"The World" triggers my dislike from the word go by using an over-generic term for itself. And it doesn't do much for it's cause with the super-hype. And the video makes it worse by taking too long to simply explain what the heck it is.
But in a nutshell it seems to be an artificial-islands real estate development for super-rich people who like to be a good distance from the riff-raff of the world.
Ah, I get it now, it's called The World to support the illusion that it is a little independent world.
Arabic fake estate, more like it.
ReplyDeleteMy father worked for many years as a civilian engineer, including projects in the Gulf. According to his experienced opinion, investing in that mini-Me, I mean, mini-World (Freudian slip...), would be a bad idea regardless of how much excess money you have. These artificial islands are sand constructions in the middle of the sea. Wave and tide movement erodes sand, since the grains are so easily moved by water. Therefore, by essence this whole fancy project is not durable. Nature will make short work of it. The principle itself is flawed, it's the matter of a few years' time. All-sand beaches are notoriously shifting, watch any documentary. (Or just visit the same beach every year, heck, every couple of months!)
The Arabs have hundreds of billions of oil profits to spend, and they think they are investing. But building over the sea, on sand? Money in the wind.
In Lebanon, to say "get lost!", we say "go pave the sea". Amazingly, that's exactly what some arab-culture countries are doing!
It's no accident that the Gospel uses the metaphor of building the Church on ROCK.
And even the strongest stony cliffs only last so long when directly confronted to the relentless caress of the waves...
And it's just the same with that other maritime Gulf project in the shape of a palm tree. You know, the one that looks eerily like a Giant Rubbery One...
Ah well, for once that a planned natural disaster will be the exclusive enjoyment of the filthy rich, I'm not going to start weeping over their fate.
It's called The World because the artificial islands are constructed in the shape of the continents of the Earth. I think they are even calling the islands by the names of the countries they represent. (A clever marketing trick if you ask me.)
ReplyDeleteThe fundamental idea behind The Palm and The World was to extend the beach shoreline of Dubai. The only way to do that is to build on the sea. With this goal in mind, it would have been a "bad idea" to build on the mainland. (They have other interesting projects ongoing and planned for the mainland.)
There was an interesting TV documentary about the design and construction of the The Palm. The encircling outer reef is made of rock and serves as an absorber for ocean waves. This makes the islands comprising the real estate less prone to erosion than the main beach of Dubai. The encircling outer reef idea was found to work so well that they then used it in the other two Palms and in The World.
Of course, anything built on the sea is subject to erosion. But barring a natural catastrophe they assume the erosion to be slow enough to make it repairable as needed.
I've heard local residents talk of the land fills in the 50's here (Alameda CA). Quite a drastic thing, clouds of dust over the entire town as truck after truck of sand and dirt was brought in to fill The Bay.
ReplyDeleteOf course being on a sea loch the erosion is not a problem, but for earthquake territory there is the worry of liquefaction during a major quake.
Still, Holland and "The Wash" in the UK seem to be holding up well as reclaimed land on the edge of the North Sea.
The Palm, yes! That's precisely the concept behind the Giant Rubbery One. It's not the name, in reality it's what was used to initiate the gigantic squirting.
ReplyDelete;-)
"But barring a natural catastrophe they assume the erosion to be slow enough to make it repairable as needed."
I have this philosophic maxim on my fridge: "Cleaning the house when the kids are growing is like shovelling snow when it's still snowing."
They'd better hope they keep having the money for constant maintenance after there's no more oil...
I don't have the worry of earthquakes where I live. Sure, Beirut was destroyed several times through history by quakes and ensuing tsunamis, but I'm in the mountains, and my house on a solid rock base, best possible terrain in case of a tremor. No floods to fear either, there are no volcanoes in this region, not on a mountain top so lightning storms are not a big issue... and less and less worries of excess snow courtesy of global warming!
Now, if only this furshlugginer country was more stable and less meshugas...
There are other tremors to worry about than just those of the earth crust.
You know, you speak a great amount of yiddish for a French/Arab... :-)
ReplyDeleteHmm, are you an Arab? It's all a bit confusing to me.
Eolake scratched his head...
ReplyDelete"Hmm, are you an Arab? It's all a bit confusing to me."
This issue will be addressed soonish, in my next (upcoming) post on my own blog. You'll see, it's so simple it's absolutely inextricable. :-)
I'm late in posting it because it's my *big* 100th post special. Genuinely big.
As for Yiddish, it's my exutory way of resisting the surrounding brainwashing. Especially in today's overbearing atmosphere: imagine, as a safety precaution I had to shave my trademark goatee because I kept being taken for "a jew". Systematically, out of the blue one day. Not really because of my face, but because today's rapidly-dropping Majority leader, who's stealing my style, is near-officially viewed as America's puppet and an ally/agent of Israel. Oy! Do I sound jewish to you, nu? Emmes, the shticks one has to put up with in this drekknik place of shmendricks... ;-)
I've also documented myself in depth on Yiddisy for a novel series project. "The Voice Of All The People", heavy with symbols. AND with jokes!
Interestingly, the all-out "boycott of Israel and anything remotely jewish" seems to be markedly relenting. Just yesterday, I found two hardcover comic books of a new series named "Jewish jokes", on open display in a major bookshop!
Five Jews who shaped history:
- Moses: "All is Law."
- Jesus: "All is Love."
- Karl Marx: "All is Money."
- Freud: "All is Sex."
- Einstein: "All is relative!" ;-P
(The Einstein portrait is actually pulling his tongue and making a face!)
I dunno... Things getting more politically motivated than arbitrary and systematic, maybe that's a progress? Still not very reassuring from the local POV.
Groucho Marx: "All is BS".
ReplyDeleteI don't see much difference between both Marxist philosophies. Except that Groucho was more honest about it than cousin Karl.
ReplyDeleteAnd (therefore?) funnier. :-)