Ripley's Believe It or Not by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for April 23, 2023

How’d you like to be the first guy asked to sell sand to Saudi Arabia? I was 13 miles away once. Gesundheit!

To have an unending supply of money, oil costs them nothing

Ahh yes, the Atacama Desert, home of the Atacama Giant that is etched into the hillside. It’s been there for a long time.

Time to form a sand cartel.

What is the Navy doing with all the salt?

I thought Death Valley had the driest desert.

“If you thought Saudi will have no dearth of this resource and it can take trucks full of sand from its deserts, then once again, you are wrong.

Saudi Arabia may be a sandy desert, but the sand is not of the right quality for construction. Individual desert sand granules have smooth edges which are useless for construction, while river sand has jagged edges which is what construction concrete needs. Even normal beach sand is not useful as construction material because of the presence of salt in it. Accordingly, river sand is in huge demand and short supply because of a growing level of construction activities around the world. Moreover, it takes hundreds of years for a river to make sand! " per Google

The sand story needs an explanation. 400k OF WATER/DAY MAKES ME WONDER WHY THE WESTERN STATES DON’Y GO FOR IT and quit destroying our rivers.

They also come for our sprouts. ~ Pierre Fouchon, proudly Belgian even though the French are from France so stop all this ‘they must be Belch’ stuff, it’s not funny anymore.. well, okay it’s funny, but still.. think about the Brussels thing instead.. well they make you belch, too.. but not Belch.. er, oh what the heck…

Take care, may famed water diviner Earl “This Old Twig Has Made Me Several Dollars This Year Enough For Some Chaw And A Bottle Of Rotgut” Pointord be with you, and gesundheit.

They import sand that is better than their sand for construction of concrete, bricks and glass. They also import oil from Russia to use as fuel in Saudi. This helps Russia get around oil export sanctions, which is an ally of Saudi in OPEC. Instead of Russia selling oil to France, for example, it sells it to Saudi, then Saudi sells Saudi oil to France that it otherwise would have used in its own country as fuel. Saudi is not the ally of the US that it used to be, like when Iraq took over Kuwait and Saudi was next, and we defended them in Desert Storm, believe it or not.

Saudi Arabia does have to import sand, the sand in the desert cannot be used for building because the particles are so rounded

Why does Saudi Arabia need to import sand?

Why does Saudi Arabia need international sand in its deserts?

Maybe that’s why some sailors are called “old salts”??

elephants it is then

Why don’t you see elephants hiding in trees?

Because they are really good at it.

Why do elephants paint their balls red?

So they can hide in cherry trees.

What’s the loudest sound in the jungle?

Giraffes eating cherries

I will try to contribute at least one joke related to the topic of the day, before 10:00 AM, Eastern Standard Time. If you see this, perhaps you can inform others….. Thankyou, and I hope you enjoy … And I thank John Shirley1 for my permanent suspension. Thanks John, you POS!

When I used to go to Saudi with the AF, they told us the reason they imported all the sand was to make concrete. Seems the local sand was of the wrong type to make good concrete.

Looked up more about Atacama Desert. Fascinating! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

The flowers in bloomhttps://bit.ly/3AtEGKN

Giant hand sculpture by Chilean sculptor – https://bit.ly/3mPnFI8

He also created one on the Atlantic side of South America in Uruguay La Mano (The Hand) is a sculpture by Chilean artist Mario Irarrázabal.https://bit.ly/3mXYC5C

Fun Fact – sea salt contains plastic and the average person eats a credit card amount of plastic every year.

1. I can smell donuts from further away than that. 2. I wonder if Norway imports snow? 3. If there was such a water shortage in California the past few years and desalinization is a real thing, why don’t they just run a hose out to the Pacific?

There are parts of South America that are dredging and destroying beaches for sand to use in construction. It must be of inferior quality because of shape and salt content. So, how safe are those buildings, especially when in earthquake country? Because profit over safety and humanity.

After all the rain we’ve had here in California this past winter, we are also enjoying a superbloom of wild flowers. My entire front yard is covered in poppies!

Believe it or not, with 4500 men aboard, 400,000 gallons is usually not enough water.

Importing sand? That made me laugh.