Well There‘s Your Problem - Episode 152: MV Doña Paz Sinking

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

And there's no way we could have checked any of these pronunciations become a sustaining member of RWU: https://www.railroadworkersunited.org/donate-1 buy the shirt: https://www.grimgrimgrim.com/products/well-theres-your-problem-x-grimgrimgrim-diy-disastercore Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wtyppod/ Send us stuff! our address: Well There's Your Podcasting Company PO Box 26929 Philadelphia, PA 19134 DO NOT SEND US LETTER BOMBS thanks in advance in the commercial: Local Forecast - Elevator Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

The podcast that does backshots is is good. Well, I think I think the thing is we have to, you know, we just have to be reminded that why would we want to sleep with our listeners are the worst people on the over the worst people on God's screen earth. Yeah, the world is your problem. Fuck a fan contest has as yet still not chosen a been derailed. Yeah. It has. It was, it was canceled before it. I'm not updating my drivers in video. Not again. Last time I did that, I got disconnected from the Zencast and not again, not again. In video. Did you try and fucking update your graphics card drivers in the middle of a recording?

I have done that before and I lied to you. It's that I got disconnected when I knew exactly what had happened. Can we install some kind of like work surveillance technology? Yeah, bomb collar. This is the reason this is one reason why I have one monitor, right? It's because the second I get a second monitor, I know that I've got one monitor as well. I've gone to one monitor as well for basically, you know, I like the idea of having two monitors. I have had two, three, four monitor setups in the past, but I have, if I have two monitors, I'm just going to play warzone in the

background while we're trying to record. Yeah. Yeah. Me and my possible ADHD do not get along well with doing work and then having something else. My phone's bad enough. My phone's bad enough, right exactly. I will say that Ross has two monitors, I don't know how he does it. Because I need two monitors so I can show the slides and read the notes. Also a different kind of neurodivergence from us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, buddy It's fine Ross. We love you very dearly. Oh, of course. Yeah

Hello and welcome to Where's your problem? It's a podcast about engineering disasters with slides. There we are again. I'm I'm Justin Rosniak I'm the person who's talking right now my pronouns are he and him okay go I'm November Cally on the person who's talking now now. My pronouns are he and him. Okay, go I'm November Kelly on the person who's talking now my pronouns are she and her the new name is not a joke Just thought I would Reinforce that for the first few times that I say it. It's real. I named myself after a month. Yeah, Liam Yeah, yeah, and thank you November. I have to say November about a trillion times. The thing is right

I'm gonna tell you because I have a drop of like a jellyfish from diehard going and I'm going to use that any time you get the name wrong. So, you know, just just be aware of that. I actually do appreciate that. And we're stepping down from the bomb collar. So I'm good. Yeah. Hi, I'm Liam Anderson, my pronouns are he and him and I exist to agonize Roz.

See, we're going to have a situation here in November because, OK, Liam, two syllables for Justin, two syllables. Devon, two syllables. November, yeah, although Windows logo is What is that? I don't have to talk. I don't have to talk to them that much though. How how how I'm gonna have to change my cadence entirely Hey, Ross, what why why do you have to activate windows again? I don't know

I have a license I just don't know. Ross. Ross, I have a license. I just don't know where it is. Yeah. Try telling that to the fucking highway. I got busted once in outside of Breezewood, Pennsylvania, doing like 110. And I didn't have my license and the state troopers like license registration. and I said to him

I got one and he I was like this is it this is it this I'm gonna have a service weapon discharged into me Or bad joke Don't don't speed in a 2000 Jeep Cherokee kids, that's my that's my motorist advice 2000 Jeep Cherokee kids. That's my that's my motorist advice. Hmm It's cool that you have a whole subclass of cop who are just like highways And also like state level stuff and they all have to wear stupid little costumes that some design in the 20s That's like all look remarkably fascist. Yeah, I can't imagine what that's about Do they enjoy wearing the hats or they know, they do the fucking, I think they love it.

I think they're polishing the like Sam Brown belts every day of their fucking life. I think it makes their day, which can be a little bit, you know, I understand. Pencil. Okay, but the thing is the invention of like state police's higher patrols are historically progressive in that it was often a way of centralizing it against

private police like the Pennsylvania Cullen-Iron police. Oh boy. You're obliged as a Marxist-Leninist to offer critical support to state troopers. Look at all these dead troopers. We've caught you with counterfeit coal and iron. No, it's more like resist. It's more like you want to go on strike. So we're going to shoot you kind of vibes.

Right. Yeah. Well, when you see on the screen in front of you, there was a trooper who tried to drive from York to Leicester with a BAC of point 144 don't do that the worst the worst state trooper thing I've ever seen was was on reddit, right? Which is automatically the worst. No, no, no a guy came into the like America subreddit or whatever and he's like I'm driving. I'm doing a road trip coast to coast. My English isn't that great. I'm kind of worried about getting pulled over. If I get pulled over by a state trooper, is there something I should like do, right? Something I should know about. And one of the comments was, it's considered polite to ask, do you want a bridge

named after you? And I think that's maybe one of the most sadistic things I've ever seen done on God's Internet. All right. That's good. Good. Let's talk about a ship that killed a bunch of people. What you see in front of you is a ship. It looks pretty rough. Yeah. This is the MV that's motor vessel.

Dona Paz. Nice. It's a fairy. Better than I thought you were gonna do. Yeah, he got the N. Yeah, I know. I know what an N. Yeah, he is. I don't. I put one in. I put one in N. A. Like the national de Mexico.

The cat girl railroad. Yeah, the cat girl railroad exactly Now this big fairy looks pretty ugly nothing fundamentally wrong with it except for a lot of things we're about to talk about This is one of the ones where we don't have a photo of it going wrong No, this being a I imagine a photo of it going wrong is this gonna be a photo of the ones where we don't have a photo of it going wrong. No, this being I imagine a photo of it going wrong. Is this going to be a photo of the ocean? There's a lot of there's there's a lot of reasons for that we'll get into. I see. If you if you're a person who watches these episodes,

but isn't happy when a lot of people die in the episode. Oh, this episode is not for you. Oh, boy. Oh. This episode is not for you. Oh, boy. Yeah, this is, yeah. We didn't revise the news that we had. It's slightly out of date, but you know what? It's fine. You don't come to us for breaking news.

Yeah, I do want to say, should we talk about next Benedict and just condemn the state of Oklahoma for existing and the horrendous evils they have brought upon us. I don't even know what to say anymore. The crimes of this guilty nation shall only be purged with blood, you know? Yes. Yeah. I just wanted, because I know that we would normally get, hey, where was this? I do want to say, yes, we know.

We are at a loss of what to say other than, you know what, I don't care. Believe this or not. Go to the state of Oklahoma. Find the superintendent of schools. Find Liz with TikTok. Find her house. Isn't that a guy? And isn't he making like videos in his car about superintendent of Oklahoma?

Yes. But lives of TikTok is a woman. Oh, sorry. I'm confused. No, no, don't worry. You guys, you guys, hey, you know, you guys want to do that? That's cool. That's fine No, probably just excise the whole thing but I I'm pissed off and I I think we should go to their house and Yeah, I really and truly don't know what to tell you what is there to say?

I mean what is there to say other than, rest in power and you deserve better? Yeah. Leave that specific part in and bleep everything else. I want it to sound like Morse code, Devin. All right. So first we have to do the goddamn news. Oh dear. Oh, I remember this.

Oh yeah. We were going to fix that, right? Yeah, the huge accident that was supposed to shake the railroad industry to its core, East Palestine wreck about a year ago as of when this episode was supposed to come out. I've just thought of the perfect joke for the Chiron and it's too late to put it in. It was going to be no consequences for bombing Palestine. And then the next slide was going to be no consequences for bombing Palestine. Yeah, actually, that would be pretty good.

Yeah, but we didn't do that. So we can't do it. So just imagine it in your Palestine. Yeah, actually, that would be pretty good. Yeah, but we didn't do that. So just imagine that in your head. Yeah, please. So, you know, it's sort of like, okay, we had this massive like, earth shaking train wreck that was supposed to change everything we're about a year now.

Who's the judge talked about it even? Nothing has really happened. No. You know, it even? Nothing has really happened. No. You know, it's been largely just inaction. You know, these railroads are still, you know, they're making record profits, but you know, there's not great safety. Still, you still have all these practices

like precision scheduled railroading, which are making trains longer, more difficult to control. You still have lots of instances of management intimidating workers when they try to do their job, like say inspecting bearings because that might delay the train. Of course. You also have folks like the locomotive engineers They're not allowed to do their jobs because their job is now fighting with the computer that wants to drive the train for them You know, but what people used to think Airbus was is what trip optimizer is Die by wire. Yes. Yeah. No, I I mean like, it really did seem for a minute,

like something or at least the appearance of something was going to be done. Like the fucking the failing New York Times got you to to write about it even. And like, yeah. And then nothing like everyone's kind of got bored, I guess. There's there's like, I mean, there's been there were a series of news articles that sort of came out during the first six months of last year, which is sort's like, I mean, there's been, there were a series of news articles that sort of came out during the first six months of last year, which is sort of like, okay, the workers won this and this and this and this.

And a lot of them are sort of paper victories as far as I can tell, you know, cause especially with the time off, the sick days and stuff like that, they had that before on paper. Now they have more on paper, but Can you actually use them? Yeah, you know, I mean like I Denied it feels sometimes like Americans have like a kind of intellectual

Lacuna about trains where they just kind of like slides off the American mind unless you are a train person Yes, yes Like and this. Supplies like six. Succesive. Like guys. Secretaries of transportation, you know, it just it doesn't hold attention. Yeah, I mean, and we're not nearly in the place we were like back in the 70s when the Louisville and Nashville railroad would blow up a town like this,

you know, twice a year. But, um, getting there. Yeah, we're getting there. We're getting there. You know, that old times feeling, you know. Yeah. So, you know, this is the situation is still bad. And even if you're, you know, your railroad a railroad worker, you're a person who enjoys trains or you ride passenger trains or, you know, even if you're a railroad customer. Yeah. Railroad through on there. Yeah.

This should be something that interests you. You know, a big thing. You are secretary of transportation. Yeah. You are secretary of transportation. So, you know, in terms of, I guess, is there anything you can do? I'm confused. It does sound like the railroad workers united, you know, sort of a cross-craft caucus of railroad workers is doing some kind of big campaign

this year. I don't know any of the specifics on it. You can become a sustaining member, even if you're not a railroad worker. So if you wanna throw money at the problem, that's one way to do it. I'll put a link in the description to that. But yeah. Well done. The only solution here is and has been since,

at least World War I, to just nationalize the whole thing. One big railroad, you know? One big railroad. Yeah. Because as long as you're chasing the operating ratio down to 60, 50%, you're not going to have room for things like really basic safety checks. So yeah, that's our East Palestine retrospective and there's still folks in in East Palestine who are still trying to get out of the town because it's just you know, there's still enough

Contamination that is causing health problems. It's not everyone, but it's still a number of people. Real bad. Yeah, it's not good. It's not good. Well, in other news. Hey, we have some good news. We have some good news. Yes. The man who did the country music, what Pantyhose did to finger fucking has died. Yes. If you are frustrated at country music,

being all about trucks, it's this guy, Toby Keith's fault. He is not dead in the ground. My guns and truck and truck gun. It's also 9-11's fault. My gun that shoots trucks. I think of those. Trucks, gun, America and truck gun. It's also 9 11. My gun, my gun that shoots trucks. Oh, trucks, trucks, gun, America troops, gun. Yeah.

Gun, gun, the troops, the shoot guns. I really like trucks. I'm going to fucking punch you with a face. I really liked his line about in Red Soil Cup. He's like, I'm like talking about how foreclosable his home was. It was like, Toby Keith, you're a good gillionaire. Please stop. I'm relatable, and he's relatable because he's dead now. Yeah, the thing, the thing is, my horse is still slaps, but he died as he lived

being a fucking asshole. If you're concerned about the state of country music, uh, we have a bonus hatred on the bonus episode. You can subscribe to the patron. You can go and listen to it. Yeah, we talk, we trace how country music became reactionary. Yeah, it's fun. Oh, also, I love this bar still slaps.

Sorry. What is it? A bit of a die of cancer. Should have been a cowboy sloth a slaps. Some good. There's some good songs there. It's just like, oh, I want to talk about me. If you have a talent, then you use that talent for evil.

That's kind of worse. You know, yes. Yes. Ask me how I play magic to gathering. You are the Toby Keith of Magic the Gathering. I am. I don't think Toby Keith. I love this bar and grill still has any locations left. Oh, this is a shame. Meanwhile, fucking cleared by Margaritaville. Jimmy Buffett is like wiped the floor with this guy. RIP Jimmy Buffett.

All right. I'm beyond the grave. Jimmy Buffett shot this guy with a cancer. Oh, there's still two in Oklahoma. Russ, you got to go to Oklahoma City with me, bud. Oh, fun. Yeah, we got to go to fucking Japanese conscript still fighting the World War Two in like the 70s, you know, just news has not reached Oklahoma yet. Given what you said about going to Oklahoma earlier, I'm worried about what might happen when we get... Crimes!

Hundreds of crimes! Yeah, you get the dual purpose road trip where you go and visit Toby Keith's restaurants and commit a number of heinous crimes. Yeah. Which I entirely justified it doing, by the way. Sorry, let me take that again. It's like natural born killers with worse food. Call it I want the politically motivated ass.

I want the big dog, daddy, prime rib. Please don't ever say those words in that order to me or anyone ever again. Big dog, daddy, prime rib. Hell yeah, I'm safe. Fourteen ounces for thirty five dollars is fucking rip off. I can go to great American Saloon in bread, lion, Pennsylvania and get a much better deal. Thank you.

OK, I've just a word to the FBI. I'm not going to do any of these crimes. Oh, yes, he is. For a while, he is going to do them. Guess what? You're all accessories to. I mean, I'm the only one here who isn't a US citizen so I'm the only one who can be subject to like warrantless surveillance from US intelligence agents. Thank God for that because it would make the tax bill

a lot harder to figure out. Yeah. I pay taxes on just like if they ever come for us just like I also figure that out. That's fine. She's not a US citizen. Oh, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, Because I have to fucking like I know I know I'm not gonna get a young preset. And I have to switch it back to. OK, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, you want to take us away? Well, world historical crimes continue. Yeah, real bad. I guess we have to read a fucking history book, though,

according to that one guy who gave us a one fucking star review. I mean, this is the thing, right? People will always- Loan me from the back. We'll always, always tell you like, and it's the same with like, any trans thing. Already a lot of things. People make a real fetish out of complexity and they'll be like, it's so complicated. You don't know enough to be able to say anything about this. This is a new- Set aside bad, that's all I need.

It's a nuanced debate and you have to approach it with care and sensitivity. First of all, when have we ever in our lives approached anything with care and sensitivity? Yeah, we don't do that anymore. What you are doing when you take that line of argument is you are pissing down my back and telling me it's raining. Because if you have eyes to see, you can see that this is a genocide in the making and that this is a very bad thing. Genocides are and that it must be stopped, right? Yeah.

And so essentially the most recent thing, if somehow you haven't been following the conflict, essentially Israel has been playing a whack-a-mole with the entire Gaza population. They tell them to go to Conyunas, they bomb Conyunas, they tell them to go to... What was the thing in between? It was like an empty lot somewhere. They told 2 million people to go to. Yeah, that's the humanitarian zone up in the top left. I think it's called Al Mawasi. Okay, they tell them... Which is like Al Mawasi, they bomb Al Mawasi. Basic groups,-Mawasi. Okay, they tell them it's like Al-Mawasi. They bomb Al-Mawasi. Yeah, they've also bombed that.

They tell them to go to Ra'fa. It looks like in the next week or so they're going to bomb Ra'fa. You know, bad enough the Egyptians seem to be expecting some kind of colossal humanitarian calamity and they've actually started leveling Ground out here where they think they're gonna have to build the refugee camp Yeah, you know because at some point you're just gonna cause a human crush against the wall You know kill a hundred thousand people and then the wall falls over and people climb over the mounds But you know this is the sort of thing you're looking at if they go through with it. Yeah, that's the goal. That's explicitly the goal. It's always been the goal. Rafa has a population of like 100,000 normally.

It's now up to like 1.2 million because everybody has been forced into this like one town that like abuts the border with Egypt. And so now it seems like people are finally reading the polls in Europe and in the US. And so now Biden realizing that he's like gonna lose Michigan. Circling the trade, right? Yeah. Is like, well, the Israelis shouldn't attack Rafa. And you know, like a lot of European countries are saying the same. And of course, Netanyahu being who he is is like, no, fuck you, we are going to do it anyway.

And there's no reason to doubt that, you know? Yeah, I this looks I mean, they probably already have the weaponry to do it. It's just going to, you know, they're going to do, they're just gonna do like a world historic war crime. You know, and it's gonna, it's gonna look bad. It's, you know, I don't exactly know even like, okay, keep going to protests, keep going to all this stuff. I don't know exactly what you do to stop this though. I mean, the only what you do to stop this though.

I mean, the only thing you can meaningfully do is cut off the aid and sanction them. And that you can only really do that if you are Joe Biden. So if you're listening, Joe, which we know you are Joe, fucking get on that please. Otherwise, I mean, look, I don't want to demoralize people and I don't want to say that the protesting is useless, right? Because it's not there's a lot of it like Important stuff being done to try and like shut down like Elbit factories for instance or try to get like individual countries to stop supplying weapon parts You know like the the Dutch had to like suspend this for a while because you know and stop shipping F35 parts to Europe because to Europe to Israel because you know, they might be used for a breach of international humanitarian law, which transparently they would be Historically labor actions been very effective here. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely it just I And I don't think I've had a loss because there is nothing to be done. It's just that it exceeds my ability to fucking discern what it is.

Oh, we know what should be done. And you know too, Lister. And Devon don't bleep that. I don't think I've had a loss because I don't think I've had a loss. I don't think I've had a loss because I don't think I've had a loss. I don't think I've had a loss because I don't think I've had a loss. I don't think I've had a loss because I don't think I've had a loss. I don't think I've had a loss because I don't think I've had a loss. I don't think I've had a loss because I don't think I've had a loss. I don't think I've had a loss because I don't think I've had a loss. because there is nothing to be done. It's just that it exceeds my ability to fucking discern what it is. Oh, we know what should be done. And you know too, listener. And David, don't believe that.

I don't know. I just... As a Jewish person, it's just like, this is the most infuriating, not literally this is the most infuriating thing. Like, obviously, the most the most inferior anything is that heinous genocide and war crimes are being committed in my name. It's the bizarre world evolution of the centrist and conservatives who are like, oh, you hate the Jews. And it's like, motherfucker, listen,

A, I am Jewish, B, I hate them for my own reasons. You get told to study Torah long enough, you get pissed off. And it's just like, yeah, man, I mean, like I've said this on the show before, when you when you've lost my mother, I can't believe you're doing the right thing anymore. Yeah, not that I believe that Israel was ever doing the right thing. But you know what I mean, it really is like a sea change in terms of like, right? And you're going to lose and we're going to get Trump again. And that's going to be the same. The same. Maybe because what more can we actually do? Like in terms of what more can we actually do to keep funding? Like we can't, you know,

I'm sure we'll find a way to double time a genocide. But I don't know how that looks. A bunch of a bunch of other stuff will be worse and then this will be as bad. You know, right? Right. This is seem like the implication here is that, okay, we move all the Palestinians from Rafa to other Rafa and everything will be fine. You know, if you have one impenetrable board offense and then Hamas likes Sergio over and killing them discriminately, right? Pushing them back behind a second impenetrable board of fence means that it's never gonna happen again. Yeah, pretty certain. Yeah, and you know, it's not like they'll be irritated because this side has this side has the

electricity and the water pipes and this side has nothing. This is desert. This is not tenable, right? Yeah. I mean, if nothing else, like, and this is, as a lever, this is part of why Israel is doing this, is to make people make these kinds of calculations, is to say that, like, at least if every Palestinian is in Egypt, they won't be getting bombed as you like deliver humanitarian aid to them. But the reason why that's a thing that anyone has to think about is because Israel is bombing the humanitarian convoys. Right. Yes. It's pure fucking evil. I mean, I don't know what else we can say about it. Yeah, I don't do genocide is my advice.

Yeah, especially don't do genocide in my fucking name, you pricks. I still believe that we will see an end to Israeli apartheid within my lifetime. Once again, throw my name out there for Nobel Peace Prize. We're going to have one. We're going to be the ones to do it. We're gonna one country called country. One conlang called language, one currency called Liam bucks. Yeah, yeah. Um, no, I don't know, whatever kind of deputy

minister for peace November Kelly. That's right. Whatever kind of like city in the city bullshit that has to be done to resolve this and anything like a kind of peaceful and equitable manner should happen. But like I do think that ultimately this is best understood as like the death throws of a kind of fascist state, right? It might seem like it's extremely powerful and extremely unaccountable, but I think this is ultimately like laying the sort of groundwork for the destruction of apartheid

as it is in Israel. Yes, we can pray and hope and work towards that and we should. And shall us, you know? Yes. The river to the sea and also get the fuck the fuck out of here if you're mad at me. The river to the sea, get the fuck out of here if you're mad at me is actually pretty good. That's good. That's good. That's actually on the flag.

Just just increasingly small. Just like, you know, the flag is like black impact font text on white field and it starts with that and it goes to like, I'm tired of these jokes about my text laden flag. The first such instance was in 1947 when it just continues on like that. I never know what I said the name. Vexillology. Yeah, Vexillology. Vexillology.

Yeah, I love those fucking nerds. All right. On that happy note. That was the goddamn news. Huh. All right. We're going to talk about a different part of the world. It's the Philippines, folks. Huge fan of these guys.

Great literature. Great, like, anti-colonial resistance tradition. Some fucking weird Catholic stuff. Yes, really weird Catholic stuff. But you repeat yourself. Beautiful, beautiful country. Love to go sometime. It's a it's the location of Manila, the famed place where the thriller happened. Yes, I knew that joke was coming too. Yeah. Hivemind. So yeah, the Philippines, they're in, you know, the South China Sea, they're a bunch of mountain, they're a bunch of islands that have mountains on them, right?

Yeah, you colonized by the Spanish than the Americans and Yeah, I actually I don't know a lot about the Philippines or Filipino history. I actually don't know a lot either It's it's sort of something where I I Just I it's a part of the world which I had never really, I don't know much about Southeast Asia. Hold on. We're going to sort this out here. Listen, I'll say one thing about the Philippines, which is the Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It's an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia.

It consists of 7,641 islands with a total area of 300,000 square kilometers. And those are broadly categorized into three main geographical divisions, Luson, Visayas, and Mindanao. Yes, that, okay. Cool. This is an area that's been inhabited for thousands of years, but the sort of modern history does seem to start with colonization.

I mean, I kind of understand it to be like, it's both fortunately and unfortunately located. It is like a sort of choke point for trade in South Asia or Southeast Asia, and therefore routinely got kicked around by everybody. Like the Spanish, you, the Japanese. Roz, personally. Yeah, statistically, probably us at some point. The colony, the colony of Roz Topia. Yeah, everyone.

We're going to find out Britain invasions Philippines. I'm pretty certain. Probably did, yeah. Yeah, we did. Of course, we fucking did. We occupied Manila for 18 months. 1762. Oh, I see that.

Yeah, the first week of April 1764. Yeah. Oh. Also relatively densely populated country. I mean there's a lot of people These since it's a lot of islands they got to get between the different islands and even within the same islands because there's mountains You got to go around the mountains. Well the mountains go right up to the edge of the islands. So you need boats Mm-hmm, right, you know, because you can't build you can't build bridges the sea is too deep You don't have enough money to do a crazy system of tunnels like the Faroe Islands

Yeah, you know sort of like hiking up over a like 70 degree incline cast slope And then hiking back down the other side, you know not a lot of room for airports either so you do boats Very strong maritime tradition in the Philippines It's a little bit little bit more context shipping and travel in the Philippines, you know a lot of people live there They got places to go they have some railroads. They're fragmented and underfunded Service is not very good. People actually have taken over the rails themselves. They go around in little motorized picnic tables that go on a railroad. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Huge. The NCAP railroad. Yes. Actually, I think a lot of the railroads have been improved fairly recently, but these

little, the carts still work. Good. The highway system is full of gaps because of all the water, right? So you have a bunch of ferries. Some of the ferries are fairly modern. Some of them are not. I think some of them are privatized. Some of them are not. Some of these ferry trips are 15 minutes long, and some of them are two days long.

Fuck me. No, thanks. As I understand it, Filipino government is in this as with a few areas of policy, like kind of decentralized and chaotic. So it's just like provincial. Yeah, a bit like Britain in that way. Okay. I've seen Ross on a ferry.

It was just on the on the Avanti West Coast ferry from Liverpool Limestreet to Mindenau. It was definitely why we're there. It was a welded shut. I'm broiling to fucking death. We had an interior cabin and it didn't go so good for us. We just got it wrong. Yeah. Yeah.

I like a boat and apart from when they like stop when a boat's underway That's pretty good and even in like heavy weather rough seas when a boat's like pitching up now I quite like that. That's a good time until until it pulls up to the dock and it's just bouncing around at a standstill and then I get sick Yeah, there's a great line in the innocenceroad where Mark Twain describes how long it takes to get your sea legs on a voyage. It's always about exactly 80% of the way through. It's a beautiful locomotive, by the way. What is that?

I want to say this is some kind of general electric export unit. It's a you something It might also be MD. I'm not good with the export units. It's probably it was so it was either made in Erie, Pennsylvania or Fort Wayne I think for Wayne I forget where strange sort of American workshop to the world moment where you make these things in area and they end up sort of running a branch line and a SIBU for like 50 years. So that's the small pump boats. These guys, they're just sort of launches without rigors, right? Sometimes these are used for short inner island transportation, other just, you know, utility boats. And there's a whole bunch of private shipping between

the islands for basic goods like food and fuel. We'll talk about fuel later, but everything goes by boats. This is my this is the important thing. Oh, sure. Yeah. The outriggers on this are cool. I mean, that's actually like that's a, what is that like a hardwood? It's like a couple of logs that they've like lashed together. I'm not sure it might be fiberglass, too. Hell yeah. Yeah. So the Donya pause, right? Get right into it.

Yeah. This was built as the Himayuri Maru for service in Japan in 1963. It was 305 feet long, 45 feet in beam, 2,324 gross registered tons. Keep in mind gross registered tons is volume and not weight. It was good for 608 passengers. Gross registered tons is also the sort of metric I use. I'm looking at scale as I'm standing on. Me too. I just don't have a scale.

Yeah, I tend not to use it. I want to point out that Toby Key's bar and grill has a drink called the crimson and cream, which is pineapple and coconut rum, pineapple juice, OJ strawberry puree and whipped cream. Oh, yeah I've got close in the tab. I'm close in the tab Rainbow vomit arc. Yeah. Yeah. I was trying to do Margaritaville, but not quite doing it I don't think you can do Margaritaville in

doesn't like Oklahoma steady gentleness of soul. Right. Right. We went to the Atlantic City, Margarita Ville and we had a time. Yeah. Lim had the most disgusting drink I've ever seen. Yeah, it was it was gnarly. I liked it. I took a sip and retched. You were you were on. Yeah, you were you were not happy. I would like to recommend an Acer article from 2021 called Margaritaville and the myth of American leisure.

I don't want to do breathing. I want to get drunk. Well, this is important reading about the getting drunk. Fair enough. Yeah. Continue. Roz, sorry. No, I'm not sorry, actually. I don't care.

So this was sold on to another company called Sulpicio Lines. This was registered in Manila for once it was not a flag of convenience, right? Although it does help. Yeah, it just happens. You don't have to be using this as a flag of convenience to register here, but it helps. Yes. So, you know, this is a very late sort of streamlined ferry. You know, 1963 is the end times for really cool ship design. You know, in Japan, they had airlines in the Shinkansen starts to eat into these inter-island ferries and intra-island traffic, you know.

I'd even see, even though this is not a particularly flattering photo of the boat You can see some of this nice streamlined modern influence up here. It's got some curves. It's nice. Yeah I haven't noticed that actually it's too distracted by the rust but like it's nice actually. It's actually it's actually a nice looking boat Yeah Now in service in the Philippines it would have some more severe issues than just being put out of service.

So you're beautiful, sort of like Shinkansen of the sea. Yes. It's sort of like dumped on the Philippines where it's going to have to like haul stuff back and forth over like one channel for the next forever. So I managed to pull up the website for Solpecio Lines. Oh, it's beautiful. I love web design. Yeah, I know. It's, I love the missing images.

This is from the internet archive, obviously. More like, more internet should be like this. I'm just, is that the S from Shrek? Yes. You know how it actually sure looks like it. I think it might actually be the s from Shrek You know, I'd actually sure looks like it. I think it might actually And if it's not no one ruined it for me It's a man So if he'll go he was a Chinese immigrant to the Philippines and with his sons he started his shipping company in 1973

with 17 vessels, one tugboat and five barges. So this is like kind of like, you know, immigrant get up and go that makes this country brackets the Philippines great, right? Is you immigrate and you start a small business that has, you know, 17 ferries. And then nothing bad happens to you. And we're actually recording, well, there isn't your problem

in an alternate dimension where whatever 2,800 people didn't die. I was just like leading leading into this with a kind of like Nepo baby joke, essentially, to be like, yeah, he started from nothing with 17 ferries. Started from nothing with 17 fairies yeah, but apparently it's just that easy to acquire them back then everything was cheaper in 1973 It's like buying AK's in the Soviet Union in like 92. Yeah cost of living is very low We're buying NFTs now. Yeah He got it right after the peak of the market, you know. So he quickly becomes known. You know, Ali's in charge of this company as Don Solpicio, right? Not as

sinister as it sounds in Spanish. Don or Donia just, it just means like it can actually convey respect. Yeah, it sounds cool. It does. It does. I would love to be like Donia November, like genuinely be insanely cool. Don Liam, Don Justin. I like that. I like that. So the the this shipping question was originally named for him. Don Salpecio, right?

A little bit of a or when it was acquired by the line. It transits down gender. Yes, it did. And like a lot of transitions, it was the process. So this company got really big very quickly. They purchased this big ship in 1975, as well as a similar sister ship, Donya Marilyn, which we'll briefly mention later in the episode. And they just as quickly develop a reputation for overcrowding and lack safety procedures, right?

Of course. It's the budget airline of Ferris. Yes. So the first thing they do with this ship, it was good for 600 passengers before. They refititted for 1400 passengers Everybody's sitting somebody's lap. Yes Don so Pitchio's career in the Philippines starts with a bang in June 1979 the ship caught fire and ran aground 1100 all 1164 passengers made it off the ship, but the insurers wrote it off It was completely gutted by the fire The war's the line or whatever incredible. Yeah undeterred

Sopicio salvage Changes the name to don't you pause and puts it back in service. Come on, man Wait, so this is like a zombie shit. Like it's it rescued from the dead. Yes. And the train it transits gender in the process. I mean, I feel like transitioning from dead to alive has a sort of like different valence to it culturally. Not that I mean to shame anyone, but I think that is technically a zombie. Is the coming of the trans zombies?

I mean, it could also be Jesus, I guess, like Jesus didn't change his gender, though. Yeah, he could have. It would have been a hell of a flex. I there's there's Pope Francis. Scheme. Oh, what? I love what? I I I look forward to the pope saying that that Jesus was to spirit and just watching the man. Watching the Catholic Church melt down.

If he does Vatican three any time soon, please, please, cool, he might legitimately like get me back on the team. Like, yeah, Vatican three would be a pretty good idea right now. Lacing them back up again. We have just you just going to have to cut the show. Yeah. For Don Salpino, so loved the Philippines. He gave his only begotten ship.

Ha ha ha. Hi, it's Justin. So this is a commercial for the podcast that you're already listening to. People are annoyed by these, so let me get to the point. We have this thing called Patreon, right? The deal is you give us two bucks a month and we give you an extra episode once a month. Sometimes it's a little inconsistent, but you know, it's two bucks you get what you pay for. It also gets you our full back catalog of bonus episodes so you can learn about exciting topics like guns, pickup trucks, or pickup trucks with guns on them. The money we raise through Patreon goes to making sure that the only ad you hear on this podcast is this one.

Anyway, that's something to consider if you have two bucks to spare each month. Join at patreon.com forward slash WTYP pod. Do it if you want. Or don't, it's your decision and we respect that back to the show So here's where the bad pronunciation starts oh, bye So this goes from this red dot here, which is Teclobon probably probably, on Leyte Island. Sure. Sure. I don't know. To Manila over here. I'm not 100% certain of the route. There's a little channel here it might be able to go through or it might have to go all the way around the island. I haven't quite

figured that out. But, you know, so it goes through and around and over, it goes up to Manila, right? So the time is 6.30 in the morning. Oh boy. Do in at 8am the following day. This is already, we're moving very quickly here. Yeah. Also on December 20th, 1987. Keep in mind, you know, we did a lot of missionary work down there. So everyone's Catholic. Yeah. Everyone's going home for Christmas. It's not even really like your fault so much as it is the Spanish and Portuguese.

Spaniards. This is true. It's why they're not just Catholic, but like strange, weird, like voluntary self-crucifixion Catholic. Yeah. Yeah. I thanks for nothing. Thanks for losing the 2010 World Cup, you fuckers. And thanks for all the genocide and imperialism. You people are the worst. I as an American, of course, am free from sin.

Yes, of course. Yeah. So so Pitchie Alliance does the prudent and reasonable thing and secretly overbooks the hell out of the ferry. Oh, that's beautiful. Of course. I mean, the thing is those margins, baby. Internationally, it's always fun going to places where your country was not the colonial power and seeing how people feel about Britain, but it's about

France or about Spain. You go to like North Africa or whatever and everyone's like, yeah, Britain, fine, whatever, you guys suck too. But we really fucking hate these guys because of all of the massacres that they did. So up to 4,000 passengers boarded this ship. So up to 4,000 passengers boarded this ship. They were on cuts and mats in the hallways. You said it was rated. They were out in tents on the deck. It's rated 83.

Yeah, it's rated for 600 and then they uprated it by having people sit on each other's laps to like 1,400. Yeah, and then they put 4,000 people on it. Fuck me. Should be fine. Yeah. This may have included something like 1,000 kids and a whole battalion of soldiers who boarded at the last minute. Everyone was buying cheap illegal tickets in cash aboard the ship. Again, mentioning the kind of decentralized and chaotic government.

If you're moving your battalion of troops on a commercial ferry last minute paying cash. Yes. I think said something as well. Well, you know, I mean, on the other hand, if you if you worked for the Philippine Army at the time, apparently petty cash system, very generous. Yeah, I do. The Philippine Army works on an honor system, you know. The best of us all.

We're not lying, cheating or stealing or tolerating. Selling illegal tickets on board was a very common practice, but during the Christmas travel rush it was particularly bad. Gotcha. Anyway, so this is our first ship. So this is not the tanker MV vector. This is just a tanker. If you search for MT vector, you get a bunch of images of vector mountains.

I because you can't use Google anymore. That's not the air. It doesn't work anymore. Yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't work. And it's flooded with AI bullshit now, which took about two weeks. You know, like I was telling people, oh, this is going to make the internet unusable and it has done. TorotLidge.org still operating well. Nice.

This this this tanker is similar to the one involved in the incident, but I think it's it's smaller. It's one of the adorable, actually. One of the incident would have been about twice as big, but this is empty here is motor tanker. This is what we got so shut up I do I do like that all of the shit prefixes kind of just made up. Yeah, oh, it's the peony. Oh Yeah, the peony. This is there's no reason why it's like MV you rather than MS And then you get a bunch of like different ones. Yeah, most of tanker fine

So MT Vector is just a little guy who's 170 feet long, 38 foot beam, 12 feet of draft, 250 horsepower diesel engine, single screw propeller, 629 gross register tons has less horsepower than like a modern minivan. My GTI. Yeah. It's not a massive GTI is not stock before you try to correct me on fucking horsepower numbers. It's not like the massive ocean going tankers, most people picture when they think of tanker ships, right? Just a guy. Yeah, this is for hopping from island to island, you know, it's the size of a nice three bedroom apartment. Got you.

Like the gas station on this one, you know, island of a thousand people needs a refill. Exactly. They send this. You don't bother building a pipeline to it. You just send one of these guys. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah.

So this is like the mission here. This is also known as a product tanker because it's not for transporting oil, it's largely for transporting oil products, you know, gasoline, kerosene, diesel, right? Gotcha. And so in this case, the mission here is to transport 8,800 barrels of those assorted petroleum products, kerosene, gasoline, and diesel. From LaMai, which is just across the bay from Manila, here, to Matt's Bait Island, which is...

Masbate, I guess? Masbate, I guess. I don't know. Where is it? Oh, it's down here. One of these, like, 1, thousand people islands that has a gas station on it has he has gas station he needs a refill. You have to call the boat it'll be there in a week.

In the meantime people can walk. Waiting waiting for everyone to fill up there like adorable like import minivans. Oh yeah. I love those things absolutely like ubiquitous all across Southeast Asia at this point. That's great because they will have like five different brands. So like it's nominally a Toyota, but it's built in China and it's branded as a brand you've never heard before. And yeah, incredible. The thing with this kind of tanker is it transports products, not crude oil, and those products are much more highly refined, and therefore compared with crude oil, except for certain

grades like back in crude oil, they're more likely to do things like explode. I thought that gasoline was relatively safe. Like to. Oh, as long as it's not long as it's not like vaporized. Yes. And like you can put like a cigarette out in a puddle of gasoline, right? Like. Yes. But what if that puddle of gasoline has a lot of volatile gaseous gasoline above it, then you have a problem.

That's why all the big gasoline tanks have roofs that move up and down with the level of the liquid. I would simply like flick my cigarette perfectly through the vapor cloud and be fine. I would avoid all the atoms. I would simply go different, right? Yeah, just frame perfect parry every atom, you know. So, you know, these things are highly refined. They're very volatile. They're more likely to do things like explode.

So you want to be pretty safe in how you operate these things because exploding is bad. Very expensive inconveniences, people. Yeah. Another problem is that there are a lot of these, which are almost universally owned by small fly by night operators. It's like the guy. It's like, you know know the guy who you call to like refill the gas station and that yes I was the guy who like has a boat, you know. Yeah, exactly Gotcha So they're owned by these small fly-by-night operators who contract with big oil companies in order to shield those big oil companies from liability

in this case the ship was owned by Vector Shipping, transporting products for Caltech's Philippines. Now this company Vector Shipping was notable in that it didn't actually have a license to operate the ship and they had understaffed it with no lookout or qualified master or chief engineer. Cool. Again, we love to be like highly centrally organized and regulated system of government. We sure do, Alice of November. God damn it.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, the thing here is I wasn't able to confirm this, but I very much suspected it from reading everything about it in the court documents. I'm pretty sure this vector shipping company owned exactly one ship, which was empty vector. Hey, if it's working for a certain Anglo Dutch oil company, you could say it was a shell company. Wow. Thanks. Thank you. If anyone wants my job.

Nope. Can't have it. Roz, you got to look out though, but. And the only pause. Yes, sir. He's gone through the Philippines, through the various bays and seas, bumping around straights. They're about two thirds of the way over there in the tabless straight to Blas. Tabless, probably tabless. The tabless between Marinenduk and Mindoro. Merenduk.

Merenduk. Merenduk. Merenduk. Merenduk. Merenduk. Oh, God. Merenduk. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. Social sensitivity at an all-time high. Do it very well. M-T Vector is, of course, coming the other way. Mm. Mm. Mm.

Wow. I sense the Princess Alice disaster happening again in Filipino. The crew isn't worried about that, right? Because there's a capable seaman in charge of MV Donya Paz, maybe. The apprentice maid is the capable seaman. So, so, so literally like some kid. Just like a guy. Yeah. It's probably fine.

It's probably fine. Listen, if kids can't step up to pilot vessels and shit when the time comes and like, even the point is calling, why is Ender's game a popular book right Be fine be fine Yeah, be an adult or send you to the Hunger Games another young adult novel Yeah, I think that's all the young adult novels are I think so Whichever that's fun

I think so. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I do the whole shell company thing. I got nothing. That one's really good. Ah, we're gonna. Is there gonna be some Artemis foul play?

Oh, great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No one understands me like the like the shitty books I read as an eight year old. I love those books. Oh, they're really good. Yeah. Yeah. I love those books. Oh, they're really good, yeah. Yeah. OK, so the apprentice mate is having a young adult novel experience where he has now been put in charge of the ship. Yeah, probably pretty novel, Joe. Yeah. Yes.

So the crew went down to the rec room and started drinking. I mean, technically, if you crash the ship, every room is the rec room. That's true. That's true. Good point. The captain was in his cabin watching a Betamax tape. Hold on.

What? Come on, man. What is the guy? 1987. 1987. OK, that's a lot more normal. I was expecting he was just like into like old modes of life. Weird, weird.

Yeah. Yeah. He like was running a YouTube channel out of the captain's cabin. Big, weird, big, weird, uh, tech mode guy. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, like was running a YouTube channel out of the captain's cab. Big weird, big weird, a Tecmo guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. The ship is otherwise. Sony continued to sell Betamax cassettes until March of 2016. What? Wait, hold on. I'm going to need to know what's the like latest mainstream movie you could get

on Betamax, like. What if I had a Betamaax player, what could I? I mean, it made it 41 years. I don't. What was what came out in 2016? I don't know any movies. Mission Impossible One, the like, OG Mission Impossible, Tom Cruise was the last movie released for for Basemax apparently That's still not even bad. No, I mean

I should the last horror the last film on VHS was saw two so So other than this the ship is doing great It has just a minor list from overloading They ran out of food and drink. The toilets were overflowing. It was full of screaming kids. So it isn't a Vanty West Coast ferry. OK, yes.

I mean, while, you know, there's a fucking podcaster on there being like, this cannot get any worse. This is hell. I hope this fucking thing sinks and takes me with it. Ask Ross how he did the cabbage straight. One of the things here is, they're going through this busy shipping channel. It's dark. The apprentice maid can't see anything. A lot of this is conjecture and not like actual facts because what we really do know is that shortly after 10 p.m., the MV Donya pause wax into the empty vector.

The empty vector catches fire and immediately explodes. Oh, likely place for it. You know, like traditional thing for for it to do in these circumstances given that's filled with like gasoline Exactly this explosion sets the Tonya paws on fire again um boy and no officers save for one are at their posts Yeah, they're all watching like different YouTube channels like yeah, you got one guy watching Tecmoan You got one guy watching big Clive, you got one guy watching us. You know, thank God.

Hopefully not watching this episode. They'd be able to avert the disaster. Just just just like naming YouTube channels. We think you're cool at this point. So all hell breaks loose, right? And again, we don't know too much exactly about what happened here. The fire rapidly consumes the overbooked fairy. Oh, I mean, again, this sounds fucking nightmarish immediately.

Yes. The crew panicked. They never gave an order to evacuate. Even if they had, there wasn't a lot of time here, and there was no way to launch the lifeboats because the water was covered in gasoline, which was on fire. had, there wasn't a lot of time here and there was no way to launch the lifeboats because the water was covered in gasoline, which was on fire. Oh, yeah. You don't want to launch the lifeboats into a fire.

Because then your lifeboat's on fire and it's in where the fire is. The life jackets were all locked in closets. Power went out almost instantly. What? The thing is you have a lot of light to see by from the fire. Sure. But there's also smoke. Well, see that, yeah, kind of... That's bad.

Kind of ups and downs with the fire, really. So... On the one hand, you can't use the lifeboats. On the other hand, the lifeboats would be useless. On the other hand, there's a lot of light from the fire. On the other hand, there's a lot of smoke. So, you know. That is how I would describe that.

People have to like run for their lives down pitch black corridors, which are all full of cots and the Tritus. And I wouldn't be good at this. I think I would. I know we would say skill issue to these people dying. I would say a lot of people turned out not to be good at this. I think it's a very few people are good at, you know. So they were dumb luck.

There were no lifeboats launched, which, yeah, again, if you had launched them, they would just catch fire. You know, this was a very difficult to survive disaster. Those few who managed it all jumped off the ship into the water, and many of them were seriously burned in the process. Because of the gasoline.

I mean, because of the gasoline. Because of the gasoline. I get to swim away from the ship as far and as quickly as possible. Underwater. Like you have to like get under the gasoline, swim under it while it's burning and then like... Hope for the best. Basically. Yeah. I hope you don't run out of breath before the, you know, you get to the edge of the thing.

And because this is, you know, South Pacific, there's another problem. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no Yep, no, no, no much like much like this bin and Ikea. It's full of sharks. It is transgender after all. Um, yeah fucking I Knew it was heading this way. I had had in my head the fucking USS Indianapolis These these fucking guys what's the Trump tweet folks, you know, I People are very mad at me for hating sharks, but don't worry. They'll be here long after we're gone Trump's fucking anti-shark tweets. Yeah I don't know.

Maybe you deserve to be president. Trump shark tweets. Sorry, folks, I'm not a fan of sharks. And don't worry, they will be around long after we are gone. It was back when Discovery Channel made you get hyped up about Shark Week every year. It's like, I don't care about sharks either. Sharks are last on my list other than perhaps the losers and haters of the world. There enough. President confirms Stormy Daniels claim that he's terrified of sharks.

She claims he said, I hope all the sharks die. Again, tough but fair. I think I'm changing my twist of bio now to I hope all the sharks die. It's such perfectly like hate behavior. So this is a very busy straight and this accident was almost immediately spotted by the passing MS Don Claudio, right? Right there. Which is this guy here.

Well, I'm doing that. I hope all the sharks die. I think. Yeah. Gotcha. Um, which rushed to the accident scene, it arrived there almost instantly. They couldn't get close. They couldn't get it close to the accident.

Because it's on because of the fire. You know, yeah, because. And they couldn't. No one could see anything, right? They were like, there's no lifeboats coming down. All we can do is pluck survivors from the water. Everyone who's swam far enough. Perfectly.

Oh, yeah. I mean, just skin peeling off everything. Real nasty. So those who managed to get up close to The Don Claudio were too weak to like climb up ropes or use a ladder or anything So they actually had to like pull them up using nets Yeah, again, that's probably not what you want, especially when all of your skin is not so attached anymore. Yes. So that will all 26 survivors 24 from Tonya pause and two from empty vector were pulled directly from the water by this ship. Out of out of 4000. Yes. Yes.

Yeah, this is a very bad accident. Generally speaking, like, I mean, that that's in a kind of like horrifying middle ground, because like a lot of the stuff we've talked about is just stuff that is like, in like, totally unsurvivable, like playing crashes or whatever where it's like, it doesn't't it doesn't matter. You just get like mulched instantly. Yeah. But this is like, oh, there's this like just enough of a chance, you know, it's like horrifying. It's like a couple people made it out. Yeah. Yeah.

Now rescue efforts here were further hampered because nobody had a radio. Of course. Yeah. Why would that be important? You know, yeah, that's why. Of course. Yeah, why would that be important? You know? Yeah. That's why. Mm hmm. It took eight hours for the MS Don Claudio to get to a port to alert the authorities. Jesus fuck. You're just fucking lying there with like 96% burns or whatever for like eight hours before anyone even like knows anything's happened. Yes. When the authorities finally got to the scene of the accident, there was nothing there.

Jesus. This is like, you know, what it reminds me of is something that I have been wanting to do as an episode for a while. There's a few like early-ish, like post-Second World War aviation disasters in South America where planes just go. They just disappear in the Andes because like, you know, they crash for one reason or another and there's just no way of finding them again. This bit is particularly grim.

Evidence soon became piling up in the nets of local fishing boats and washing up on beaches. There were so many corpses that it actually became a public health concern. It had to close down beaches. There was no comprehensive official death toll initially, but it was assumed to be very high because the ship was very overloaded. So Picio lines, of course, disputes this. Oh, of course. You know, for legal reasons. It's also striking how they're just waiting

for bodies to wash up, how reminiscent it is of earlier maritime disasters, like Princess Alice or the fucking Birkenhead or whatever. There's like a bunch of these. Just really, really, Graham. So all right, what happened in the aftermath? A big part of this investigation relied on pinning down a simple statistic. How many people were actually on the ferry? Fuck that Scrim. Yeah. No one could give a straight answer.

So PTO insisted the ferry was at normal capacity as indicated by the manifest. 1493 passengers and 59 crew. Yeah, it's only like... Straight face, we don't know how many bodies. We... there's only 683 bodies, don't worry about it. Yeah, to be like, there's only like three times as many as it probably should have had after we put this back into service after it ran aground and burned down. Yeah.

Survivors described a much different scene with the dangerously overloaded vessel filmed with the teaming masses, right? All but five of the passengers who survived the wreck were not on the official manifest. And the more recognizable bodies that were washing up were also not on the passenger manifest. Yeah, the guy who washes up with his like EDC asbestos wallet that you know, survives perfectly. That's not to mention it was official policy not to record non-paying children under

four on the manifest. Which is going to be again like a high number because... There were a lot of kids on this thing. So, so Pichio's claim was clearly bunk. Yeah, of course. Right. Well, Pichio's claim was clearly bunk. Yeah, of course. Right. Eventually, the media in Tacloban had to compile a list of missing people from surviving relatives. Eventually, there was a list of 2,000 names published in the Philippine Daily Enquirer. It wasn't until 1999 that the official estimated death toll was up to 4385. Mason I'm remembering Princess Alice again of just like having to do best guesses and

people doing things like perpetrating frauds because no one knows who really got killed and who survived. Yeah, it's a big forensic situation here. You know, you just can't, the records were so bad that you can't tell who's alive, who's dead. So sending down divers to like shake down sharks for information. Exactly. How many people do you fucking eat? Let's get that big one. Is grabbing the fastest shark by the fins and like shaking it?

Who do you know here? What are you doing? Show me your teeth. Show me your teeth. Doing the like third degree police interrogation on a shark is that image is sort of like distracting me from some of the horrors. So. Well, you'd be happy to know that the legal proceedings, oh boy. Oh boy, yeah, that's my favorite. Who gets compensated for this?

Who's at fault? It's time to enter the exciting world of torts. Mm, delictious torts. Delicious torts, yes. Flock with torts, flowerless chocolate torts. Flourless chocolate torts. You know, there's some guys with deep pockets here who could get sued. Yeah, I mean, like, if you take out the sort of like bullshit shell company intermediary, there's presumably like a, like an oil company. A whole oil company, yeah.

They have a shitload of money. Sulphicio probably has like a decent amount because they have a lot of ships. Lots of money. Sulphicio probably has a decent amount because they have a lot of ships. Lots of money, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sulphicio at this point controlled something like 40% of domestic Philippine shipping. Jesus, yeah. They said, well, the ship is insured for 25,000. I forget if this is Philippine dollars, Philippine pesos. I think it's actually pesos.

It is a peso. Yeah. So everyone with the family member that was on the manifest was going to get 20,000 Philippine pesos as payout. And if your relative was not on the manifest, well, that's that's fake. You don't get any $357 US. Yes. Well, that's almost an Xbox. Is it? Xbox is getting cheaper. $299.99 for an Xbox Series S.

Oh, shit. Okay. So you could get an Xbox in a couple of games for your dead cat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Assuming they were on the manifest, of course. Assuming they were on the manifest.

Assuming they were on the manifest. Or they like washed up with their asbestos wallet or they're like, you know, skull tattoo. No. If they weren't on the manifest, so P. Chio didn't want to give them anything. Oh, OK. Maybe that guy just like fell into the straight where the ship sang by accident.

Yeah, it could could have just happened, you know. So the victims, families didn't like that. They staged a massive protest, you know, and eventually the Supreme Court of the Philippines had to step in. And it's always good when a Supreme Court steps in. They're not about to do something completely horrible and ass in. Oh, that's good. I love to hear from Supreme Courts.

And the question of blame is important here. Caltech's petroleum in the Philippines was a massive oil company, right? It had chartered MT Vector. Could they somehow be liable since they might have some duty to ensure the seaworthiness of the vessel? And the court decided in 2008, no. Oh, wow. The blame for the accident rested solely on a crappy little shipping company with one

vessel and they'd have to bear the burden of the payout, which means I don't think anyone got any compensation. As far as I know, this would also be the case in Scottish law of delicts and probably therefore English tort law. I'm going to get yelled at because I'm going to get the case wrong because it's been years since I did my delict exam. But I want to say my authority for this is trans copial see against Stockport something that I could be wrong. That's pretty good.

Hey, I mean, listen, I sometimes the stuff just lodges in your head and it may well be entirely wrong. Don't tell me in the comments. Oh, they're gonna don't worry. Yeah. Yeah, that was fucking do Mm-hmm your assholes. So you may think that This the shipping line so pitch you they had been like well this was there was this horrific loss of life We need to improve some of our internal procedures make sure of life, we need to improve some of our internal procedures, make sure none of this happens again. I host the show.

They're sort of like, you know, shocked into sobriety by this entire situation. It's the thing. Why would they when like nobody faces any real consequences here? And you're correct. The answer to that is no. Here's a Wikipedia article you don't want to have about you. List of maritime disasters involving the Philippines, Spain, Asia, Carrier Corporation. Oh my God. Which they, it's not a super long one, but there's a lot of big death tolls.

Oh, they changed the name though. I mean, that's how you really know. They did. There's consequences. Oh, look at the fucking rust streaming off of. This is actually a flower. Sunflower. This is when the MV Donna Marilyn was owned by a Japanese fairy line. But this was also later sold to the Philippines.

So Pichial loses two more big ships. Donna Marilyn here in 1988, that kills 300 people. And then down here is Princess of the Orient, capsized in a typhoon in 1990, 1998, killing 150 people. For whatever reason, why are you sailing in a typhoon. I'll do that. They they, you know, when they're going to be. Well, you know, people got to get to work.

I guess so. I have I have no idea. I'm that's a different disaster. Finally, in 2008, when the Supreme Court decision is coming down that says they're not responsible, MV Princess of the Stars sank in Typhoon Feng Shen, 814 dead and missing. You gotta stop sailing in the fucking typhoons boys. I don't know what to tell you. the fucking typhoons boys. Yeah, I don't know what to tell you.

And the Philippines board of Marine Inquiry finally suspended Sopicio's license to carry passengers. Oh, it's like they always say, right? Fool me three times. Shame on you. Four or four times. That's five times. Fool me four times.

Shame, shame, shame on me. Yeah. Thus, justice was served ish, I guess. They should ever they should go to the houses of the executives of this line and. Or the shoes or whatever. Yeah, whatever you guys feel is appropriate. So Pico Lions, which is now named Philippine, Spanish, a carrier corporation is appealing this decision, but they do not currently run passenger service. This happened in 1987. Here's the thing. Someone still does.

He's fucking people. Right, like, because, because, like the islands have not changed. The movement between them has not changed. Someone still has to run a bunch of ferries and statistically, I know that they're going to be trying to do it on the cheap. So the same shit's happening. It's has to run a bunch of ferries and statistically I know that they're going to be trying to do it on the cheap. So the same shit's happening. It's got to be. Yeah, I mean, there's there's definitely like, I mean, granted, the last two ships were sunk by what you call it, mysterious act of God's love. Yeah. Yeah. So this is this is just

phones, right? Yeah. So this is just a question of not sailing in heavy weather. But this company just had this insane safety record and was allowed to keep operating for two decades. It's massive failures at all level of administration here. Yeah. You get sort of like a 9-11 and a bit worth of casualties out of this one and then nothing happens. Yeah. I mean, well, since October 7th, we're now, we now have proportional 9-11s. So I think this is actually significantly more proportional 9-11s for the Philippines. All right, let's do some math here.

Population of the Philippines. It was. All right, the population of the Philippines is 113.9 million. So we say roughly a third of the US, give or take. And it had, and it was like 1.1911. So it would be like three and a third 9-11s. Yeah, that sounds about right for me.

Back of the envelope, this is three and a third 9-11s. Yeah, I mean, what if 9-11 actually wasn't inside job and just no one did anything about it? This is sort of what happened here. Yeah, it's just like, 9-11 was just like extremely negligent. Like United like hired Muhammad Atta and he'd like flew the planes into the fucking World Trade Center.

And then United were like, sorry about this, here is $300. Go buy an Xbox. You cannot sue us. Jesus Christ. Yeah, that's what this is. I, mm. This is depressing news.

Depressing episode. Yeah. That's what we're here for. Yep. We're here to provide you lots of extremely bleak content. I I already Legitimately suffered a like workplace psychiatric injury doing this podcast doing the fucking pre-ons one like I Still have like anxiety disorder problems about that And and and now on top of this you hit me with a fucking depression beam, you know?

So we're here for getting well as your problem syndrome. I'm getting work woman's comp is what I'm getting. That's that's yeah, I don't. You guys are paying for my therapy, you know, make him do it. No, no, no, The Patreon subscribers are paying for my therapy, which we thank you for. Yeah, thank you. So what did we learn today? When you find someone who's negligent, go to their house and beat them to death with their own shoes. I think my answer is simply the word don't.

Yeah, just don't don't do that. We flirt nothing. Because there's nothing to learn. What we could have learned was like extremely obvious, like whole whole corporations responsible for their acts and emissions. Like we can do the names and address a song. Yes, doing the Animaniacs song, but like countries of the world, but it's like names and addresses of executives of this company. Yeah, it's just, it's just, it's kind of bleak.

I mean, it also relates, well, even in the goddamn news talking about East Palestine, you know, the railroad hasn't really been meaningfully held accountable. The whole industry hasn't. You know, here we also see, you also see 20 years for them to decide actually the ferry line isn't accountable. Nothing, you know, it's like, you know, this whole system is, this whole system is fundamentally broken.

Yeah, of course. And it's fundamentally broken for like historical reasons too. Like if you want the Philippines to be a country that has a judiciary and has a government that like allows the meaningful regulation of shipping and like consequences for people who break it and like kill a bunch of people, then, you know, the reasons why it doesn't are like a history of colonial exploitation that kind of creates inequalities that persist to this day is why. Yeah, good old, good old, the purpose of the system is what it does right here.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it's all fucking Douglas MacArthur's fault and I'm pretty certain. Yeah, I think so. Well, we have a segment on this podcast called safety third Three slayings of safety third this time Yes, hello Roz November Yaeliam Devon and slash or possible guests slash guests. No

I like my own guests guests. No. I got a recent safety third for you where I was both the idiot and the somewhat intelligent one. I work at the Stan Rogers song I like and another weird Stan Rogers song. Yeah. I work in the world of museums, specifically science museum and in a certain and absurd space where bizarre maintenance requirements and procedures collide with the oddest people possible, all covered with the delightful penny-pinching blanket of non-profit life. Cool. I can relate.

The museum I work at has a planetarium. We replace the lamp projectors with LED projectors as part of a recent series of major changes and upgrades. Still thinking about the tweet that's like, I work at a planetarium and when the earth came on with the thing, this is the earth, one of the kids booed. For a few reasons, the main planetarium operator was let go at the same time, and my department was tasked with getting the planetarium cleaned up and organized. Let's fix up the planetarium.

It was like we bought a zoo except it's a planetarium. The former operator could be quite accurately described as very devoted, but quite odd in a bit of a hoarder. As we were cleaning the space, we found out that instead of disposing of burned-out projector lamps, he'd kept every single dead lamp. Sometimes you get the autism and it hurts your feelings to throw them away, right? Yes. These aren't just big light bulbs where the inside it's a vacuum and you only need to really worry about broken glass when you break them.

Large old theater and cinema projectors tend to use xenon arc lamps. See figure A. This is figure A. They're very like, I don't know, industrial. Yeah. Refused quartz glass contains xenon gas at potentially up to 30 atmospheres or 440 pounds per square inch. These are effectively very small pressure bombs that have built-in shrapnel. Built-in glass shrapnel.

Put a pin in that. I don't think I want to put a pin in that. We don't know how long you've been hoarding lamps, but I've found dated boxes going back at least 15 years. When we finished cleaning, we had about 125 of these lamps just sitting on a pallet, needing to go somewhere. I mean, sometimes you lose the contact details for your lamp disposal guy. Sometimes you think the lamps have personalities

and you don't wanna like get rid of them. Except them, right. Sure. Being as their pressure vessels, to safely dispose of them, we needed to break the glass to release the pressure. Oh no. Sorry, we needed to do a kind of

planetarium operation sailor hat. Right, destroy the village to save it. Yes, I'm familiar. I'm sure it's fine. After a discussion about the cost of the proper tool versus the fact that we were only going to use it once due to the LED upgrades, my boss uttered the words, no person wants to hear. Can't we just make a tool to break them ourselves? No, no, boy.

Can't we just drop the like ACME 16 ton weight on them on the pallet? At this point, you know, maybe you just want to throw them in a lake. It's safe and legal thrill, you know? You're about to get some really bright electric heels. Yeah. I was effectively tasked with the impromptu explosive ordinance disposal. Yeah, I'm not the I'm not the step. EOD tech. I'm just the EOD tech. You stepped up.

Good show. I found a method of breaking them online. See figure B, a YouTube video. Don't do that. Yeah, I found this, a YouTube video. Don't do that. Yeah, I was going to call it FPS Russia. Q, Q the. The. You have to do this.

I can't. Door just going right past. I made the rig involved to make things go smoother. I started removing the bulbs from their housing figure C on the next slide Which I assume it's this one yeah Because I'm not a complete idiot. I was wearing as much protective gear as I could Leather gloves, long sleeves, masked full face shield. Not quite a full EOD suit, but you make do with what you got. Yeah, I was wearing my World War I trench armor.

Right. Yes. As I pulled the lamps out, I gently placed them in a five gallon bucket with a piece of heavy plastic on top as a blowout panel. In about 25 lamps de-housed, I gently took the bucket over to where I had the smashing rig. I took the plastic cover off, reach in still with full PPE, gingerly start to pull a lamp up, and shit immediately goes sideways. That tracks, but.

Nair, as I can tell, one lamp shifted and fell on another lamp, which cracked ever so slightly. And physics took over. Pressure release. Yeah. You're just doing like nuclear fission, but for glass at that point. Physics took over the cracked lamp went boom and a chain detonation started as the glass and metal shrapnel cracked all the other lamps in the bucket including the one I was holding. I felt the wave of pressure hit my hand as the bucket immediately became a giant shotgun of shattered glass and metal

rockets out of the bucket. Fuck. Once the explosion finishes, I check to make sure I'm not down any fingers or spurting blood. Quickly shout, I'm okay, and pull my hand slash arm out of the blast zone. Thank the various deities for protective gear. As the only damage to myself is a bunch of redness from the pressure wave, some minor scrapes, and a bruised ego TV I a traumatic bulb injury The fact that I just been appointed the safety committee was not lost on myself or my boss and my punishment for being a dumbass

Was cleaning up all the shrapnel and having to smash the rest of the lamps outside in the cold I just ended up smashing them with the sledgehammer. Sounds kind of fun, actually. Yeah, it does. Like those Mexican guys who like have like weak explosive strapped to sledgehammers and then just hit the ground with them. Moral of the story is proper PPE will save your life and don't put a bunch of breakable pressure vessels in enclosed spaces. Love the podcast. Keep up the good work. Thanks for many hours of

engineering disasters. If I ever run into any of you drinks around me. Excellent. Thanks so much. I'm so glad that the World War One trench on the leather jerken ass situation protected you. Yeah. So that was safety third. Shake hands for danger. Hands for danger. Our next episode will be on Chernobyl.

Does anyone have any commercials before we go? I think we're good to be honest. Yeah It's it's it's fashion. It's coming. It is it might be out by the time this comes out. Probably will be yeah And yeah, if you want to donate to Railroad Workers United, that link will be in the description. Absolutely, cool. Become a sustaining member today. All right, we did it.

We recorded the podcast. The work for us next. Yes. Okay, good. I was hoping to have a shorter one so that we did not send Devin to the torment nexus. So recording, bud. Oh, yeah, that's a good point.