Althouse: Waiting for the sinkhole.

May 4, 2014

Waiting for the sinkhole.

At the Baltimore landslide:

Scroll to 1:10 for the serious action.

18 comments:

Sam L. said...: Crisis management: We won't manage it until it becomes a crisis.; 5/4/14, 8:34 PM
richlb said...: I live in Baltimore. Have some friends who live in this neighborhood. Sadly, some insurance companies are calling it an act of God and are not going to compensate.; 5/4/14, 8:36 PM
Quaestor said...: "Sadly, some insurance companies are calling it an act of God and are not going to compensate."

It's God getting even with that male belly dancer. He's been known to get the earth to swallow up offenders in the past, hasn't he?; 5/4/14, 8:56 PM
The Drill SGT said...: EXCEPT IT WASN'T A SINK HOLE.

It was a retaining wall above a railway cut that gave way.; 5/4/14, 8:59 PM
David said...: I nearly lost a car to a sinkhole in Chicago caused by a broken water pipe. The cars behind mine disappeared but mine survived and was on the front page of the Tribune. That was my 15 minutes of fame.; 5/4/14, 9:14 PM
MayBee said...: Why are these people standing there? Get away! Get away!; 5/4/14, 9:22 PM
D. said...: >Sadly, some insurance companies are calling it an act of God and are not going to compensate.<

Sue csx; 5/4/14, 9:55 PM
Real American said...: America under Obama.; 5/4/14, 10:06 PM
Quaestor said...: So who owns the retaining wall? CSX or the City of Baltimore. If it's the city I would bother filing a suit, Baltimore, aka the Next Detroit, is the proverbial bloodless turnip.; 5/4/14, 10:07 PM
Jazzizhep said...: @Quaestor

Since when do insurance companies not reimburse their own clients for acts of God? Last time I checked tornadoes, hail, earthquakes, hurricanes, lightning, high winds et al are all acts of God covered under most comprehensive policies that include damages as well as liability.

If my car (or even home) is picked by a tornado and thrown against your vehicle, you or your insurance company may try to sue me for being liable for damages. In this instance the "act of God" will most likely prevent me from being held liable because I could not have known, anticipated, or prevented the airborne trajectory of my vehicle or home. However, such a circumstance does not allow your insurance to to the same claim, as the entire purpose of insurance is to cover the cost of lost or damaged assets--regardless if it is your fault, your neighbor's fault, or God's fault (assuming you have comprehensive coverage).; 5/4/14, 10:08 PM
chickelit said...: Can this be blamed on CO2 and SUV's somehow?; 5/4/14, 11:20 PM
Hagar said...: I am pretty sure I heard the evening news blame it on global warming.

Otherwise it must be George W.; 5/5/14, 8:08 AM
Hagar said...: However, it is also true that retaining walls should have filter material behind them and weep holes to prevent the soil mass retained from becoming saturated.

Sometimes people get a little sloppy with this when nobody is watching.; 5/5/14, 8:12 AM
Robert Cook said...: "America under Obama."

America Under the Oligarchs (i.e., under Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, whoever will be next, etc., etc.); 5/5/14, 8:20 AM
Quaestor said...: Last time I checked tornadoes, hail, earthquakes, hurricanes, lightning, high winds et al are all acts of God covered under most comprehensive policies that include damages as well as liability.

Point one: Whether tornadoes are "acts of god" depends on one's theology, does it not?

Point two: I didn't make the observation that some insurance companies are dodging their obligations by declaring the Baltimore sinkhole an act of god; that was richlb, which is why I used quotation marks.

Point three: Some forms of extreme weather are known and calculable risks, like typhoons in Malaysia. Since they are calculable insurance companies can compute rates for coverage against those risks which allow them to take in more than they pay out. However, a typhoon in Wisconsin is not calculable and would likely fall under the act of god rubric. The collapse of an engineering structure under the stress of a wet weekend in May strikes me as unlikely and incalculable. Any insurance company that pays out in this matter will be suing the hell outa somebody.

Point four: I find your syntax rather obtuse. I've read your post half a dozen times, and I'm still not certain what your point is.; 5/5/14, 9:37 AM
Nichevo said...: Cookie, you are a corrupt asshole. Emphasis on corrupt. So Reagan etcetera huh? so Carter was clean? LBJ was clean? FDR was clean? Wilson was clean? Where does it start, Robert, where did it all go wrong? Lincoln? Jefferson?; 5/5/14, 10:15 AM
Quaestor said...: @ Nichevo.

Agreed. But you must realize that since even the hipsters must admit to the failure of the Obama as president, it has become necessary to drag all his predecessors in the office to his level of incompetence and corruption so as to raise him to the rank of merely average.; 5/5/14, 11:21 AM
Nichevo said...: oh, so it's the old "everybody does it" defense. I'm perfectly willing to admit that this country is going off the rails. But I think to solve the problem you have to understand where it started. I am inclined to think the last good president of a free nation was Coolidge. But we could go back to Cleveland or Polk perhaps.

Then again I will tend to be easier on the Republicans becausethey are merely stupid / weak whereas the Democrats tend more to the evil / wicked.

But I may be crazy. I think that history was on a very acceptable glide path but the first President Bush needed to win reelection. Clinton getting in ruined everything with his reelection being the icing on the cake. I think Bush would have greatly stabilized world events in his second term. Now, we are where we are...I really don't know what comes next but I fear the worst.; 5/5/14, 9:53 PM