The WTF? Thread

[Balderdasha]

Sorta like Centralia.

Now that is AITIDKUT.

"The Centralia mine fire is a coal-seam fire which has been burning in the labyrinth of abandoned coal mines underneath the borough of Centralia, Pennsylvania, United States, since at least May 27, 1962."

I mean I knew theoretically that there were coal fires in some places just spewing out carbon dioxide. But I hadn't considered that there were fires that had been burning continuously for over 60 years. That's terrifying.

[Balderdasha]

https://twitter.com/glenglenglen/status/1767674835339997515?t=JT1S7uF0MpoGL-S5GMmlUw&s=19

The extension. Wtf indeed?

Never mind the extension. The number of competing and conflicting floral patterns in that house make me want to claw my own eyes out.

[Balderdasha]

Jesus said that in Matthew and Luke.
It is interpreted ethically and eschatologically, but like all of those parables, it refers to something that the audience would have understood. So even 2000 years ago, they knew that building a house on sand was stupid.

This has just triggered a memory of endlessly singing "The wise man built his house upon a rock" at primary school.

The foolish man built his house upon the sand indeed. The rain came down and the floods came up and the house came tumbling down. Falalalala-lalala-la.

[Hot Pepsi]

If they stop providing sewer, water, power and mail to those houses, they might leave.

[Antepli Ejderha]

https://twitter.com/glenglenglen/status/1767674835339997515?t=JT1S7uF0MpoGL-S5GMmlUw&s=19

The extension. Wtf indeed?

[San Bernardhinault]

True. A one-off "We'll buy your house for something close to market value, but it'll fall into the sea and you have to fuck off somewhere else, and that is that - no more offers after this one, and no more bail outs (or bale outs), anything that goes wrong, any time you flood, you're getting yourselves out of their and dealing with any mess" would be something I'd think was acceptable. I bet none of them would take it, thinking that the government was still going to rescue them next time. And they'd probably be right.

[Hot Pepsi]

You're probably right about Salisbury, although I'd not be 100% sure. Most of the homes on the coast look like they were built in the last 60 years or so. Still, I don't think the state should necessarily bail out people who have waterfront property, even if its owned generationally. Because once you start doing that you end up funding the rescue of all the fools who've been buying coastal property in Florida or South Carolina while ignoring geography and physics, expecting Big Government to save them while at the same time whining about Big Government.

Bailing them out once and telling them they have to get out might be cheaper than endless temporary fixes funded by endless backroom political deals.

[Hot Pepsi]

I think it is “recognized” in a few other states, but maybe not “observed.”

[Exiled off Main Street]

Not exactly.

It's on Patriot's Day, which is a rare example of a state holiday, officially observed in Massachusetts and a few other states but not nationally. It honors the first battles of the American Revolution/War of Independence in Massachusetts.

Patriot's Day was established in Massachusetts in 1894. The marathon has been run on that day, as part of the celebration, since 1897.

People in Boston get shitfaced on any day off work.

Although it is a State Holiday (in MA and Maine only) - only state run offices are closed. We all go to work as usual - public schools will be closed for spring break, not Universities. It's kinda of a fake holiday like Evacuation Day (Boston only)

[San Bernardhinault]

You're probably right about Salisbury, although I'd not be 100% sure. Most of the homes on the coast look like they were built in the last 60 years or so. Still, I don't think the state should necessarily bail out people who have waterfront property, even if its owned generationally. Because once you start doing that you end up funding the rescue of all the fools who've been buying coastal property in Florida or South Carolina while ignoring geography and physics, expecting Big Government to save them while at the same time whining about Big Government.

[Hot Pepsi]

Or, at the very least, accept that when you buy coastfront property in a warming climate with more extreme weather events that you're playing roulette with the odds that your house will survive until you die.

I think the fact that insurers won't insure and mortage companies won't give mortgages on waterfront properties is a bit of a giveaway that you're just hoping your house outlives you.

In the case of the people in Salisbury, many of those houses have been owned by those families for many generations. These aren't all wealthy people who had other options for how to invest that money.

Certainly, they were built long before anyone worried about climate change.

It might be cheaper in the long run for the state to just buy them out and let nature take it's course. Sorta like Centralia.

[San Bernardhinault]

Or, at the very least, accept that when you buy coastfront property in a warming climate with more extreme weather events that you're playing roulette with the odds that your house will survive until you die.

I think the fact that insurers won't insure and mortage companies won't give mortgages on waterfront properties is a bit of a giveaway that you're just hoping your house outlives you.

[Hot Pepsi]

Jesus said that in Matthew and Luke.
It is interpreted ethically and eschatologically, but like all of those parables, it refers to something that the audience would have understood. So even 2000 years ago, they knew that building a house on sand was stupid.

[Ginger Yellow]

“I don’t know what the solution is,” Guilmette said.

Don't build/buy homes on an eroding, sinking shoreline?

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

If the 3 little pigs story had been about a threat from the tide rather than from a wolf, that's what the first little pig would have used.

Incidentally, if anyone fancies a chuckle, this is good:

Finnemore 3 Little Pigs (youtube.com)

[ad hoc]

Barrier built out of sand proves to be ineffective against the sea. Who could ever have guessed it? https://www.thedailybeast.com/dollar...st-just-3-days

[beak]

Dutch has the wholly cromulent landbouw but unfortunately uses it to refer to agriculture.

[hobbes]

We need a different term for it. How about "Land Coining."

[ad hoc]

ad hoc Would you consider the traditional Dutch practice centred on drainage and the construction of barriers to be more fairly described as "reclamation"?

I would be inclined to do so.

I don't think we are "re"claiming anything (as per HP and Beak). We're extending the land area or something. It's not really a word I has thought about before yesterday evening on this thread but it's a bit odd really.

However I can see drainage as being different from dumping enough stuff in the sea to create land

[San Bernardhinault]

Day old clamato is past its best by

[caja-dglh]

For a moment, I thought you had changed your avatar to a bottle of Clamato

Not a bad idea. The Sancho sauce is past its best by.

[Hot Pepsi]

I doubt that. I don’t think anyone arrived on the east coast until after the glaciers had receded.

And it wasn’t many people and thew moved around. I don’t think they ever would have “claimed” all that area such that anyone could “reclaim” it from the sea.


The population of all the Americas before colonization was no more than about 100m. Maybe a bit more. But mostly in the south.

The only estimate I could find said only about 100,000 people lived in New England in 1600.

[ursus arctos]

I think he is simply joking on this theme.

For a moment, I thought you had changed your avatar to a bottle of Clamato

[ursus arctos]

It is incredibly messed up, but sadly typical of our times

[Janik]

We can't be said to be "reclaiming" it. We're just "claiming it." There's no "re" about it. The area, in most cases, has been underwater as long as the humans have been in the area.

The dubious claims department is hot footing it over.

Humans have been basically everywhere, particularly continental costal areas, since the last ice age. Why? Precisely because of the last ice age, or rather it’s peak (certain definitions of “ice age” mean it’s still ongoing). That created land bridges such as between Great Britain and mainland Europe and North America and Russia that allowed humans to migrate everywhere. Estimated sea level rise since then is 100+ metres. Those bays around Boston, or the Zuidersee in Holland were never more than a handful of metres deep. Their time as sea was both brief and, in geological terms, extremely recent.

White humans may only have been in Boston whilst those bays were water-filled. That’s a different thing, though.