August 04, 2006

• Yay! The first I heard of the Johnston Atoll was in a little book called The Sex Lives of Cannibals. Troost didn't paint a pretty picture of it then either. Good book, although it's mostly about Tarawa.
• Seawall (protecting the nuclear waste dump) is predicted to not last another 50 years, and half the island is covered with tiny pieces of plutonium. They only cleaned up the parts they surveyed. I dare you to guess how much they left unsurveyed. Apparently the reason its not being turned into a wildlife preserve is that the Department of the Interior didn't want to take on issues relating to its cleanup, and its probably not seriously for sale. Its being offered to gauge interest and see what sorts of purposes people might put it to. You're going to have pretty severe land use restrictions because of all the hazardous materials (don't dig). Of course, perhaps we could have another Sealand
• So,"can be used as a residence or vacation getaway but it does not have utilities or a water supply." In addition, I doubt that they have a Trader Joe's, so I think I won't bid on it.
• You're going to have pretty severe land use restrictions because of all the hazardous materials (don't dig). It's kind of pointless to dig an atoll, anyways.
• Oh great... another prize for some rich asshole.
• I think we can rule this one out for the site of the MoFi Commune....
• For sale: radioactive island soon to be completely underwater due to global warming. Priced to move!
• Damn. You naysayers have completely wet-blanketed my idea for all MoFi's to move there and live out the rest of our lives in drunken, sex-crazed bliss. Well, except for those monkeys that wear Crocs. Either way, done deal. Too bad.
• That was my first thought, too, Ralph. Have we finally found the future site of Monkystan?
• Nah we still have our eye on that lovely village in Tuscany...
• Um, no, not pointless. As in, don't do ground preparation for your hotel, don't dig holes to plant trees, don't dig trenches to run water pipes. I don't know how deep they buried most of the plutonium, I'm guessing that in the heavily contaminated areas its under about 6 feet of crushed coral (and the coral itself is mildly contaminated). On the rest of the island its probably sitting whereever it decided to settle.
• This is an incredibly sad remenant of the Cold War. The worst part of it is the fact that over the coming decades more and more sites like this will come to light, all over the world. At least this one is far from inhabited areas.
• So what's with all the debate about sealing off radioactive waste we've generated and putting some "universal" signage to keep humans off for the next 10000 years? Bullshit! I say build reactors, dump the waste stuff on a nice beach somewhere, and put up some realty signs!
• HM, I think we now know where that yellow lobster came from.
• This would be perfect for my new secret evil lair. /Did I say that out loud?
• Oh, oh, oh! Can I be your concubine?
• WATERFRONT PROPERTY -- OWNER DESPERATE TO SELL! FANTASTIC INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY, VACANT LAND PERFECT FOR UNIQUE DEVELOPMENT! GAS, METAL, MINERAL DEPOSITS CLOSE TO SURFACE JUST WAITING! RICH IN HISTORY! LOCALS SAY IT HAS ITS OWN SPECIAL ENERGY! WON'T LAST FOREVER -- CALL NOW!
• Why bother with a polluted pile of shitrock when you can have Ian Fleming's private island hideaway of the coast of Tobago for as little as $8M. James-friggin'-Bond, baby.
• Whooops! Make that $3 Mil! Not 8.
• Uh, yeah, I think that'd be suitable for my needs... Under-neath the man-go tree...
• Ok, Berek, but you know you're bound to die as soon as Bond hops over from his island.
• Think I'll trot down to the Bureau of Vital Records at lunchtime and register my new Bond Girl name. Dammit, who'd 'a thunk there were already so many women in New York named "Una Tractive?"
• Other Bond Girl names still available: Elle Niño Miss Anthrope Fanny Rockhart
• Anne Aesthetic
• Freida de'Muffentopp
• Reza Mayan Iplatips
• This thread turned into commune dreams. (How did the sale go, stomper?)
• Um, no, not pointless. As in, don't do ground preparation for your hotel, don't dig holes to plant trees, don't dig trenches to run water pipes. From what I understand about populated atolls, this isn't often done. The dry seasons and coral "soil" composition keep a lot of life from growing except the hardiest plants, like coconut trees. Digging down one tends to find seawater, so in many cases foundations are built above ground level - in some cases on stilts. There are some shallow foundations for the larger more expensive tourist buildings (if they exist). As for piping, that only seems to be done in the larger, more central, atolls if at all. I have no idea whether piping is done above or below ground. A lot of it seems to be done above ground from cisterns. I may be wrong since most of what I know about atoll life comes from Kiribati, and most of that from the book I mentioned above.
• If you look at topographic maps of this atoll, you'll see one substantial hill, and this island is less atoll than fill and asphalt. But, you can't disturb the surface with any guarantee of safety. So right, you may not want to run pipes and have them corrode through exposure to see water. It used to have a golf course. Obviously the surface has been disturbed in the past. Levlling ground for a foundation of a building might be ill advised. I wouldn't plan on doing anything again without considerable expense to pay for sampling and environmental monitoring.
• see water^seawater
• Of course, I guess one could just throw a couple prefab structures down, floating over a sublayment of concrete, lay more concrete over everything around, throw dirt over that, and pretend the plutonium isn't there... much like the government.
• Oh, oh, I know! Send your evil henchmen there to live in tents for a while, then by the time you show up a few months later you'll have a super powered mutant army waiting for you! Next? World Domination!!! BWAA HA HA!!!! Why, yes, I grew up reading comic books. Why do you ask?
• I know the thread has changed direction again, but here's a Bond-related comic that #2 found last night. It seemed apropos. We now return you to the topic at hand.
• Living on an atoll would be pretty cool, even if it was radioactive. But then I remembered about global warming and the sea levels going up, and I think if I buy any islands they will have huge mountains on them so that they will still be there in 50 years. Maybe one of the Hawaiaan islands with mountains so tall you need a parka to visit and they do astronomy up there.
• No, no, in this case global warming won't be a problem. The radioactive materials will boil the water away as it raises over the island!
• And we'll build dikes out of atomic squid.
• Precooked seafood!
• And we'll build dikes out of atomic squid. Lesbians are actually radioactive sea creatures? *mind boggles*