DUBAI BABEL

[E.O.T.]

EITHER

          These aren't the droids you're looking for

OR

          The new DUBAI tower, "Burj Khalifa", bears an uncanny resemblance to the TOWER OF BABEL

         

         

[Subtract Eight!]

well it's done now and it's magnificently phallic and that's awesome

it might be jsut me but i dreamed as kid of tall ass skyscrapers, idk the novelty is enough justification

gogogo sweetass buildings

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

That's actually pretty funny. Hell, they're even in the same region, aren't they? Go Dubai! Also, what's the Burj Khalifa slogan? "From the Earth to the Sky"?  

Also I am mildly obsessed with the incredible difficulty of finding photographs or any non-obviously-propaganda info about Dubai. Not even blogs or flickr pics by people who have visited. There are ridiculously obscure villages no one has ever heard of which, when you search them, you can find blog posts and pictures galore... Dubai, not so much. It's almost like no one has ever actually been there. Plus the stories of virtual slavery, unpaid workers not allowed to leave the country, polluted waters, artificial islands that are starting to sink...

I am not even 100% convinced that the Burj Khalifa is actually completed. I've seen footage of the observation deck, but where are the images of the sumptuous interior? The lobby, which surely must be glorious? Wasn't it unfinished a couple of months ago? It's taking longer than that for the team of industrious builders on the lot behind me to finish a pair of townhouses. I think they're claiming it's finished as a publicity stunt, an effort by a bankrupt country to rekindle the interest of investors. "Look, guys, we actually finished something! The bubble hasn't burst!"

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'll probably be killed by Arabs for making that post, when Google spiders it and they find it when they search themselves to see who's saying unapproved shit about Dubai on the Internet. 

[Jean-Lustine d'Hadamard]

Plus the stories of virtual slavery, unpaid workers not allowed to leave the country, polluted waters, artificial islands that are starting to sink...

There was a very good UK documentary on this year ago but I can't find it. Instead, here's Dubai's Dirty Little Secret: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUW9MWLIQYw ; the damning stuff starts at about 9:20.

Dubai looks like a very, very tacky, tasteless place indeed.

[Cain]

Dubai has so many dirty little secrets I dread to think what that video is going to be talking about.  Is it the sex trade, the near-slavery conditions workers in Dubai suffer under, the almost nonexistant banking regulations, the gold smuggling, the terrorist funding, the illegal arms trade, the drug laundering or the mercenaries employed by the Khalifa family to keep the "peace" among all of the above?

[Elder Iptuous]

This made me think of the EU assembly building:

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

This so rekindled my Dubai obsession. There's a LOT more info available now then there was when I was looking last Spring, but still very few photographs.

I actually think that the Dubai/Babylon comparison is remarkably apt; hubris, greed, and overarching materialism being their own downfalls.

[Jasper]

I think I've found some pictures of it that aren't propaganda.

http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=18298340403865942483&q=burj%2Bdubai

[E.O.T.]

This made me think of the EU assembly building:

EITHER

          That is FANTASTIC!!

OR

          "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force." -Darth Vader

[Elder Iptuous]

Yeah, they actually put up that poster as an advert when they were in construction phase.
it got quickly taken down after Christians crapped their pance...  but preserved forever on the intarwebs.