Mageth

Because it's harder for them to make money by helping people, perhaps?

Jayjay

It's their money and they can do what they wish with it. They never claimed that the donations would go to helping people, so I don't see why anyone should be upset about it. The only shock here is how effective a propaganda machine AiG turned out to be... at this pace I have no doubt they'll make this mockery of a museum reality sooner or later.

Porky Pine

Their model builder Buddy Davis looks very familiar. Isn't he the one who went on a rampage against Hindus and/or buddhists awhile back?

unregistered_user_1

I don't know about that, but is IS the same Buddy Davis who showed he didn't know what the hell he was doing when he went on a "dinosaur dig" in "alaska"!

http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/feedback/nov01.html

From a feedback letter:

Valentine Pontifex

I would really want to caution people about heckling how AiG is constructing the museum since it has more than a little potential of becoming petty. It is best to attack not the building program but rather the content that will eventually be presented to the pubic in the building when it is complete.

Frankly I would be surprised if AiG did not have competent engineers/architects on this project. Even if they did not have the wits to have them (which I strongly suspect that they do) the government and the insurance company would have almost certainly would have required it. If I am wrong and the project and/or the building falls appart I will be glad to be wrong provided no one gets hurt. If that happens and we have proof it was caused by AiG incompetence we can have our fun then...

As for "slow" progress at the museum, that is not that much of a suprise to me. The buidings I have observed the constuction of often take what my uneducated intuition seems to be too long. But I have figured that I have not bothered to educate myself on such engineering projects that my intuition on that subject is probably unreliable until such time as I do educate myself the subject in general.

Heck it seemed that a Walgreens spent a month just padding down dirt. (They were rising the construction area to elevate them above the hundred year (more?) flood plain.)

Also consider normal procedure for such things. If you wanted to build yourself a house you would probably go to the bank, get a bunch of money to do it, and pay them back with interest over the next ten to thirty years. AiG is not borrowing any money but is rather doing things as money comes. This might actually make sense though it takes longer since they will save a lot of money in interest and since it removes the risk of them defaulting if some future year has low donations (bad econonomy, people getting smart enough to send the money to the NCSE instead, etc.).

Jimmy Higgins

But hasn't that all been done by now?

There have to be building codes in Kentucky. The structure better not collapse or that will be the end of AiG, and rightfully so. However, the issues I brought up are not code for private buildings, ie drainage behind lateral earth wall or proper aggregate base for pavement (remember, potholes start from the bottom and work to the top).

One project I was involved with, a large structure was being built at the same site I was doing work for a job. That building, a construction building, went up much much much quicker. Probably in months. Its not that the entire building hasn't been done yet, there are always the more detailed architecture things to deal with for the interior. Its that they've accomplished very little except for grading the site and pouring some concrete, over a span of a year!

As for the debt free building, I was not getting that feeling about the construction. They seemed to allude to them eventually being in the black for the project, meaning to me, they were in debt (somehow).
I'm just a lowly geotechnical engineer who doesn't have Socrates' (read John Sarfati) seal of compotent approval. However, I've been involved in enough jobs to be able to say that it is in no way cheaper to build a structure over a long period of time. The longer it takes, the more it will cost. And shame on them for not waiting for the cash at hand to start in the first place.

Valentine Pontifex

I am surprised that the codes don't cover drainage. Could the codes have a major pothole in them. ;-)

Now not putting in the pavement right is interesting in and of itself. I will have to trust your credentials in the lack of other information. But come to think of it, the contruction sites that I have had a chance to see did did not to the pavement first. If this truely is a no-no then it brings up the question of why. The construction people would know that would they not? Could someone have taken AiG for a ride?

[Major snip]

Well I also mentioned the risk component. The problem with mortgages (from AiG's perspective) is that AiG actually has to pay them whether the donations come in or not. If they find themselves unable to pay the organization's prospects would be at extreme risk. But you got a point on not waiting for an adequate money supply. But then again, it might be easer to raise money if it appears something is actually been done.

But if, as you say, the long schedule is wasting AiG's money beyond the what is saved from interest payments, then I have no problem with that. It is money that will not be used to attack science and science education. Come to think of it, give Ken Ham a raise. Yes he makes too much money but I rather AiG's money be used to buy Ham toys then on anything else they might desire to spend it one...

Jimmy Higgins

You know, that sounds awfully like what may of happened with the Tower of the Perpetual Erection in Cuyahoga Falls that Ernest Angley built. I think it was supposed to have a restaraunt at the top and the whole nine. But its just a large phallic symbol that I think the Channel 43 people use as a broadcasting tower. If they had a loan, they could have built it all, but they probably wanted to keep from paying the loan back because they can shame people into helping when constructing, but once something is done, its hard to convince people that money is still needed.

The keywords are inflation and mobilizations. Services never get cheaper and the more often you require a company to mobilize their equipment, the more money there, because you obviously wouldn't keep the equipment hanging around costing standby for months when you aren't using it. No way to do construction. My uber-boss would be having fits if he was in charge and that's how it was going. "I'm losing my ass on this! he'd say in his Trinidad accent.

Jabu Khan

But if you work for a non-profit government subsidized operation it means more work for the local yokals who dreamt up this con.

Jayjay

I wonder if it's possible that they did the pavement because they want to bring in some selected visitors to see how the project is progressing? The photos of the front entrance look (not saying that it is!) almost complete, all it's missing is the grass.