

http://openlibrary.org/b/OL2216184M/Bloody-Harlan

Also where I live, where the limestone is on the other side of the mountains where the coal is, there are probably more unexplored caves and undiscovered biology in those caves than anywhere in the US. Some you have to repel 50' just to enter them. There is also whitewater rafting. If your into four wheeling, those old abandoned strip jobs are fun for that. In Eastern Kentucky it is still legal to ride four wheeler during certain hours of the day and there are 3 or 4 for every household. They have everything you have and more except clean water. They have trash pickup. They have real good broadband.

I'm not sure what "grass seed in mutant green nitrogen fertilizer shit" is? It is called hydro seeding and some uses recycled newspaper. That stuff has a lot of different seeds besides grass in it. It's probably on just about every median in the US by now. Strip mining is just like building roads you know, except they don't get paved. They have to have their erosion and sediment output strictly enforced in VA. I think it's a federal thing now with the EPA.

What is grandfathered back that stuff doesn't apply to. There is an underground mine nearby that caught fire in the early 70's and is still slowly burning till this day. They buried it filled it in but a little smoke still comes off of the top of the mountain.

I wish I could say more but we are not all a bunch of dumb morons like Jed Clampett. Most of the stuff you depend upon to survive came from a mine somewhere. You don't treat people from Butte Montana like that. They have way more environmental problems than we do. Where did the copper in your PC come from or the steel in your car?

I just hope whomever goes down to Bolivia doesn't steal

and it mostly attracts hikers not partiers

You've never been to Moab, have you? Hikers and partiers are one and the same there.

Beyond Arches, there's also Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, and Zion. Aside from national parks, there is also some killer skiing up in the mountains, and rivers to run. There's plenty of outdoorsy stuff to do in Utah. And while I'm sure people don't go to Utah specifically to drink, it is a nice thing to do after a long day enjoying the world, and the less hassle involved, the better.

Ok, I'm not from New Mexico myself, but what is it about the southeastern part of the state that attracts these crazy theories? Roswell, Area 51, aliens, and now you say a killer comet is going to take out Clovis. Geez, can't the state get a break? Sure, it's rugged and arid, but can't people just drive through there without making up some sort of crazy story? Or is there something about those hundred-mile drives with nothing on either side of the road but yucca and cactus that messes with peoples' heads?

Killer comet in Clovis. Next, you'll be telling me you've got a bottle of White Sand from Alamogordo on your shelf, and it's grown by an eighth of an inch just since you came back.

According to that article, Fossett's items were found about 2 miles west of Devils Postpile National Monument, in this general area. It's fairly rugged and remote area, and unsuited for landing a plane, but if he survived and was able to do the logical thing (head down-valley), he would have ended up in the national monument and found roads and other people.

Anyone with worldly knowledge knows that Bristol was the standard unit of measurement for area within the British Empire for over 200 years. It seems I'll have to break it down for you ignorant Americans:

Bristol has an area of 1,184,832,000 square feet (source)
The Library of Congress has an area of 2,100,000 square feet (source)

Therefore 1 Bristol (and TFA's fossilised forest) == 564.2 Libraries of Congress

I find it surprising that a building dating from 1800 would be designed in such a way that it would require artificial lighting. Surely, given the technology of the day, it would have been more convenient to install windows than to light candles and oil lamps whenever Congress was in session?

He did say a name - he just didn't capitalize it. Had he meant anyone who won the election he would have said "the next president". If I ask you who the president is you do not reply with the name of the president of the Sears Corporation. This is especially true when speaking of voting and electoral votes. Now I don't necessarily think it damns the guy. He was bragging about his product to like minded people. There was a nuke missile silo that someone had written on "World-wide delivery in 30 minutes or less, or your next one is free", which is bragging and bravado - which is what I think this statement was. The part about a CEO patching machines by hand though, that gives me pause.

Start with a 100 Watt bulb

Divide by 7, which is the number of watts necessary to properly illuminate a square foot of floor space.
This gives roughly 14.28 square feet able to be illuminated.

Divide this into 2.1 million sq ft, the amount of square feet in the Library of Congress (USLOC).
This tells us that 147,000 watts are necessary to illuminate the US Library of Congress.

Divide by 1.09951163 × 10^13 bytes, the amount of storage per unit of USLOC.
This tells us that 1.33 x 10^-8 bytes are illuminated per watt

Multiply by 7GB (7,516,192,768 bytes), which is the number of gigabytes of printed material that can be properly illuminated by a 1-watt bulb.

Answer: 100.4

So you were close.

mosquito larvae might be pictured as: "small machines that transform algae, bacteria and organic matter into compact packages of protein.

In American English, "holiday" doesn't always mean a happy, festive day. Well, checking my Mac OS X dictionary it means "a day of festivity or recreation when no work is done" but I don't think that quite matches modern usage. Columbus Day is a holiday, but most workplaces remain open and I've never heard of a Columbus Day party.

It is a somber day, primarily. Here in Washington, DC there have been people reading the names from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial aloud all weekend. It's a time for reflection on war and the sacrifices made by our veterans.

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins devotes an entire chapter (chapter 5, IIRC) to the subject of whether morality has its roots in religion. He provides many, many examples how, while the basics of Christianity haven't changed significantly in the past 200 years, morality has changed drastically. Look, in particular, at the concepts of equality (sexual, racial, etc.) today vs. just 100 years ago, when women couldn't vote, or just a bit farther back, at such embarrassments as the Three-fifths Compromise. If religion is the basis for morality, Christianity is based on the Bible, and the Bible's message hasn't been altered significantly in hundreds of years, then none of those changes should have occurred.

As an example, I present this quote from the first Lincoln-Douglas Debate:

By modern morals, most Americans cringe just reading that, regardless of who said it, but for the time, if Lincoln said it in a public forum, it must have been not just a common belief, but probably a mild form of what most people thought.

Finally, if religion is the basis for morality and the Bible, supposedly God's words without interpretation, they why don't most modern Christians follow all of the laws set forth in Leviticus? Why don't they condemn the twisted story of Lot and his daughters? By modern morals, a father that offered his "two daughters which have not known man" to do "to them as is good in your eyes" (Genesis 19: 7-8), and then later impregnated not one but both of them (Genesis 19: 31-6) would be thrown in jail and most likely killed inside by other prisoners.

If you are around in Texas, the Big Bend National Park is another good place to watch the stars.

Dude. I'm in my mid 20's and even I have heard of plaster walls. Where have you been?

The trains from American and Europe were experimenting with them in early 1920's, and were in full manufacturing swing post WWII. It is 90 y.o. tech.

I am no "neocon," but Ron Paul is just wrong. Let's go through the list:

"1. They agree with Trotsky on permanent revolution, violent as well as intellectual."

Thomas Jefferson: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants."

"2. They are for redrawing the map of the Middle East and are willing to use force to do so."

Most neocons are not for redrawing boundaries, just replacing dictators with democracies.

"Although the United States never officially declared war on Tripoli, Jefferson dispatched an American squadron of naval vessels to the Mediterranean Sea. Several battles took place, and the United States imposed a naval blockade to keep goods and services from entering or leaving Tripoli. United States Marines actually seized Derna, the principal city of Tripoli, on April 26, 1805. Finally, on June 4, 1805, a peace treaty was signed which gave the United States the freedom of the Mediterranean and relinquished Tripoli's claims for tribute."

From: http://www.nps.gov/archive/jeff/LewisClark2/Circa1 804/In1804/HeadlinesJeffersonArticle.htm

3. They believe in preemptive war to achieve desired ends.

During WWII, Japan attacked us, not Germany. We went after Germany first. Preemption is not always a bad thing. There's nothing preemptive about the Iraq war though. Saddam had attacked Kuwait, and he signed a surrender agreement that he did not abide by (he also defied 12 UN resolutions).

4. They accept the notion that the ends justify the means--that hardball politics is a moral necessity.

This is actually more of an attribute of the left. They sign off on the war resolution, the patriot act, the echelon spy program, etc., then they go to the media and scream civil rights violations and neocon conspiracy.

5. They express no opposition to the welfare state.

Yet they are accused of giving the rich 'tax cuts' and being against minimum wage increases.

6. They are not bashful about an American empire; instead they strongly endorse it.

Yes, just the other day Bush said we should attack Cuba and steal their Sugar Cane for our ethanol production. (Oh wait, it was JFK who did the whole Cuba thing.)

7. They believe lying is necessary for the state to survive.

Sounds like he is describing Hillary Clinton, Nanci Pelosi, John Kerry, etc. Hillary told Code Pink that she did 10 years of research and that Saddam must be removed, weeks before the invasion. John Kerry said he would have voted for the war even knowing what he knows now, during the 2004 election. Nanci Pelosi told the press that there would not be endless investigations if the Dems got control. I could go on and on.

8. They believe a powerful federal government is a benefit.

Compassionate conservatives like Bush are big spenders and not ideological conservatives. This is obvious to all true conservatives.

9. They believe pertinent facts about how a society should be run should be held by the elite and withheld from those who do not have the courage to deal with it.

Yes, they make up phrases like "It takes a village to raise a child" so that they don't have to spell out S-O-C-I-A-L-I-S-M to the public. Oops, that was Hillary. Where does Ron Paul get this from? Citation? It sounds more like Fabian Socialist ideology such as that of Tony Blair and Hillary Clinton.

10. They believe neutrality in foreign affairs is ill advised.

Most people should feel this way. There's a place in hell reserved for those who maintain their neutrality during a time of deep moral crisis. [Dante]

I could go on, but you get the point. I agree with Ron Paul on a lot of issues, but getting rid of Saddam was the right thing to do.

Perhaps you mean Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore?

Great Sand Dunes National Park is in Colorado.

Perhaps you mean Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore?

Great Sand Dunes National Park is in Colorado.

Near the end of the article: "Consulting firms that were set up to bring brands into Second Life are busy helping clients explore other worlds."

The best way to profit from a gold rush is to sell tools to the miners ... as Seattle discovered in 1897

Outing an active agent is an act of treason which, if I recall correctly, is still punishable by death in the US.
This so-called administration has broken, no--pulverized--their oaths of office

...pay a visit to the Minuteman Missle National Historic Site in South Dakota. They offer tours of an underground Minuteman Delta launch bunker on a appointment-only basis, 6-8 to a group. The bunker itself, built in the 60's, is actually an air-tight, climate-controlled concrete capsule suspended on giant shock absorbers about 150 feet below the surface. The only entrance into the capsule is via a 5-ton vault door that could be opened and shut in under a minute. It provides a fascinating insight into the Cold War and the level of redundancy that was in place to ensure that if a launch was ordered, it would happen (for instance, launch orders would be given to a number of different launch sites simultaneously, so no launch site personnel would be aware of who actually launched a missle).

Interesting story: There was an "emergency egress" hatch in the capsule that led to the surface through a corrugated pipe. There were only a few problems: The hatch door weighed over 200 pounds and dropped down from the ceiling, ensuring the first one out would probably be the last one out. And the government was afraid the Russkies knew where the egress points were on the surface, so the government poured a parking lot over it. Only problem was they failed to tell the launch controllers that their "emergency egress" system led to the underside of a parking lot. This was all top-secret stuff, never came to light until after the sites were decommissioned and dismantled.

Resolution might not be a problem (don't know the quality of his images), and I'm absolutely positive that this is the USS Kitty Hawk, but considering that this is virtually invisible (compare to this), I have a hard time believing he could see anything more than a few feet below the surface.

In fact, the 18th century designers of Washington, DC inscribed an inverted pentagram into the street system, with the southern point being what would become the Washington Monument (itself loaded with Masonic stones). A less strong argument can be made for the Pentagon itself. If you can get past the UFO talk and specious arguments, this map shows that one of the five points of the Pentagon points to the Washington Monument and another of the five points to George Washington's home in Mt. Vernon.

Now where can I bone up on the info you mentioned?

Start here. It has links to a lot of useful stuff, mainly on US Government sites.

Google is your friend. Things like info on the Six Nations' declaration of war on the Germans are easy to find with searches like "Iroquois war Germany".

Speaking of whom: It was the Iroquios Confederacy that was the main inspiration - primarily through Franklin - for the structure of the federal government of the United States. Prior to the discovery of their working Republic and its long history (which has been described as "outdoing the Romans"), the history of democracy and republican forms in Europe - particularly certain episodes from Greece - were used as royalist propaganda. They were cautionary tales about why government of the people was doomed to failure and despotic rule by a member of an elite was allegedly necessary.

Quit a bit of this history has been unearthed in recent decades. A search for "Iroquois Franklin" will point you to quite a bit of it, such as full online text of Bruce Johansen's The Forgotten Founders

Is that why they all but wiped out many of those tribes you just mentioned ?

If you want to know what happened to the American Indians you can ask them - or their mixed-race descendants. Like my wife. Or a significant number of my friends. (Unfortunately it's a couple years too late to ask the person who was perhaps my closest (just) friend for four decades...)

There was a lot of death due to European diseases. But contrary to popular myth, germ warfare was NOT used against them by the US. (One English general did do it before the Revolution.) When epidemics got started the Indians and non-Indian settlers worked together to try to mitigate them: Disease like smallpox were a threat to all.

Tribes were some of the first adopters of the smallpox vaccine. (The Sioux had a gold medal struck and sent to Jenner.)

The Indians are still here - in large numbers. (The Mohicans periodically issue press releases to point out that, contrary to the book title, they're still around. B-) ) There aren't a lot of fullbloods - but there aren't a lot of full-blooded English-Americans, or French-Americans, or Whatever-Americans, either. There was a lot of intermarriage. Many of those of Indian ancestry found it convenient not to mention it - sometimes even to their offspring.

"Redneck" isn't just about getting your neck sunburned if you work outdoors and have a short haircut. It's also about having a high likelyhood of some Indian bloodline. Many of the Indians - both fullblood and partbreed - have assimilated into the general population of the US. They're farmers and ranchers, civil engineers, high-iron workers, merchants, professors, computer scientists, nanotechnologists, ...

... without tyrannical rulers and enforced, draconian, social homogenization.

Well how's that working out for ya ?

A lot better than you'd think if you're depending on the media - especially ours - to tell you. B-) And a WHOLE lot better, over virtually all of the last quarter-millenium, than the European alternatives.

BTW, if you can show me a link to a world map showing the locations of all those tribes you mentioned I'd appreciate it

Here you go. There are links to a full-sized PDF and an index. The ones outside the continental US can be found easily as well.

- but in the meantime, the subject was COUNTRIES.

These ARE countries. THAT was my POINT. Most of them just happen to be surrounded by various parts of the United States.

"Indian nation" is NOT a feel-good term used by the soppy-headed. It's a literal, legal, reality. These are independent, sovereign nations, with their own territories, borders, and so on. Most of them have treaty-based alliances with the US federal government. Some don't. They have automatic US citizenship - much like the citizens of Puerto Rico. They are exempt from some US taxes - which ones depend on treaty terms and whether they're living on the res or off it. Some tribes receive ongoing payments - think "rent" - as part of whatever settlement allowed non-tribal members to settle some of their lands.

They're countries in an alliance with the US. They have more independence than the "several states" (which subordinated all their foreign policy, interstate commerce regulation, and currency matters to the federation). They're also far more independent of the US than satellites of the USSR (such as Estonia) were of Russia - or than the member states of the European Union are likely to be of their own central government within a couple decades.

Ordinary subsidence of the crust can do that (e.g., the modern Mississippi Delta continues to subside and slowly bury old swampland forests in sediment), but sudden drops due to earthquakes are well-known too. An excellent example is Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee, which was formed (or at least enhanced) due to ground shifts related to the 1812 New Madrid earthquake -- this was not far from Illinois.

Burial of trees happens all the time. Sites with fossil forests are known from all over the world. But having them exposed in a roof of a coal seam is quite cool, even though that isn't unknown either (e.g., in the area near Price, Utah -- some of the seams even have dinosaur footprints in their roof in addition to tree stumps).

The original article being referred to is in the latest issue of the journal Geology, but you have to be a subscriber to view it.

It's not like there is really there much else to do in Montana, anyway.

Only if you're a couch potato. But if you have interests and a physical activity level slightly higher than the average /. ectomorph/endomorph, it's hard to be bored. Montana is home to two of the most impressive parks in the world (Yellowstone & Glacier NPs), hiking, biking, rafting, archaeological/paleontological stuff, skiing, etc...