canal

The most recent brain-child of the newly (and overwhelmingly) elected Korean president is to build a canal from Busan (the southeast corner of Korea) to Seoul, creating a man-made waterway that would basically cut across the entire peninsula.

To give a bit of perspective, (both on the small size of Korean and of the large size of the canal) the canal would be slightly longer than the distance between Cincinnati and Chicago. So let's say the Ohio River was the Sea of Japan and Lake Michigan was the Yellow Sea, and for some reason, someone thought it was a really, really, good idea to connect these two waterways. Only add in lots and lots of mountains and the source of most fresh water. And a propensity for oil spills. (there was a smaller spill - 13,000-ish gallons of oil - off the coast of Yeosu recently, but there is no English-language coverage of it that I can find).

This is billions of dollars spent on something senseless.

There are protests planned in both Seoul and in Busan, petitions, and (of all the useless things) a Facebook group (like, really? are you kidding me?) dedicated to raising awareness of the potential catastrophically ridiculous plan. Protests are awfully popular here, but for the most part, given how much Korean leaders tend to listen to public opinion when money is on the line, I'm not encouraged that anything good will come out of it. (But I think I just hit #18 on the list of stuff white people like.)