Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

Some officials saying that the building's fate will be decided in the next 90 minutes (said almost a half hour ago so I guess the next hour).

I guess there's worry that in one of the bell towers there's been enough damage to weaken what's holding up one of the enormous bells. Everything that's behind the famous bell towers is going to be almost a total loss.

This going to be an absolute legal and political nightmare. Apparently everyone's known for a long time the structure was rapidly becoming unsound but the French government and the Catholic Church have been feuding for decades over who should foot the bills.

Another interesting tidbit...Victor Hugo is largely credited with publicizing and saving Notre Dame in the 1800's century but there was at least one drawback to it becoming a tourist attraction overnight. There was a rush to capitalize on tourist money and a lot of the repairs were extremely rushed, half-assed, and in fact did more damage than good in the long run (one example being they used concrete to repair cracks in the masonry which actually let more water in as the concrete eroded)

[Dr. Strangelove]

Picture of the Notre Dame spire shortly after its reconstruction in the 1800's (the original spire was taken down in 1786). Notice statues near the base of the Spire; those are of the 12 Apostles. If what I heard earlier today is true those have been saved by pure chance; they were removed to make room for the renovation scaffolding.

The rooster at the very top of the lightning rod contained three holy relics, including a piece from Jesus' Crown of Thorns (if you believe in the authenticity of medieval 'relics').

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[Dr. Strangelove]

Wow...this photo comes via a police drone and French media of the interior of the Cathedral. The bell towers are on the left edge of the photos. the entire interior is an inferno. Notice the hole in the scaffolding where the spire was.



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[Dr. Strangelove]

Hadn't heard about this till today. Trump's facing a pretty interesting choice next month: either punish Iran or keep oil prices low.

Essentially, Trump has to decide if the US will continue granting China and India waivers to purchase Iranian oil. If not, the price of oil is likely to surge, possibly by $10 a barrel by the summer

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/world/middleeast/us-china-india-venezuela-iran-oil.html

[Dr. Strangelove]

Shep Smith and Neil Cavuto both abruptly ended interviews this afternoon when their guests began openly speculating that terrorists were behind the Notre Dame fire. Both were given a chance to stick solely to the facts, both declined, and both got hung up on. Good for them.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-shep-smith-neil-cavuto-shut-down-notre-dame-fire-conspiracy-theories

[Dr. Strangelove]

Early pictures of the inside of Notre Dame are encouraging. Damage doesn't look anywhere near as bad as I was expecting. The vault ceiling only looks like it collapsed where the spire fell, near the altar (which is still standing!). So what happened to all the burned timbers from the roof? Laying on top of the vaulted ceiling?

[Ghengis Jon]

I would not want to be the renovation contractor that was working the Cathedral.

[Jeff Buchanan]

News out of Europe early today (I'm 6 hours ahead of EDT in Siwtzerland) ......... apparently a pre-thought out emergency evacuation of art and antiquities was executed when it became evident this was a big fire on the roof. Most of the art work in the cathedral areas not under the roof as well as a good deal of stuff actually in the church chancel and sanctuary was removed and saved. The crown of thorns that Jesus wore on his crucifixion was among items saved along with the Crown of Louis IX who brought the crown of thorns to Paris. There are also three huge organs in the church. All of them went unharmed.

Some billionaire French dude has put up $1.3M already toward restoration and a relief drive out of UNESCO is expected to raise millions more. Macron has vowed to rebuild the church as it defines France. Humans aren't all that bad when there is a devastating event. Remarkably, no one was seriously hurt. One firefighter suffered a minor injury.

[Dr. Strangelove]

If you're talking about Pinnault he actually promised $100 M euros...which is a lot

[Dr. Strangelove]

Over a dozen current and former White House officials are concerned that Trump will soon know who spoke ill of him in interviews with Mueller. They have sought clarification from DOJ if the Mueller Report specifies which individuals provided what information, and the DOJ isn't saying.

Don't know if Don McGahn is one of the ones who cares, but there's probably few people in a better position to share damaging info

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/white-house-officials-concerned-about-being-exposed-mueller-report-n994861

[crashcourse]

we went to notredame last summer. stayed there for hours
that fire just didn't have any fuel save the roof sturctures--burnt for hours is seemed--somebody said equivalent 13000 trees in that roof
tha the outer walls, bell towers and foirst floor interior survived that fire is amazing


https://www.cnn.com/style/article/no...rnd/index.html

[THE_WIZARD_]

I hope Marty is doing ok...he may have hung himself by now...

[Kapture1]

I would not want to be the renovation contractor that was working the Cathedral.

yeah, that was what came to my mind first, being in the business of selling liability insurance to construction firms. I wouldn't want to be their insurance carrier, or reinsurer. A 10 million dollar umbrella wouldn't have been anywhere near enough. A 50 million dollar umbrella might be where they are at, but again, I don't know how you can put a price on some of the things lost. How many millions of dollars of value was that stained glass?

[crashcourse]

so for the sake of conspiracy theories there has been a lot of churches being vandalized over there--800 of the 13,000 in the last year including saint sulpice lit on fires last month.

much as you want to believe a tragic accident you have to wonder first of all what was the status of the work crews at the time of closing when it occurred and was the spread within a short period after the work crews left that thing was ablaze. granted 13 acres of trees when dry enough would also be ablaze in a very short time which is what that roof is made out of. Just makes you wonder how something that huge that fast at that time could have occurred

[Kapture1]

What a shitty insult to men. you gotta be a real piece of shit to say this in public.