jawfish

Castles Built on Sandcomment
john posted in politics & culture on March 29th, 2006

It is time to declare some locations off-limits to building.

NOAA map of flood waters in Katrina:

We have just seen in the Katrina disaster a collision between paralyzed city management and climatic reality. I’m not singling out New Orleans, it’s just the biggest target at the moment.

Since about 1900, Americans have evolved a rough system of ensuring safe, sanitary housing using building codes and permits. As land runs out, pressure increases to build in untested places, yet the overall climate is changing unpredictably, making it harder to be sure that an area is reasonably safe. It is easy to predict that marginal areas will be increasingly unlivable.

Like homing pigeons, folks are returning to New Orleans neighborhoods literally underneath obsolete levees, and talking of rebuilding on the same lot. The Mayor has disingenuously announced that people should be able to build on their old lots. Surely it’s irrational to stand on a water-soaked soil, look up at a levee wall, and still ask for a construction loan. But these folks were told it was OK to invest there. The bank told them, the building department told them, their neighbors and politicians told them so. Now their Mayor is telling them so again, and the nation may bail them out from Katrina without ensuring that they rebuild in a dry spot. In fact, there may be no dry spots in Southern Louisiana according to Elizabeth Kolbert in the New Yorker. Her research among geologists and engineers yields the conclusion that what’s dry now, will be under water permanently by the end of the century. Land is both disappearing quickly into the Gulf and sinking, plus the river wants to change course. Maybe we should tell them ‘no more’, this time.

The planning process doesn’t seem to be able to deal with the natural disaster problem. Corruption, lack of space, and an urgent need for a tax-base drive unwise urban building. Rural planning is traditionally more lax than urban, for the same reasons, plus a left-over laissez-faire settler’s attitude. In the case of Florida, the whole state building code was famously inept and ignored before Hurricane Andrew caused a re-examination. Nationally, the ex-urban movement is putting more people with less local knowledge and much higher expectations out in the way of catastrophe. Now, there is discussion about how much of Southern Louisiana to protect behind new, multi-billion dollar levees. (see Jawfish on the cultural aspects of Katrina. )

What about other parts of the country? What should we do to minimize damage from earthquakes, brush fires, or another hurricane? Should we declare certain areas unsupportable, not provided with fire protection, not insured against hurricanes? What about the politicians, are they capable of saying “no, we won’t save your house from that fire we warned you about…” or will they send in the firefighters every time?

It’s not fair to ask citizens to pony up tax dollars and higher insurance rates for unwise resort homes, nor is it fair to pay for the foolishness of others who insist on building in unsafe areas. If you agree that homeowners and businesses depend on government regulation to prevent them from building in unsafe ways and areas, then I think you have to allow those agencies to declare some areas off-limits. Remember, one value of the building code is to prevent the home-buyer from getting a lemon. Previously approved building, now recognized to be foolish, should be grandfathered or condemned. But condemnation is politically impossible before the disaster strikes, and grandfathering isn’t very good at preventing further investment. Denying insurance may be the most effective way to control growth in unwise areas. When the Mayor of New Orleans invites owners back, he is passing the responsibility for saying no on to the flood insurance people, and the banks who will underwrite the mortgages. At the same time he is not promising a restoration of city services until people move back.
Isn’t that a catch-22 for the flooded-out residents?

The insurance pool is a shared cost of all homeowners, as are the municipal costs of rescue, fire-fighting and the like. It’s not fair to raise everybody’s flood insurance rates in order to protect a few homes sure to be lost every few years. On the other hand, drawing the rules too tightly would choke off a revival in Louisiana. Somebody has to make some hard decisions.

A case in point is the Outer Banks of North Carolina, an area I know well. The Outer Banks are long sandbars separating the ocean from large shallow sounds and the mainland. They are so changeable and fragile, that it’s quite common for everyday storms to wash across the islands from ocean to sound, opening new inlets or silting up others.

Google satellite image Rodanthe, NC

In spite of this, since the 1960’s, a huge number of two and three story beach houses have been built. Once-empty dunes have been topped and covered with mile after mile of “cottages” that rent for $2000 a week and more in season. Even with the cottages, the area is lovely, but there are few permanent residents. It is just a matter of time before a smallish hurricane takes out 50 miles or more of these resort houses, causing billions of dollars in losses. Unwary insurance companies will be in trouble, and we will all be asked to rebuild the roads, the wires, the pipes, and clean up the mess. Of course this development should have been stopped, but demand was intense. I have no problem with supporting cities like Raleigh or Wilmington when they are hit by a rare hurricane, as happened with Fran. But I don’t want my tax dollars to go to the beach houses. Let them self-insure I say, and absorb their own disaster costs.

We have a problematic neighborhood right here in Santa Barbara, perched on the side of our coastal mountains, sprinkled with houses among the trees and chaparral.

A mountain-side enclave. Google satellite image

It is but a few miles from the city, has drop-dead views of the channel, and is right in the path of any brush fire. The roads are too narrow for fire trucks, and the houses are surrounded by tinder.

The same location in a long shot at the arrow. National forest land covers the top of the picture. Google satellite image

California has many of these houses, including the famous mansions of Malibu, which are quite unprotected from our frequent brush fires. In fact, this location burned a few years ago and the fire made it deep into the town proper, as happened in Malibu. It is certain that millions of dollars and a few firefighters’ lives will be spent trying to protect outlying buildings in some part of California every year. Often the financial cost of the fire-fighting wildly exceeds the value of saved property.

So what should we do as a nation?

I see no reasonable choice other than restricting where people can build, by denying emergency services, insurance, or building permits. Kolbert reports in the New Yorker that surveyor’s benchmarks are sinking so fast in coastal Louisiana that they have to issue new official elevations for them. Minimum height above sea level is a requirement for federal flood coverage. Grandfathering will have to be used on existing homes, and even this will cause screams of protest, but its just not fair to the rest of us to expect us to insure every building everywhere in America. It’s not fair to future home-buyers either. I tend to favor using denial-of-insurance as a tool to control improper building, rather than outright prevention, because no politician can stand telling fire-fighters and levee builders not to protect homes.

So what about New Orleans and Louisiana?

Well I certainly do not favor a new 350 mile levee, nor do I favor trying to protect land below sea level. The Mississippi delta has got to be allowed to return to more of its natural state, and folks have got to learn to live inland, or on boats, or on stilts. The owners of now-unbuildable property should be fairly compensated, and insurance companies have got to understand and charge for the risks. It’s not reasonable to expect even experienced builders to plan for future disaster, let alone your average home-buyer. When they give you a building permit, you have every right to think the ground is safe and will be protected and restored after a disaster. Building departments have got to refuse permits across the coastal areas. Doing so may well put whole communities out, but the floods will do the same.

Lets acknowledge the truth. Some locations aren’t worth the cost. Make them parks, ball fields, or even marshes, but don’t let developer money continue to drive the planning process into guaranteeing something we can’t live with.

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References:

Scientific American articles:
Preparing for the Worst
Protecting against the Next Katrina
Protecting New Orleans
Hurricanes Getting Stronger, Study Suggests
Climate Model Predicts Extreme Changes for U.S.

New Yorker Elizabeth Kolbert on the flooding of South Louisiana
Smart Communities Network Disaster Planning Introduction
NOAA Risk and Vulnerability Assessment Steps Mitigation Opportunities Extended Discussion
Washington Post Writer’s GroupPlans to Stop Bad Development:Time to Stop Yawning

Hurricane Katrina and the Paradoxes of Government Disaster Policy: Bringing About Wise Governmental Decisions for Hazardous Areas
What’s going on- Disaster Center

PBS NOVA to Air DARPA Grand Challenge Video
john posted in technologies on March 24th, 2006

A report at robots.net says they have seen and liked the NOVA production, which includes older footage and more explanation than usual.

March 28, 2006 at 8pm ET see NOVA The Great Robot Race for more detail.

Robots.net has other interesting bots and bits too.

Jawfish visited the 2005 Grand Challenge trials at Fontana:

ATV avoids tank trap barrier.

Map of North American Internet
john posted in technologies on March 23rd, 2006

A really interesting piece appeared on the 17th by Ben Worthen in CIO blog. He investigates who owns the North American Internet backbone. Instead of a few dry numbers, he got a friend at Lumeta to build a map of the backbone routers organized in colors by ownership.

Map of North American Internet by Lumeta

The map, credited to Ben Cheswick, is wonderful. It can be downloaded as a 36″ x 40″ pdf, which is very slow to display, but worth it. If you zoom in, you can see the router addresses.

The news is not too bad, Verizon and AT&T don’t seem to own a controlling share, yet. Both companies have been making ugly noises lately about controlling the data that flows across their networks. This would be roughly like AT&T monitoring your phone calls for priority and, maybe one day, content. More corporate Stalinism is not what the world needs, but we may not be in danger. Several times before the Big Suits at Baby Bells have talked about tollbooths on the Internet, only to be stampeded by reality.

Why Republicans Are So Angry
john posted in politics & culture on March 19th, 2006

	Why are Republicans so angry?
Bill O’Reilly	There’s no doubt that they are angry. Stymied at every turn in Congress, snubbed at the White House, locked out of the Washington lobbying circus, they are just not in the power circle.
No sir, things are just not going their way. Hundreds of shows are produced on TV and you never see a Republican. Visit the boardrooms of Sony, Time-Warner, and Fox and there’s not a conservative to be found.	Chuck Grassley

So what’s wrong? It’s those snotty effete Liberals with their books and wine and art.

Dick’s eyebrow

yuppie wine tasting

deKooning

Repubs just hate them because they can’t be them. You see, secretly Republicans want to be hip.

They try and try, but they keep getting twee or Texas diva, or fascist-wildlife. They just can’t hit the right note.

Painter of Lite

hair with singer

wooden eagle

Inside every angry Repub, there lives a timid wannabe hipster, just sprouting a hint of soul patch or dreaming of a navel stud. Sadly, they are so unhip, that Republicans don’t know that Liberals aren’t hip either. They think that just because Liberals are soooo Not Republican, that Liberals must be the hip ones.

Hatch Graham Sessions Harris

So why aren’t they hip? Well let’s face it, to start, most Anglos just aren’t hip. I mean maybe you can find somebody with a goatee and a ‘tude you’d count, or a rocker in a dress made out of bubble-wrap, but basically no. We pink people can buy hip, sell hip, rip-off hip, appreciate hip, but we aren’t hip. Being hip starts with being not-Anglo.

Now these guys are hip.

Mr. Monk or Blue Train

Hip is about being in the moment, but Anglos are people who go around maximizing their revenue, begging for approval, and buying up mud-soaked shacks for redevelopment. Hip people don’t say “beverage” or “merchandise.” Hip people don’t write about hipness as if it were a commodity. Or at all.

Now Anglos can be cool.

Cool was invented by the hip, but has a lower bar. To be cool you can do ironic, or nonchalant, or just plain sang froid. James Bond is cool, but not hip. Of course this Bond is also not Anglo, he’s an unreconstructed Scot.

I’m not sure, but I don’t think you can be hip and be powerful. Politician, leader, tycoon, president are all closed to hipness. Mom and Dad, it goes without saying, can’t be hip. Maybe teacher can be hip. Some Anglo comics might make it to hip.
Lenny

So what can Republicans do to be hip?
What can they do to throw off dowdy petulance and strut their real stuff?

That’s a big non-starter pilgrim. Republicans are made up of two predominant Anglo groups: the dwindling pin-stripe Wall streeters, with their sidekick small-businessmen, and the countrified, evangelical, tetchy Snopes of all incomes who are running the country just now. I used to say that these folks are held together by a terror of Black Sex: steamy, night-living, full of bright colors, big men, and loud women. Their worst nightmare is that Big Johnson ogre that threatens to trample their manhood and violate their womenfolk.

rasta wrestle yo wife?

He gonna get you sucka.

Ok so they are afraid of the dark, but that doesn’t explain why Republicans think they are such victims: why Hollywood, the Culture of Victimization, Liberals, New Yorkers, People With Good Suits, are all out to get ‘em. To listen to self-described Conservatives you’d think they sit in the back of the bus, eat in the kitchen, and shuffle their feets before the massa. After buying all three branches of government, overrunning Wall Street, and consolidating the entertainment industry, just what is it they haven’t got?

What Republicans haven’t got, and can’t get, is hip. Democrats aren’t hip either, but they accept it, and are sort of aw-gee shucks apologetic about it. They figure it’s good enough to be embarrassed at being unhip, and maybe hope for cool. Worse, Democrats even look like wannabe Republicans, these days.

Diane Leahy Biden

What about cool?
Mostly Republicans can’t even fake cool, because they are so busy whining and pounding the table. Hip is way over the horizon, like Shangri-la.

They’ll never be satisfied.
In their hearts, Repubs know they come from Eisenhower and Goldwater and not Lincoln or TR. Nixon, Agnew, Reagan, Bush: just a bunch of laughable palefaces.

No matter how many Lincolns, LLadros, and big hair appointments at Neiman-Marcus they get, no gloss of hipness will appear. They’ll keep on feeding their frustration, buying up jobs, shipping their money overseas, pushing for Big Brother government.

Trying for hip is uncool.
Resenting hip is frumpy.
Decrying hip is self-righteous.
They’re doomed.

A Bad Day Among Many
john posted in politics & culture on March 14th, 2006

Last week, Congress re-approved the Patriot Act, cravenly caved on the NSA domestic spying affair, and blew spittle over each other in their haste to act outraged over some obscure business deal involving Dubai, port operations, and the usual bucket of money. They said they ‘got a lot of mail about the ports’. Of course later it turned out that almost all port operations are run by foreign companies.

Helllooooo!
Half the voters think one or both of the last two presidential elections was stolen. The courts are looking into the off-year gerrymandering of Texas, which delivered the house into Republican hands. We are stuck in a foreign civil war that’s costing us lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. Nobody is doing anything about that, are they?

You can remind me that this sort of shenanigans is the nature of democracies and republics, you can point out that Roosevelt and Wilson may have gone further astray in unconstitutional tactics. Then again, maybe not. We’ll nod sagely and remember Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus and shut down newspapers. Well, to repeat a cliche, Bush is no Lincoln or Roosevelt or Wilson.

We’ve been through these national tantrums before: usually, citing extraordinary circumstance, the executive grabs for power, and each time is eventually reined in. But I can argue that the extraordinary circumstance this time around is government overreaching itself. There’s no Al Queda terrorism crisis. Al Queda is just a bogeyman thrown up to scare Soccer Moms and Nascar Dads into line. Meanwhile, Washington fiddles while nuclear proliferation spins out of control.

In each case of executive arrogation before, there was a real crisis that passed, or eventually men of moral courage stood up against the attack on our freedoms. Ominously, McCarthy was just a junior Senator, had no actual evidence, and still was able to do quite a lot of damage. Men I consider stronger than our current crop of ethical midgets, men like Eisenhower and Truman, did not shut him down. Now we have low-flying moderates like Senator Olympia Snowe and her colleagues agreeing to a spineless compromise allowing continued unsupervised domestic surveillance. Today the rot is deep within the power structure of at least two branches of government, and possibly now in the court as well. Where is the reaction? Where is the moral courage? Private citizens are outraged, disgusted, and angry, but nothing happens.

Perhaps this too shall pass, but I have lost another little bit of hope.