I consider myself to be pretty conservative, overall. The fair solution is the goal.
What is happening in todays government has nothing to do with fairness.
The Ocean Chart Service.
Most of the coast pilot hasn’t been updated in 30 years. ENC quality is marginal, and the process around sunsetting paper charts has been frustrating for a number of reasons, slacker administrators across the industry outside of OCS are most of the reasons, but OCS sunsetting paper charts with no plan for those it impacts is the other half. Paper char quality is also questionable, but I can see how we got here, and mostly its been ignoring problems and hoping they go away.
All that being said, even I’m a little uneasy about the bloodbath, given I have a hunch that there are a lot of important systems held together with shoe strings and bubblegum, held up by toothpicks, and DOGE is a bull in a china shop.
Before I retired last year, I was provided Coast Pilot updates continually. I ordered BA charts when the U.S. chart went bye-bye. Last example for me was L.A. Harbor. The POD charts, I agree, are crap. I was glad to retire, with the prospect of no paper charts looming. Anyhow… you’re right about DOGE.
To their credit, they do regularly update the coast pilot, but I think a lot of that stems from Chapter 2, relating to changes in the CFR. Also, nerds like myself submit ASSIST tickets as we find discrepancies, but that seems to be the plan for keeping things up to date. For example, I found several references to the red sector of Fowley Rock light, which has not had a red sector since 2016.
But if you actually read the text for the ports, a lot of it is contradictory, or years out of date. The tell for this is usually found in the prevailing weather sections, where the dates given are from the mid 1980’s to the early 1990’s. I strongly suspect the editions we currently have were written then, and have just been haphazardly amended, and that’s how you end up apparently having a roro terminal in the cruise terminal in Miami.
Port Miami Berths according to the Coast Pilot:
A building code for houses is essential in today’s world. A house is the most valuable asset you are ever going to own and more importantly sell to someone else. Some parts of the house must be completed by licensed trades persons such as electricians, plumbers and gas fitters because inherent defects can be deadly. The trades listed attend compulsory forums each year on new regulations, construction materials and methods and building research. A properly constructed dwelling constructed with due regard to its location will help protect you in a hurricane, keep you warmer in below zero temperatures and cooler in the tropics. It will also use less energy.
When building my present house I ran a lot of the wiring but a friend, a licensed electrician checked it out. This included a three way switch for a hall light that under regulations required a stipulated colour wiring.
Building codes are LOCAL issues, not federal. I know a county in West Virginia with no building codes. The houses there are worth considerably less than in neighboring counties and can be a hassle to insure.
Dude, where do you live? You have been posting this diatribes about poor whites scamming this system for year on this forum and no one has been able corroborate your assertions.
From “being treated like a druggie at quest” to “I know families that haven’t worked over the table for 3 generations” you’ve made these outrageous claims with nothing to back them up other than your word, yet on other threads, specifically the Tug boat pay, you ask for real bonafides.
What gives? You live in a shit hole or something? Where are these government workers that’d don’t do fuck all? Or the poor whites who can build homes but not work?
“taxes on the working class were lower”
I’m curious when you think taxes on the lower class were lower. I believe taxes are as low as they have been since perhaps the dawn of the income tax.
Perhaps you are talking about other taxes such as state or local taxes. Keep in mind if federal spending is curtail states will need to raise taxes to make up for budget shortfalls since the states will receive less fed money and states are required to have balanced budgets.
I have no idea what the “Ocean Chart Service” is. I’ve never heard of it.
There is something known as the Office of Coast Survey which dates back to the days of Thomas Jefferson and has been responsible for charting US waters ever since.
I do agree that losing paper charts was a bitter pill to swallow but does anyone think that Musk will advocate for paper charts or rasters over ENC’s? And how does having less government workers and refusing to hire any new ones result in more products available for mariners?
Does anyone wonder why when the storms come through states with lax building codes we get such destruction? At some point we have to draw the line and not let people build in flood zones and not let people build substandard dwellings that are subject to disastrous failure when facing other extreme weather or natural calamity.
It’s always so tragic to see what often becomes of those trailers and manufactured homes built in tornado zones. The states refuse to regulate and then hold out their hands to beg for federal funds to rebuild.
I’ve submitted a couple of corrections, too. It’s my impression that, as with the old paper copies of NTM, updates relied on participants, as it was impractical to have fleets of survey boats roaming all the waterways of the planet.
That’s amazing that nobody has reported the outdated Miami berths. Been twenty years since I was in there.
The devastation in recent hurricanes, such as in North Carolina, had nothing to do with building flood zones or substandard buildings.
There are no lax building codes.
I’m not a fan of trailers, or trailer parks, but I cannot say that they should be banned.
I agree that federal flood insurance should not be paying to rebuild the same houses on the Outer Banks or along the Mississippi River, year after year. But if a homeowner wants to take his chances, that’s up to him.
Taxes include state and local taxes.
A lot of state and local taxes pay for administration and compliance with federal regulations. Whenever voters object to anything in the school budget, the response is always that it’s necessary to comply with state or federal regulations.
Thanks! I needed a laugh…
Well Beer Boy, I live in an affluent coastal tourist town with very high property taxes. No, not in a flood zone. Most of the best houses in town were built over 100 years ago before any building codes. They’ve stood the test of time.
That doesn’t mean that there is no work optional class left, or that they are not living a few miles away. They are being pushed further out though.
What do you want me to do, take you door to door and introduce you to some of the multigenerational work optional welfare drones that don’t do much, other than drugs?
Building codes have been in force here since the 18th century.
You live in a town where most of the best houses were built prior to 1788 with no updating since? That’s impressive!
You’re implying that the families that do work are being forced further out of town by people that dont work? You’re saying the unemployed, welfare suckers are living in the “best houses” and the people working are moving out because they can’t afford it?
Kinda, yeah. Because I have a really hard time believing anything you say is true. You’re telling me there’s multigenerational wealth living in houses built prior to 1788 who are on welfare and all do drugs? Seems to good to be true
Social Security Disability (drug addiction and alcoholism , and injuries caused by them, are disabilities) Section 8, Medicaid, food stamps, community action program, and the programs go on and on.
In theory a lot of the programs are only for women and children, but after they get on the program able bodied baby daddy moves back in with them.
I’ve had quite a few Section 8 tenants.
My neighbor is a smart college graduate with a job and a dimwit underproductive boyfriend. When her driveway washed out in a heavy rain (not a flood zone) somehow she got a community action grant to fix it. I did the job and community action paid me.
This is 2025. A house built over 100 years ago would have been built before 1925.
Beer Boy, you seem to have a reading comprehension problem and an arithmetic problem.
When I referred to tropics and below zero temperatures it implied that regulations have to be local. Here in New Zealand our regulations are zoned. The North sub tropical and the south subject to the odd incursion from Antarctica. Wellington, the capital, 120 Km gusts are common in winter, Kelburn, a suburb , has experienced 198 Km gusts without major damage.