Tuesday Overnight Open Thread - July 8, 2025 [scampydog]

Good evening and welcome to the Tuesday ONT. We had a bit of a de-lurking thread last week. Wouldn't you know it, several brave souls took the plunge and pressed the enter key - and it was fun. If you are lurking tonight, toss in a comment or four and enjoy the chaos from the other side of the monitor (or phone screen).

Being arrested, right? I mean it looks like an arrest, but kind of looks like...Pride Month. Arrest it is.

ICE has a Self-Deportation page. Humor can be found nearly everywhere.

Self-deporting simply means you leave the U.S. before you encounter immigration officials. Everyone's process is different. You may want to let your employer, your friends, and your family know you're leaving. You may also want to help find support for the people you care about, pack up the things you’d like to bring with you, or make living arrangements for the next phase of your journey.

Remember, if ICE officials arrest you, you may not have an opportunity to do any of these things. Immediately after ICE arrests you, you'll go to detention for proceedings before an immigration judge - or, if you already have a final order of removal, ICE will remove you.

Ice Enforcement and Removal Stats Several sortable tables as you scroll down the page (likely loads slowly if sorting). Looks like these numbers need a protein shake and some hustle.

Here are a few more odd street signs of fun.

This sign is probably warning motorcyclists about an upcoming downhill turn, but it really just looks like a kid showing off on a rainbow.

This section of the ONT was in draft prior to the recent and tragic flooding in Texas. Prayers and well wishes up to the people of Central Texas - especially the Camp Mystic children, their families, and all impacted.

Engineering marvels. Been fortunate to have visited most on the list at the link below - and several others on the Columbia River dam system. Any of the Horde visited/toured any dams? Fascinating to see the size and scope of the hydroelectric power plants.

A list to get the conversation started. The author of the write up has a wandering brain - see the last entry of his/her list.

Grand Coulee. Some good overhead drone shots and additional footage showing the size of things.

Lake Missoula: Cordilleran Ice Sheet blocked (dammed) the Clark Fork River, creating a massive lake in western Montana. The dam failed many times over thousands of years - unleashing massive floods. This reshaped much of north Idaho, eastern Washington, and the Columbia River Gorge. It is widely reported that parts of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon were under hundreds of feet of water.

Let's dive into Glacial Lake Missoula. A lot of unknowns on the specifics but the scientific community (whatever the hell that is) agrees on the broad strokes.

- The ice dam was over 2000 feet tall. - Glacial Lake Missoula was as big as Lakes Erie and Ontario combined. - The flood waters ran with the force equal to 60 Amazon Rivers. - Car-sized boulders embedded in ice floated some 500 miles; they can still be seen today! - There is no evidence of fish in the glacial lake, but there may have been in the tributaries - No human relics have been found but native oral history suggests people may have witnessed the floods.

The raging waters created what are known as the Dry Falls.

Sun Lakes—Dry Falls State Park is an important part of the geologic history of Washington State. Few sites in eastern Washington better capture the cataclysmic nature of the geologic processes that have shaped the Columbia Basin. Have you ever imagined a waterfall that was five times the width and three times the height of Niagara Falls? The pathway of this massive waterfall can be seen clearly at Dry Falls, allowing visitors to travel back in time to the years of the great ice age floods.

The Channeled Scablands

The Channeled Scablands are probably the least known of the seven wonders of Washington State, but they have the most fascinating geological story. I still meet people today who grew up in the Seattle area that have never heard of them. What are they? Most of eastern Washington State is either farmland or mountains, but then there are large swaths of the landscape where all you can see is barren bedrock and strange rocky land formations. The early settlers in eastern Washington referred to these areas as scablands because they were not suitable for farming. Their origin was a complete mystery.

The Channeled Scablands extend from the area around Spokane, west to the Columbia River near Vantage and southwest to the Snake River near Pasco. They are known as the "Channeled Scablands" because they are crisscrossed by long channels cut into the bedrock, called coulees. About 150 distinct coulees have been identified; some of them are hundreds of feet deep. The two largest are Moses Coulee, which is 40 miles long, and Grand Coulee, which is 60 miles long.

Let's keep it honest: A couple of recent Presidents likely would have fared better in the meme department if someone had taken their bicycle away. Some just are not quite ready for two wheels.

Priorities and seeing what we want to see.

Harry Chapin. Folksy, storytelling style. Harry died young, at the age of 38 - automobile accident.

Kris Kristofferson. Interesting life - a bit of a polymath. Rhodes scholar, former ARMY helicopter pilot, song writer, actor.

This ONT brought to you by OCD and house rules. Why didn't you make the bed? Because someone was still sleeping in it when someone else left for work?

OCD. It started innocently enough. One person mentioned that they had to put their left sock on first. Five minutes later the whole group lit up the conversation with confessions about compulsive habits and rituals.

- Folding laundry - specifically how to fold a t-shirt
- Hang vs. fold t-shirt
- Mowing lines in yard
- Crumbs on the counter
- Loading the dishwasher properly (one spiritedly claimed that his family thinks the dishwasher door only opens eight inches). Yes, the question was asked about 16 forks in one slot
- Pressing F5 like it is the only form of cardio

Hit up the comments with your if I don't do this specifically this way, the world will end, lovable quirks.

All of the content of this post is factual. Except that which isn't. Please send sweet corn and a magnesium concrete float to the new email: scampydoggo@atomicmail.io Proton email address is inaccessible.

Late ONT addition.

Thank you Joyenz for keeping us all informed. Your dad was an amazing part of this place. Godspeed to you, your family, and Ciampino. We will miss his news, space/launch updates, chemistry talk, kitties, Africa memories, history lessons, warmth, and the wit he shared with us here at AoSHQ. He was a titan.

posted by Open Blogger at 10:00 PM

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