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Selects: Why is Venice so wet? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, It's Charles W. Chuck Brian here on a
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Speaker 1: lovely Saturday in Atlanta, Georgia, co host of the Stuff
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Speaker 1: You Should Know podcast, bringing you with this Saturday Selects
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Speaker 1: episode all the way back from June. Why is Venice
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Speaker 1: so wet? The answer coming up right now. Welcome to
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Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
0:35
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
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Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant Nols with us again and it's another morning edition. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: we got an email. I think we had our last
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Speaker 1: morning thing not session, not too long ago, and someone
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Speaker 1: wrote in and said, please don't do that again. I
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Speaker 1: didn't think it was that bad. You guys are clearly
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Speaker 1: like really tired and not the same. So what I
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Speaker 1: say is, if you have a choice, is save this
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Speaker 1: one the morning and just pretend like where your local
1:02
Speaker 1: MPR station or a cup of Joe like Josh is drinking. Yea,
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Speaker 1: and yeah it smells so good, and let's let's do
1:11
Speaker 1: this morning style. Let's do it man, um, let's do
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Speaker 1: this more style in Italian. Yeah, this is gonna be
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Speaker 1: a fan favorite, I predict because there's some Italian pronunciations
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Speaker 1: that I'm sure you will do for everybody, Right, I'm
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Speaker 1: gonna do with my best. That was a good, good
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Speaker 1: little taste of it. Yes, that's one of the accents
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Speaker 1: you can have a great time with without people saying
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Speaker 1: that you're offensive. That's a T shirt. Yeah, so Chuck,
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Speaker 1: you heard about them sea levels yeahs and fallen. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: due to climate change, that's what some saying. Well, it's
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Speaker 1: climate change. To the big bone of contention is whether
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Speaker 1: it's human cause, right or anthropogenic? Ye? Uh. The thing
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Speaker 1: is there are there. It is undeniable that see levels
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Speaker 1: are rising rate of about three millimeters a year, which
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Speaker 1: doesn't sound like much, But buddy, if you live for
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Speaker 1: a thousand years, you'd see the sea levels rise by
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Speaker 1: three meters, which is almost ten ft in America. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: not the biggest deal in some parts of the world.
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Speaker 1: Big deal in Venice. Yeah. And you know, if you're
2:20
Speaker 1: waiting a thousand years to watch it rise three ms
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Speaker 1: that's the current rate of sea level rise, it could
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Speaker 1: speed up tremendously. And while three millimeters might not sound
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Speaker 1: that much to you out in the Rockies, yeah, because
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Speaker 1: it's nice and dry there in the middle of the Mountain.
2:39
Speaker 1: They're all stoned, right, Yeah, because it's legal there. Who cares.
2:44
Speaker 1: If you're in a place like um, the Maldives, you're saying, wow,
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Speaker 1: my country is probably not going to exist in the
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Speaker 1: next like twenty years. If you're in New Orleans worried
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Speaker 1: about the same thing. And a little town known as Venice,
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Speaker 1: Italy is facing the same problem. It has been for
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Speaker 1: a very long time. And you say little town, Uh,
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Speaker 1: it is getting smaller, not only physically, but the population
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Speaker 1: because Venice is such a mess, has declined down to
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Speaker 1: about sixty people now. Yeah, over the years from like
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Speaker 1: a hundred and eighty. Yes, because people are tired of
3:20
Speaker 1: getting wet. They are they used to get wet. Um, say,
3:24
Speaker 1: back in nine they would get wet about ten times
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Speaker 1: a year due to flooding. They could expect ten noteworthy
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Speaker 1: floods a year. And when we say not worthy floods,
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Speaker 1: we mean like the squares in the throughout the city
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Speaker 1: are flooded up to maybe your knees, kind of like
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Speaker 1: the whole ground floor of Venice. Yeah, it gets flooded
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Speaker 1: like you're slogging around, which I mean sounds kind of
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Speaker 1: fun when you're a kid, but it's not that fun, right,
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Speaker 1: especially when you're an adult who maybe a germophobe. Because
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Speaker 1: Venice has an antiquated sewer system that's antiquated a is
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Speaker 1: uh the perfect word. Yeah. By antiquated, we mean all
3:59
Speaker 1: of the um sewer pipes go right out into the canals,
4:03
Speaker 1: and they have along the um along the years added
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Speaker 1: like septic tanks to treat the stuff first. But not
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Speaker 1: everybody has those um and sometimes they get backed up too.
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Speaker 1: But the raw sewage or septically treated sewage in Venice
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Speaker 1: goes into those canals that you float around in um boats.
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Speaker 1: And when you're swimming around in the flood like a tourist,
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Speaker 1: you're swimming around in fecal material. The tours get in
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Speaker 1: that water. There's a picture of it um on a
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Speaker 1: oh Man, I can't remember. I think like a Bloomberg
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Speaker 1: article about Venice or maybe wired. But it's like, if
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Speaker 1: you know about Venice, you'll think these people are crazy
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Speaker 1: for swimming in this floodwater. And it shows a couple
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Speaker 1: of tourists like swimming in a flood in the middle
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Speaker 1: of the square um a San Marco, the San Marco Square. Yeah. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: And now that you know it's it's gross to see.
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Speaker 1: They're like, it tastes briny and sort of om me right,
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Speaker 1: why are my lips swollen? Yeah, it's uh, it's that's
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Speaker 1: one of many many problems facing Venice right now, an
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Speaker 1: antiquated sewer system, and a lot of the problems are
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Speaker 1: unique just because of the city and how it's created. Yeah,
5:16
Speaker 1: let's talk about this because Venice is not something I
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Speaker 1: knew a ton about. I knew it was on the water.
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Speaker 1: I knew it was sinking. Shout out by the way
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Speaker 1: to Venice is sinking Athens band and stuff. You should
5:29
Speaker 1: know fans. Um, well, then I like them already, Yes, no,
5:33
Speaker 1: you know those guys. He does, in fact, says Nold
5:36
Speaker 1: talks Jerry doesn't like. Oh yeah, they're great. He launches
5:41
Speaker 1: into like a five minute discourse. Uh So, I knew
5:44
Speaker 1: a little bit about Venice, very little though I've never
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Speaker 1: been there. But when I watched this awesome video that
5:49
Speaker 1: Josh found, yeah, um, we should go ahead and plug
5:52
Speaker 1: it because it's just super cool. Yeah, it's called um
5:55
Speaker 1: Venice backstage period. How does Venice work? And it is
6:00
Speaker 1: created by the Insula SPA, which is I guess the
6:03
Speaker 1: production arm of the city of Venice. Yeah. So it's
6:07
Speaker 1: like a locally produced video about Venice, but it's one
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Speaker 1: of the most fascinating, like eighteen minute videos I've ever seen. Yeah,
6:15
Speaker 1: I mean they pack a lot of learning into that
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Speaker 1: eighteen minutes. Um. So if you don't know much about Venice,
6:20
Speaker 1: imagine if you do know something about New York City,
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Speaker 1: imagine like the Greenwich Village. Uh. And I use Greenwich
6:26
Speaker 1: Village because it's not on like the direct like north
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Speaker 1: south east west grid. They got all those crazy diagonal streets.
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Speaker 1: Imagine if it's so hot right now because yeah, true. Um,
6:37
Speaker 1: imagine Greenwich Village if every block was an island. And
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Speaker 1: that's essentially what Venice is, right. It is a hundred
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Speaker 1: and twenty four tiny little islands I'll pack together. And
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Speaker 1: instead of streets, you have water, a hundred and eighty
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Speaker 1: three canals and it's all connected by little foot bridges
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Speaker 1: and real bridges. Uh and yes, canals by boat. Yeah.
7:03
Speaker 1: I mean it's crazy when you've never even seen like
7:06
Speaker 1: the big zoom in from above bird's eye view of
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Speaker 1: what Venice looks like. And I was like, that's what's
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Speaker 1: going on. Yeah, it's crazy because I mean when especially
7:14
Speaker 1: when you're in the city, like you're walking over canals,
7:16
Speaker 1: but you don't give too much thought to him. You're
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Speaker 1: just like, oh, that's so quaint. You're almost thinking like
7:21
Speaker 1: they dug that out on purpose or something to get tourists.
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Speaker 1: Now those are necessity. It's it's odd. It was an
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Speaker 1: odd and different way for a city to form. They
7:32
Speaker 1: didn't start from a city center and grow out. Each
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Speaker 1: little block in section was its own little thing. Yeah,
7:39
Speaker 1: it was kind of its own little municipality. Um. And
7:42
Speaker 1: the reason that these people set up shop hundreds and
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Speaker 1: hundreds of years ago on these islands was for for protection.
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Speaker 1: Venice was a very well protected municipality or cluster of municipalities. Right. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: It sits in a lagoon, and there are three water
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Speaker 1: ways that flow water in and out every day twice
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Speaker 1: a day. With the tides. Yeah, the Adriatic flows in
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Speaker 1: um to the lagoon and uh brings it out, brings
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Speaker 1: the water back out at low tide, right yeah, high tide,
8:15
Speaker 1: it brings water in. Low tide, it takes the water out,
8:17
Speaker 1: which is why they're not that worried about their sewage
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Speaker 1: going into the canals because because the the water comes
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Speaker 1: in and kind of brings all the trash out to
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Speaker 1: the sea and then no one sees it. So like
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Speaker 1: it's a self a flushing system. Yeah, well, I mean
8:30
Speaker 1: it pretty much is. So that's how they've been able
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Speaker 1: to put up with that for so long because twice
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Speaker 1: a day, Um, the waters exchange. There's there's a big
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Speaker 1: exchange to it. The problem is when that water comes in,
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Speaker 1: especially when you include sea level rises and now up
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Speaker 1: to six times more flooding per year. Remember it was
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Speaker 1: like ten times a year. Now that's up to about
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Speaker 1: sixty floods. Um, you have kind of a problem. You've
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Speaker 1: got the you you have a sinking city essentially, is
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Speaker 1: what it's what it amounts to. Yeah, I mean it's
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Speaker 1: it's two things. It's the water rises in Venice itself.
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Speaker 1: The buildings are sinking. So those are two bad things
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Speaker 1: that go you know, that don't taste great together. The
9:18
Speaker 1: reason that sinking is because they extract freshwater from beneath
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Speaker 1: the city, right, Yeah, so there's less of a solid
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Speaker 1: foundation now and um there's also drilling nearby, like for
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Speaker 1: natural gas or um fossil fuels and uh, it's also
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Speaker 1: just a roading. Well yeah, they've done a lot of
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Speaker 1: things over the year. When you've got seawater lapping up
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Speaker 1: against well, let's step back, it's not just dirt and stuff.
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Speaker 1: They realize pretty early on, we're not going to be
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Speaker 1: around unless we, in case, the entire city basically in brick, yeah,
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Speaker 1: below the water line, and they came up with some
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Speaker 1: really ingenious construction methods that you can super engine in
10:00
Speaker 1: that Venice back stage video on vimeo. Yeah, but even
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Speaker 1: though they've been ensconced the whole city and brick as
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Speaker 1: a foundation, that's was lapping salt water and it's you know,
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Speaker 1: these canals are busy. It's not just the gondolier singing
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Speaker 1: the song like there. If you see real footage and
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Speaker 1: that movie footage, they're packed with boats, motor boats, cruise ships,
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Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff. And that action creates a lot
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Speaker 1: of movement in the water and it just whittles away
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Speaker 1: at those bricks little by little over the years, over
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Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of years, and then that's why Venice
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Speaker 1: is sinking. Um. Part of the other problem too, is
10:38
Speaker 1: h sediment builds up in the canals. They're supposed to
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Speaker 1: close them down on a fairly regular basis. Yeah, basically
10:45
Speaker 1: damn them up, drain them and then remove the sediment
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Speaker 1: and basically called the dead bodies. Yeah, Um, they stopped
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Speaker 1: doing that as frequently is before, and there there's been
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Speaker 1: a problem as a result. Plus, salt water permeates bricks.
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Speaker 1: Bricks are um semipermeable and they have capillary action, so
11:04
Speaker 1: it draws saltwater up into the bricks, which I mean,
11:07
Speaker 1: as long as bricks are connected by mortar, that water,
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Speaker 1: that saltwater will rise all the way to the top
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Speaker 1: of a building. And when the water evaporates, the water
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Speaker 1: is gone, but the salt stays and it apparently increases
11:18
Speaker 1: in volume tremendously and basically crushes the bricks from the
11:21
Speaker 1: inside out. Yeah, and they've they've been taking steps and
11:25
Speaker 1: measures a little by little in different ways over the
11:27
Speaker 1: years to help. But they're they're kind of fighting a
11:29
Speaker 1: losing battle. They're like inject resin into the between the
11:33
Speaker 1: bricks and into the bricks with hydraulics a barrier. But
11:37
Speaker 1: you know, they're fighting, like I said, they're fighting mother
11:40
Speaker 1: nature here, right. So finally they've said, let's turn our
11:43
Speaker 1: attention from these um these piecemeal measures of you know
11:47
Speaker 1: kind of of treating bricks and go to where the
11:52
Speaker 1: problem is. Let's go to the doorstep of the problem,
11:54
Speaker 1: which is the Adriatic and the three inlets into the lagoon,
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Speaker 1: and they turn their attention to that. And now they've
12:02
Speaker 1: come up with a pretty great plan for dealing with
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Speaker 1: rising tides and floodwaters. M all right, so there's a plan.
12:36
Speaker 1: You know one thing on that video too quickly that
12:38
Speaker 1: amazed me. You're talking about the building construction. Um, the
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Speaker 1: walls in Venice. The exterior walls have a tendency to
12:45
Speaker 1: bow out at the top, and uh so they have
12:49
Speaker 1: these these basically hooks that pull from the inside the
12:54
Speaker 1: walls in and then those long metal hooks travel into
12:59
Speaker 1: the floor where they spiked into the floor. So they're
13:01
Speaker 1: trying to pull it in there. And then the roofs
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Speaker 1: of the buildings in Venice aren't just like hey, let's
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Speaker 1: keep the water out there, literally like caps that locked
13:11
Speaker 1: the walls in right at the top. So it's, uh,
13:15
Speaker 1: it's not just like a weather protector roof. It's it's
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Speaker 1: actually like if the roof wasn't there, the walls would
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Speaker 1: bow out, and then the interior walls don't even connect
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Speaker 1: rigidly to the exterior walls. Yeah, it allows some gives
13:27
Speaker 1: so that they can move back and forth. Is the
13:29
Speaker 1: wave action basically moves the walls. So, I mean, we
13:32
Speaker 1: we're saying Venice is a mess, but it's really an
13:35
Speaker 1: ingenious city of just engineering the fact that it's still
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Speaker 1: there at all. You know. Another construction point that kind
13:44
Speaker 1: of stuck out to me was that buildings in Venice
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Speaker 1: are built on piles of steaks, like wooden stakes driven
13:51
Speaker 1: into the ground to kind of reinforce the mucky ground
13:54
Speaker 1: to build on first. It's really a remarkable place when
13:57
Speaker 1: you look at all the things they've had to do
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Speaker 1: just to make that what shouldn't even be a city.
14:02
Speaker 1: I mean, let's let's get real. Well, it's a very neat,
14:04
Speaker 1: beautiful city. Have you been, you mean, and I went
14:06
Speaker 1: last summer and it is gorgeous. Yeah, very neat. Yeah yeah,
14:13
Speaker 1: just walking around and all of a sudden you're like, oh,
14:15
Speaker 1: I'm next to three thousand year old ruins. It's just
14:18
Speaker 1: basically part of the city escape, right, Whereas here in
14:20
Speaker 1: Atlanta you're like, oh, there's a Burger king, all right,
14:23
Speaker 1: but it's from the sixties exactly, alright, So we we
14:27
Speaker 1: had a pretty good cliffhanger that they had an idea.
14:30
Speaker 1: So let's we'll go ahead and announce it. Okay, Well,
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Speaker 1: the idea is called Mosa or you should do this, chuck,
14:40
Speaker 1: the modulo sperimentale electoral bad electro mechanico. So that's the
14:49
Speaker 1: experimental electro mechanical module. Which is the reason that that
14:54
Speaker 1: has that clumsy name is because the M O S E.
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Speaker 1: The acronym is also so the Italian spelling from Mosa
15:03
Speaker 1: or Moses and basically what the what Moses was well
15:06
Speaker 1: known for. One of his many hits was parting the
15:09
Speaker 1: Red Sea. Right, well, they thought that was very clever.
15:13
Speaker 1: That's as big as hit they were coming. I don't know.
15:15
Speaker 1: He did a lot of stuff. In Commandments that was
15:17
Speaker 1: a pretty big hit, Burning Bush. I would say the
15:21
Speaker 1: Red Sea was his American Pie or no, yeah, that
15:25
Speaker 1: was his Baker Street. The Ten Commandments was his uh,
15:28
Speaker 1: right down the line, who did Jerry rafferty Baker Street?
15:33
Speaker 1: That was the saxophone one, right yeah, and Right down
15:36
Speaker 1: the Land was his other hit. So I've never heard
15:38
Speaker 1: that one. You have? You just don't know it, Okay,
15:41
Speaker 1: says you was just about to bust it. Out too early.
15:44
Speaker 1: So anyway, Mosa moses in Italian. Uh, it's a that's
15:50
Speaker 1: a clever use of an acronym because this thing, the
15:53
Speaker 1: contraption they came up with, it's pretty ingenious and clever
15:57
Speaker 1: to defend against these rising high tides, which are known
16:01
Speaker 1: as aqua alta, aqua alta. Yeah, and this is one
16:05
Speaker 1: of those things where you say ingenious and clever, but
16:07
Speaker 1: I would add in its simplicity. Right, These are my
16:10
Speaker 1: favorite kinds of projects. When man looks at something and says, well,
16:15
Speaker 1: why don't we just build a big gate? That's pretty
16:19
Speaker 1: much what it is. Yeah, yeah, but it is more
16:21
Speaker 1: complicated than that. And let's let's talk about the Mosa So. Um.
16:25
Speaker 1: Remember we said sea levels are rising in general, but
16:28
Speaker 1: high tides are a really big problem in Venice because
16:32
Speaker 1: they're getting higher. Um. So the Mosai project, uh is
16:37
Speaker 1: it consists of a bunch of gates that can be
16:40
Speaker 1: brought up and raised on command. They have a magician
16:45
Speaker 1: who commands the gates to rise, and um the gates
16:50
Speaker 1: come up and basically separate the lagoon from the Adriatic Sea. Yeah.
16:55
Speaker 1: So imagine a big, huge steel door that lays flat
17:00
Speaker 1: the bottom of the ocean, and uh, they fill it
17:04
Speaker 1: with air and it's got two hinges on one side,
17:07
Speaker 1: so that big steel door just raises up as it
17:10
Speaker 1: fills with air, obviously becoming more buoyant, and until it
17:13
Speaker 1: looks like about a forty five degree angle, uh, facing
17:17
Speaker 1: out into the sea away from the city. And that's it.
17:22
Speaker 1: It's just a barrier. It just swings up and I
17:25
Speaker 1: think there's about a two foot differential in the water
17:27
Speaker 1: levels and uh, it essentially prevents high tide from happening
17:32
Speaker 1: within the Venice Lagoon. That's exactly right. And um, these
17:37
Speaker 1: these basically walls, floating walls is what they amount to.
17:41
Speaker 1: Like you said, they have hinges on the bottom. Uh.
17:43
Speaker 1: And there's all sorts of pictures of the Mose project,
17:46
Speaker 1: the mosa A project, um all over the internet. I
17:50
Speaker 1: found it exponentially easier to understand when I saw what
17:55
Speaker 1: they were talking about. Yeah, it's like, oh, that's all
17:57
Speaker 1: it is. It'll allow us to clumsily try to get
18:02
Speaker 1: this across. So you've got the hinges, um hinge, the
18:07
Speaker 1: metal wall to the bottom of the sea floor right, well,
18:09
Speaker 1: not to the sea floor, well to a concrete trench
18:13
Speaker 1: within the sea floor that the thing sits in when
18:15
Speaker 1: it's not in use. Yeah, they tried to pound it
18:17
Speaker 1: right into the sand and they were like, it's not
18:19
Speaker 1: a working right, get us some concrete. So they These
18:23
Speaker 1: trenches also provide a place for engineers to go underneath
18:27
Speaker 1: and basically fix things and fiddle with stuff. And it
18:29
Speaker 1: also provides the delivery system for the compressed air that
18:33
Speaker 1: the hollow metal walls gates. Basically um fill up with
18:38
Speaker 1: air so that they start to stand upright, Yeah, And
18:41
Speaker 1: how long does that take? Like twenty minutes or thirty minutes,
18:44
Speaker 1: and then uh, it takes about the same time for
18:47
Speaker 1: to fill them with seawater again to return them back
18:49
Speaker 1: to their laying position on the floor. It was a
18:52
Speaker 1: little quicker going down, but which makes sense. Yes, but
18:55
Speaker 1: that's pretty much it. When the high tides coming, they
18:58
Speaker 1: fill them with air so that the eight stand up
19:00
Speaker 1: above water. And then on the lagoon side, the sea
19:04
Speaker 1: level stays low. On the sea side, it can get
19:06
Speaker 1: as high as it likes. And because they're hinged and
19:09
Speaker 1: filled with air, they're not rigid, which means that they
19:12
Speaker 1: can take a pounding and they can sway back and
19:15
Speaker 1: forth a little bit and still not give. So it
19:18
Speaker 1: is like you said, it's it's ingenious and its simplicity,
19:22
Speaker 1: it is and it's uh. It officially launched in two
19:24
Speaker 1: thousand three, and that was and this was after years
19:27
Speaker 1: and years of um I guess ideas and bids and plans,
19:34
Speaker 1: and the Mosai project is what finally went out. They
19:37
Speaker 1: said it was gonna be two to three billion dollars
19:40
Speaker 1: and would be done in uh. It's still not done.
19:44
Speaker 1: They're looking at six now. Um. They did the first
19:47
Speaker 1: successful test late last year, and like with every big project,
19:51
Speaker 1: city project like that, it's going to be over budget
19:53
Speaker 1: and over uh schedule. Yes, but there's a lot of
19:57
Speaker 1: accusations of corruption. Really yeah, Southern Italy, a big public project, corrupt.
20:04
Speaker 1: The The group that suggested the thing in the first
20:07
Speaker 1: place is called the you want to take it? Someone's
20:10
Speaker 1: gonna be offended by me, by the way. Maybe I'll
20:14
Speaker 1: bet they're not Italian, the Consortio no Eva, So that's
20:21
Speaker 1: basically the new Venice Consortium. It's a group of companies
20:24
Speaker 1: and construction companies that said, hey, we've got an idea
20:27
Speaker 1: for this problem. Let's try this, yeah, and we'll build
20:30
Speaker 1: it for you. We had all the companies under our
20:33
Speaker 1: banner that can provide everything you need. And they said,
20:37
Speaker 1: we'll build it for you for two to three billion dollars.
20:40
Speaker 1: And everybody went, what which sounds like a lot, including
20:44
Speaker 1: to people in Venice. Is that American dollars or is
20:46
Speaker 1: that euros? That's American dollars as far as I'm seeing
20:50
Speaker 1: right here. Um, but if you go to Venice, like uh,
20:55
Speaker 1: martinis like fifteen dollars, it's like twenty or only five
21:00
Speaker 1: bucks for like a little tiny martini at Harry's Bar.
21:04
Speaker 1: I know, so it sounds like a lot. But all
21:06
Speaker 1: you have to do is go open the cash register
21:08
Speaker 1: at Harry's Bar in a Tuesday afternoon and you can
21:11
Speaker 1: get two to three billion dollars to pay for this project.
21:13
Speaker 1: You know, all right, someone's a little salty about their business.
21:16
Speaker 1: It was really expensive. Yeah, it was neat, but it's
21:20
Speaker 1: also like really expensive. Europe's not cheap. No, So there
21:49
Speaker 1: was a lot of a lot of accusations of corruption,
21:53
Speaker 1: of kickbacks, the other thing being artificially expensive. Apparently there
21:58
Speaker 1: was a study that found like this thing is they've
22:01
Speaker 1: padded this tremendously. But by the time this came out, um,
22:06
Speaker 1: public opinion apparently wasn't enough to stop at construction had started.
22:10
Speaker 1: They did their first test in two twelve. Apparently it
22:13
Speaker 1: was successful, and the Mosai project continues, and I believe
22:17
Speaker 1: they're they're tracking for two thousand sixteen to have all
22:20
Speaker 1: of the gates across all three of the inlets operational. Yeah,
22:26
Speaker 1: and you said multiple gates, so each of these uh inlets.
22:29
Speaker 1: You have the Leado, uh, the Malamoco, and then I
22:34
Speaker 1: pronounce this Cheogia, but I heard it much much differently
22:38
Speaker 1: on the video, so I know that's not right. But
22:40
Speaker 1: those are the three inlets, and um, well that was
22:43
Speaker 1: a British student. They just pronounced things however they want.
22:46
Speaker 1: And then we assume because their European they know you're right. Uh.
22:51
Speaker 1: So it's not like one big gate for each of
22:53
Speaker 1: these things because that it's on a curve and you
22:55
Speaker 1: can't just have one huge gate. So the um, the Alamoco,
23:00
Speaker 1: and the Geogia have. The Malamoco has nineteen gates, Theoga
23:06
Speaker 1: has eighteen, and they're all in one row. And then
23:07
Speaker 1: the big daddy, the Leado has two rows, one with
23:11
Speaker 1: twenty gates and gates. Yeah, and they're not all the
23:14
Speaker 1: same same they're the same width, but they're not all
23:16
Speaker 1: the same height, right, and I mean they don't need
23:20
Speaker 1: to be summer taller than others. They're all about sixteen
23:23
Speaker 1: ft thick. So these are huge, huge walled gates. So yeah,
23:28
Speaker 1: I think we should. I don't know if we've gotten
23:30
Speaker 1: across how big they are. You said there's sixteen ft
23:32
Speaker 1: or about five meters thick. Um, they're the the deepest
23:39
Speaker 1: amount of water is a hundred feet, which is like
23:42
Speaker 1: thirty meters. Uh, so these things are taller than that
23:46
Speaker 1: or if need be. Yeah, uh and then they're uh,
23:50
Speaker 1: what about three fifty tons. I think that's just for
23:54
Speaker 1: like one of the gates. Yes, like one single panel
23:59
Speaker 1: could weighs as much as a seven thirty seven seven
24:02
Speaker 1: forty seven. And they they are using something that Rolls
24:06
Speaker 1: Royce makes that is basically an elevator for ships to
24:10
Speaker 1: convey each of the gates out to the sea floor. Yeah,
24:14
Speaker 1: and it takes three days to move a gate. Yeah.
24:17
Speaker 1: So they're really really big gates, but they are going
24:20
Speaker 1: to be very nimble when filled with compressed air and
24:23
Speaker 1: smacked around by waves. Plus they're in water. Yeah, so
24:26
Speaker 1: that helps with the weight that reminds me that this
24:29
Speaker 1: project faces a lot of problems that that the project faces.
24:33
Speaker 1: So there's there's some people have said, maybe this is
24:36
Speaker 1: a good idea in theory, but practically this may or
24:39
Speaker 1: may not work. What if sea levels rise faster than
24:42
Speaker 1: we think, then these things are going to basically be
24:45
Speaker 1: very expensive, totally obsolete gates, like the water would just
24:49
Speaker 1: go right over the top of the exactly. That's a
24:52
Speaker 1: nightmare scenario. Yeah that when I when I saw what
24:55
Speaker 1: I saw, it didn't look like to me they came
24:57
Speaker 1: out of the water enough. I was like, I would
24:59
Speaker 1: add another five Yeah, just to be safe, Just to
25:02
Speaker 1: be safe, you know. Um, So that's one possible problem.
25:06
Speaker 1: Another one that apparently they haven't addressed is the build
25:09
Speaker 1: up of sediment. Remember we said that you have to
25:11
Speaker 1: clean out the canals pretty frequently because sediment builds up
25:15
Speaker 1: backs up septic systems, that crumbles brick walls. Well, it
25:18
Speaker 1: will also fill in these trenches which apparently need to
25:22
Speaker 1: be totally flat, and as sediment builds up, then these
25:27
Speaker 1: things aren't going to lay flat again and you may
25:29
Speaker 1: have some problems. Apparently that's something that hasn't been addressed
25:32
Speaker 1: by the Mosai project how to deal with sediment build up. Well,
25:37
Speaker 1: I know they've got about a hundred and fifty people
25:39
Speaker 1: that will just be full time caretaking staff. Uh. And
25:44
Speaker 1: I guess part of their job will be to clean
25:46
Speaker 1: that stuff up. Huh. I would guess. Uh. And some
25:49
Speaker 1: of the other problems, Um, anytime you're undertaking a project
25:53
Speaker 1: like this has to interact with the elements and mother nature,
25:59
Speaker 1: they're going to be in iron mental concerns and uh.
26:03
Speaker 1: They range the spectrum here from we don't really know
26:07
Speaker 1: how this is going to affect things, uh and disrupt
26:10
Speaker 1: the ecosystem too. Well, wait a minute, we need this
26:15
Speaker 1: constant flow in and out of water twice a day
26:18
Speaker 1: too flush our giant toilet that we're living in, right Uh.
26:23
Speaker 1: And proponents will say it's gonna be better actually because
26:28
Speaker 1: and it sort of makes sense if there's um, if
26:32
Speaker 1: you have three holes going into something and you plug
26:35
Speaker 1: up two of them, you're gonna have a stronger flow
26:37
Speaker 1: in the one hole, right exactly. So they're saying we
26:40
Speaker 1: can actually use this to manipulate this flow of water
26:43
Speaker 1: artificially and make a better toilet flusher exactly. Yeah. Yeah,
26:47
Speaker 1: but I think that hopefully the ones who are like, well,
26:50
Speaker 1: but why don't we just use this as they an
26:53
Speaker 1: opportunity to update our septic system as a whole or
26:56
Speaker 1: sewer system as a whole. Hopefully those guys will win out,
27:00
Speaker 1: but pollution, increased pollution levels are definitely an issue that
27:03
Speaker 1: environmentalists are looking at. And uh, I just get the picture.
27:07
Speaker 1: In southern Italy. It's a tough Uh, it's tough game,
27:11
Speaker 1: you know. It seems to be a lot of fighting,
27:13
Speaker 1: Like this is a very controversial project but still remains
27:16
Speaker 1: so Yeah, and it seems to be marching on. They
27:19
Speaker 1: they One of the other criticisms was that they they
27:22
Speaker 1: basically just ignored easier, less expensive options, right, that have
27:29
Speaker 1: proven effective elsewhere in the Netherlands. Yeah, are like building
27:33
Speaker 1: barrier islands. Yeah, underwater dikes. But although apparently they have
27:37
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff already and it's not necessarily helping.
27:40
Speaker 1: It's mainly just reinforcing the natural um barriers that already exist.
27:48
Speaker 1: I guess they're like, why don't we just put up
27:50
Speaker 1: more of that? Yeah, I think it's interesting. Just uh,
27:54
Speaker 1: it's gonna be interesting to see how this plays out.
27:55
Speaker 1: I really hope it works because they've sunk a lot
27:58
Speaker 1: of money into this and there. I mean, they they
28:00
Speaker 1: moved all in on this mosa system, like they can't
28:04
Speaker 1: scrap it and say, well, it didn't work, Let's think
28:06
Speaker 1: of something new. Yeah, And I wonder how how much
28:10
Speaker 1: it would be to just like that. You can't just
28:13
Speaker 1: add a new gate, a new taller gate if the
28:16
Speaker 1: sea levels do rise faster and they these these the
28:20
Speaker 1: ones they have proved too short because it has to
28:22
Speaker 1: sit flush in the trench. So you'd have to create
28:25
Speaker 1: a whole another trench to accommodate this larger gate would
28:29
Speaker 1: be a real problem. That's the worst case scenario to
28:32
Speaker 1: me is if it's uh, yeah, if they're too short
28:35
Speaker 1: the water laps. I mean, surely they thought of that.
28:38
Speaker 1: It didn't look right to me. But they know what
28:39
Speaker 1: they're doing, right, I hope, so pretty neat and hopefully
28:44
Speaker 1: you know they had all this in that that great video,
28:46
Speaker 1: a lot of footage where it looked like it looked
28:48
Speaker 1: like some parts of Venice on a daily basis with
28:51
Speaker 1: high tide is slightly underwater. Yeah. They just show people
28:54
Speaker 1: walking to work through water and delivering stuff to places
28:57
Speaker 1: through water, and and everyone looks very sick. Of it. Yeah,
29:01
Speaker 1: go check out um on vimeo Venice Backstage. Uh, that
29:06
Speaker 1: is definitely worth watching. Venice back Stage Period. How does
29:10
Speaker 1: Venice work? I think they meant to put a coal
29:12
Speaker 1: in there. The period bugs me a period in a title.
29:15
Speaker 1: They're from England, Josh, I know these are the Venetians
29:18
Speaker 1: that made this. They're from Venice, Josh, Um, they know
29:21
Speaker 1: what they're doing. Yeah, and check out stuff on the
29:24
Speaker 1: MOSE project Mose Mose. I just want to say, moves
29:28
Speaker 1: from Paper Moon your favorite movie, right boom uh. And
29:34
Speaker 1: if you want to learn even more about the mosa
29:36
Speaker 1: A project, you can type in m O s E
29:38
Speaker 1: Project in the search bar how stuff works dot Com
29:41
Speaker 1: and that will bring up this article. Yeah. And hey,
29:43
Speaker 1: checkout Venice is Sinking from Athens, Georgia. Yeah, that's nice.
29:46
Speaker 1: My one buddy is no longer in the band, but
29:50
Speaker 1: you're still friendly with the other guys. They haven't been
29:53
Speaker 1: in touch actually, but they said, they said record and
29:57
Speaker 1: you're good folk. Well, and if you ever get a
30:00
Speaker 1: chance to go to Venice, I recommend you do it
30:03
Speaker 1: because it is a neat town. But don't go to
30:05
Speaker 1: Harry's Bar. You have to go to Harry's Bar. Is
30:07
Speaker 1: that the legendary place, that's where the Bellini was created?
30:11
Speaker 1: Why didn't you have a Billini? She had a Billiini.
30:14
Speaker 1: I had a Martini? What is all a bellinis? A
30:17
Speaker 1: peach juice, peach pure in champagne. Very good. But again
30:22
Speaker 1: it's like basically a shot for I think it was
30:25
Speaker 1: like twenty five dollars or maybe even more. Yeah, but
30:29
Speaker 1: you have to you have to go. You walk past
30:31
Speaker 1: the seat that Hemingway used to drink at, right, you
30:34
Speaker 1: know it's a neat place. Yeah, there's a lot of
30:36
Speaker 1: those seats around the world, though, you know, find a
30:39
Speaker 1: cheaper one. I think we already went through the whole
30:42
Speaker 1: rigamar role that leads us up to listener mail. So
30:45
Speaker 1: now it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this
30:50
Speaker 1: murderer in our myths midst murder in the midst. You're
30:59
Speaker 1: thinking of guerrillas an them. Miss Hey, guys have a
31:01
Speaker 1: boring job. So I binge listened, uh several days a
31:04
Speaker 1: week to your show. I was listening to the Insanity
31:06
Speaker 1: Defense episode and I heard a very familiar name. I
31:09
Speaker 1: happened to have met John Delling during his killing spree.
31:13
Speaker 1: I used to manage a coffee shop, and a guy
31:15
Speaker 1: was oddly peering in the window with his hand pressed
31:18
Speaker 1: against the glass, though the store was clearly open. Uh.
31:22
Speaker 1: He paced around the building for a while. I thought
31:23
Speaker 1: it was pretty weird, so I sent the girl working
31:26
Speaker 1: with me pretty brave if you Josh. His name is Josh,
31:30
Speaker 1: by the way. Okay, what do I sent the girl
31:33
Speaker 1: working with me in the back? Oh? No, okay, I
31:36
Speaker 1: take it all back. He was trying to protect her,
31:39
Speaker 1: and that was me. I sent her in the back
31:41
Speaker 1: and told her to hang out there until he left.
31:43
Speaker 1: He came in, looked the menu over and asked where
31:45
Speaker 1: ice cream was any good. I gave him a free sample.
31:48
Speaker 1: Here you go, We don't want any trouble. He liked it.
31:52
Speaker 1: He liked it and said he had to go to
31:53
Speaker 1: his car to get some money. He literally said, I'll
31:55
Speaker 1: be right back. Then he went out to his car
31:57
Speaker 1: for a while and drove away. A couple of days later,
32:00
Speaker 1: the girl I was working with that night called crying
32:03
Speaker 1: and told me to find a newspaper. Well, no wonder
32:05
Speaker 1: resenting back. She's clearly fragile. She's crying that like the
32:09
Speaker 1: guy was at the front door. You see that Sunday
32:12
Speaker 1: New York Times is six dollars now. On the front
32:16
Speaker 1: page was a large mug shot of our guy from
32:18
Speaker 1: a couple of nights previous. Turns out he had actually
32:20
Speaker 1: left the store and murdered someone and um because the
32:23
Speaker 1: ice cream drove him No, I guess so, and he
32:26
Speaker 1: stole something, stole their car that same evening. Anyway, just
32:29
Speaker 1: thought it was an interesting connection. The guy was definitely
32:32
Speaker 1: in need of some help, and as you mentioned, had
32:34
Speaker 1: no shot at getting it in the legal system here
32:36
Speaker 1: in Idaho. It is clearly a tricky ethical area. Thanks everybody.
32:41
Speaker 1: And then it's from Josh knowl that's from way back
32:44
Speaker 1: kind of the insanity defense. Yeah, that was a good
32:46
Speaker 1: one though it turned out we learned a lot. So
32:49
Speaker 1: he fed a guy ice cream anyone out and killed someone. Man,
32:52
Speaker 1: This really scary stuff. And his coworker, who was around
32:55
Speaker 1: for none of it, cried when she read the paper. Yeah,
32:58
Speaker 1: apparently she never got any work done because anytime a
33:01
Speaker 1: customer came in she gets sent to the back. You know, yeah,
33:06
Speaker 1: uh crazy. What was the dude's name, Josh and Hole?
33:09
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Josh. Thanks Josh. It's always good to hear
33:11
Speaker 1: from another Josh, because we are the greatest names on
33:14
Speaker 1: the planet. Josh. That's such a great name. It is,
33:18
Speaker 1: especially if you say it in other ways like yosh
33:21
Speaker 1: or hush. There's all sorts of ways you can say Josh,
33:25
Speaker 1: but really the only right way to say it is Josh.
33:27
Speaker 1: And it's a verb. Yeah, you can josh and it's
33:30
Speaker 1: a it's a friendly verb too, because you're making fun
33:33
Speaker 1: of somebody, but in a non hostile way. Yeah, chuck
33:36
Speaker 1: is a verb too, how about that? Yeah, look at us, right,
33:39
Speaker 1: Josh and chucking. Yeah, that's good stuff. Chuck. I can't
33:42
Speaker 1: believe it's taking us this many years to come up
33:44
Speaker 1: with that. Uh. If you want to tell us to
33:47
Speaker 1: shut up, you can tweet to us at s y
33:49
Speaker 1: s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot
33:53
Speaker 1: com slash stuff you should know, drop us a line
33:55
Speaker 1: via email at Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.
33:58
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34:03
Speaker 1: our awesome website. It will be your new favorite home
34:06
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34:09
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34:12
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34:16
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