This is the Friends of Mr. Debating Society. I'm John Bachelor catching up with Michael Jan at Michael Underline Jan on Twitter

He's at the Madden Dam, which is part of the Panama Canal system built at the beginning of the 20th century Madden Dam

I learned

Michael gave me time to look it up his name for a man named Madden, Parton Madden

Who was the chairman of the of the Appropriations Committee and the House of Representatives in the first years of the 20th century

During the time the Panama Canal was constructed. It's a beautiful day with storm cloud spectacularly all around

Michael and he's counting ships

Michael a very good day to you counting ships in the Panama Canal. What have you learned so far? Good day to you Michael

Well interestingly as you know, we just left that

Darian gap and came back up here to the canal

I'm with Colonel retired Colonel John Mills and and Vanderstille. We're all researching this together

You know, there's some water issues with the canal not just lack of rain

Well lack of rain. We're about to get you

You're gonna hear lightning strikes in the background probably because there's a storm rolling in on me right now

I'm watching a lot but but that the water level is quite low

but so there so many of the ships can't go through with their full load and

And also many ships are are stuck on the Pacific

And Atlantic sides on long long waiting periods tomorrow morning. We're gonna go up and in an airplane and

Early in the morning and we're gonna photograph the ships and count them and then we're gonna look at marine tracker and see if those numbers add up

And you know what the numbers that are reported actually add up actually Chuck Holtons out there in a boat right now

Taking a look and so we're we're kind of tag team in this thing

But it's very clear that the the canal traffic is definitely lower than normal and

...