Tag: End of the World

Jul 28 2010

Why I Find Myself Shrieking

I sighed uneasy relief with everyone else when BP finally stopped Deepwater Horizon from emptying itself in the Gulf.  Yes, I knew it was temporary.  Yes, I knew it could blow up again any minute.  But there was, nevertheless, a relief.  For a short time anyway, BP would stop turning the Gulf of Mexico into a disgusting oil gumbo garnished with oil soaked pelicans and dead dolphins.

But then I read this article in the New York Times:

A wellhead in southeastern Louisiana was spewing a mist of oil and gas up to 100 feet into the air after being hit by a tug boat early Tuesday morning, officials said. It is at least the third unrelated oil leak in the area since the Deepwater Horizon spill began 99 days earlier.

The well is about 65 miles south of New Orleans in Barataria Bay, which is surrounded by wildlife-rich wetlands and was a fertile area for fishermen, shrimpers and oystermen before the BP spill. By Tuesday afternoon, a reddish brown sheen 50 yards by one mile long was spotted near the well, according to a spokeswoman for the Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard said the well was owned by Cedyco, a company based in Houston.

The wellhead burst at 1 a.m. local time Tuesday after being hit by a tug boat, the Pere Ana C, that was pushing a dredge barge, Captain Buford Berry, though details were still being investigated.

So, not to put too fine a point on it, there is more oil and gas being deposited in the Gulf as you read this.  And they haven’t started stopping it yet, and are booming.  Booming.  Booming with 6000 feet of boom.  Pardon me, but didn’t we all decide in the past 3 months that that is worthless.  Oh, but excuse me again, this is a new day.  And a new leak.  And so we get to try stuff that didn’t work before all over again.  Because we’re crazy and think it’ll be different this time.

And then we have this gem:

No specific flow rate has been determined, officials said.

Mama mia.  Oy gevalt.

And this, dear reader, is why I find myself shrieking.  And uttering strings of profanity.  Join me.


simulposted at The Dream Antilles and The Stars Hollow Gazette and dailyKos

Jan 05 2010

Yeah? Well Mine Is Bigger

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Taipei 101

Yesterday’s news of the opening of the world’s tallest building phallic symbol was a pun fest.  The New York Times, for example, had as a headline, “Dubai Opens a Tower to Beat All.”  The Dubai Tower, it seems, is 2,717 feet tall.  It is far taller than any of the other really tall buildings phallic symbols in the world, including the one in China Taipei, Taipei 101.

All of this, of course, begs the question as to why Dubai, which apparently cannot pay its debts and is teetering on the abyss of financial collapse, decided to build this gigantic monument to itself.  Maybe its name should be changed from Burj Khalifa to the Ego Tower or Narcissus 101:

The glittering celebration may have been an attempt by Dubai’s ruler, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, to shift the focus from Dubai’s current economic troubles to a future filled with more promise.

All the same, the tower’s success by no means signals a recovery in Dubai’s beaten-down real estate market, where prices have collapsed by as much as 50 percent and many developers are having trouble finding occupants for their buildings… snip

At a time when several of Dubai’s newly built office towers stand empty, [the big one] is 90 percent sold, according to the building’s developer, Emaar Properties.

Can you believe that?  Lying about one’s size and performance apparently goes with the territory.  Even yesterday there were whispers that the building was empty, that it wasn’t as hot as it was claimed to be.

And what about the US?  Doesn’t the US need to have the world’s tallest monument to Priapus?  Apparently, 1 World Trade Center proceeds apace, but it is about 1,000 feet shorter than Burj Khalifa.  What a huge disappointment.  Can the US face up to this embarrassing Erecting Dysfunction?  Isn’t there some kind of architectural Cialis or Viagra to grow this project?

All of this begs the real question.  What kind of sign of the Apocalypse is it that humans are building gigantic, expensive, unneeded phallic symbols rather than feeding those who are starving and caring for those who need medical care?  How many schools, hospitals, clinics and libraries could be built instead of these awful, unnecessary buildings?  How many hungry people could be fed, how many sick people could receive care and medicine?  Couldn’t these resources be better spent developing systems to keeping humans from broiling or drowning on this planet?

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simulposted at The Dream Antilles