jginspace's Journal: Thailand using stationary boats with propellers running to shift floodwaters

Thailand is currently experiencing its worst flooding for decades. Bangkok is sitting right between the main rivers and the sea and they've decreed that barricades must be erected to keep the capital dry at the expense of the central provinces. How can you allow the water to run off without sacrificing the capital?

As usual with the challenges facing the country, it seems like calm intelligent leadership is hard to find. However, the king is reputed to be a serious hydrologist so perhaps it's no surprise that budding part-time flood experts are coming up with cunning plans to help alleviate the floods and no doubt receive favour from royal circles. Notably, a guy named Plodprasop Suraswadi, who just happens to be Minister for Science and Technology, claims to have come up with the idea of deploying stationary boats with propellers churning to speed up the flow of water out to the Gulf of Thailand. Now they've just decided it was working so well that they lined up 500 boats to finish the job off.

Armchair analysts are skeptical.

Phony science? Thailand watchers will recall the GT200 fiasco, where the security services spent $21 million on several hundred "bomb detectors" which turned out to be empty boxes.

While Western Digital are warning they'll be unable to meet customer demand as their plants on the outskirts of Bangkok are submerged.