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March 31, 2008
Saudi prince promises to build 15 billion dollar mile high tower
This is very interesting because there are a lot of these very tall skyscrapers on the drawing boards of the world's architects and I wonder if they've learned anything from the tragedy of The World Trade Center?
Tall buildings were designed to be tall in the past because of the need for space in areas where there was none. These new buildings are simply expressions of power.
"On a clear day, the view from the top will take in the Middle East, North Africa and the Indian Ocean - providing you've a head for heights.
Plans for a mile-high tower in the Saudi Arabian desert have been unveiled by the billionaire owner of London's Savoy Hotel.
At 5,250ft, the £5billion project, masterminded by two British engineering consultancies, will be twice as high as its nearest rivals, skyscrapers under construction in Dubai and Kuwait, and almost seven times as high as the Canary Wharf tower in London's Docklands. "
Posted by Jim at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)
March 26, 2008
Parachute may belong to famed hijacker
SEATTLE (AP) -- Hoping to solve at least part of a 36-year-old mystery, the FBI is analyzing a torn, tangled parachute found in southwest Washington to determine if it belonged to famed plane hijacker D.B. Cooper.
Children playing outside their home near Amboy found the chute's fabric sticking up from the ground in an area where their father had been grading a road, agent Larry Carr said Tuesday. They pulled it out as far as they could, then cut the parachute's ropes with scissors.
The children had seen recent media coverage of the case - the FBI launched a publicity campaign last fall, hoping to generate tips on the unsolved highjacking - and they urged their dad to call the agency.
"When we went to the public, the whole idea was that the public is going to bring the answers to us," Carr said. "This is exactly what we were hoping for."
In November 1971, a man identifying himself as Dan Cooper - later mistakenly but enduringly identified as D.B. Cooper - hijacked a Northwest Orient flight from Portland, Ore., to Seattle, claiming he had a bomb.
When the plane landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, he released the passengers in exchange for $200,000 and asked to be flown to Mexico. On the flight to Mexico City, he apparently took the cash and parachuted from the plane's back stairs somewhere near the Oregon border.
Agents doubt he survived because conditions were poor and the terrain was rough, but few signs of his fate have been found. The parachute was discovered about 160 miles south of Seattle, near the border.
Carr spoke with the children's father, whom he declined to identify, early this month and learned the chute was white, the same color as Cooper's.
And when Carr overlaid the family's address onto a map investigators made in the early days of the investigation, he learned another encouraging fact: They lived right in Cooper's most probable landing zone, between Green and Bald mountains.
Carr hopped in his car and drove down. He dug around the property for about 45 minutes, unsuccessfully looking for a harness or other remains from the parachute, but the children weren't home, and the father wasn't sure exactly where they found it.
There are no obvious markings on the parachute to indicate whether it's the type Cooper used, a Navy Backpack 6 with a 26-foot canopy, Carr said. He's hoping a member of the public who has expertise in the parachutes will come forward and confirm whether it's the right kind before the FBI bothers to excavate the property. Barring that, the agency could turn to scientific analysis of the fabric.
"We've got to be pretty darn sure we're not wasting time and money here," he said.
If it is Cooper's parachute, that will solve one mystery - where he apparently landed - but it will raise another, Carr said.
In 1980, a family on a picnic found $5,880 of Cooper's money in a bag on a Columbia River beach, near Vancouver. Some investigators believed it might have been washed down to the beach by the Washougal River. But if Cooper landed near Amboy and stashed the money bag there, there's no way it could have naturally reached the Washougal.
"If this is D.B. Cooper's parachute, the money could not have arrived at its discovery location by natural means," Carr said. "That whole theory is out the window."
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Posted by Jim at 09:18 AM | Comments (0)
March 25, 2008
Bats Perish, and No One Knows Why
The New York Times is reporting that a disease is killing millions of Bats in North America. People don't realize we'd be up to our armpits in insects without Bats eating them all up in the Summer.
It was broad daylight in the middle of winter, and bats flew out of the mine about one a minute. Some had fallen to the ground where they flailed around on the snow like tiny wind-broken umbrellas, using the thumbs at the top joint of their wings to gain their balance.
All would be dead by nightfall. Mr. Hicks, a mammal specialist with the state’s Environmental Conservation Department, said: “Bats don’t fly in the daytime, and bats don’t fly in the winter. Every bat you see out here is a ‘dead bat flying,’ so to speak.”
They have plenty of company. In what is one of the worst calamities to hit bat populations in the United States, on average 90 percent of the hibernating bats in four caves and mines in New York have died since last winter.
Posted by Jim at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)
March 24, 2008
4000 Lives
This is an incredible collage of photos.
So many lives... Have they been wasted? Are we going to waste them? I hope not. I think it's time Americans started asking themselves if we want another Viet Nam?
Posted by Jim at 09:17 PM | Comments (0)
Today
I forgot to stop by and make a posting today and it's just about time for bed. Today I want to thank God for blessing me so much. Amen
Then I want to bitch about the guy standing behind me at Milwaukee PC who was talking on his dumb cell phone while at the same time he was trying to get me to shut up so he could talk to the salesman... What a fuck head. You should not be talking to two people at once, especially when one of them is on the phone but the dumbass was trying to talk to two people and still jabber to a third on his cell. What the fuck?
Sadly, for the time being, comments are turned off. If you need to comment please use my forum at http://www.faxus.com/cgi/james.pl
Posted by Jim at 09:03 PM | Comments (0)
March 23, 2008
Spam
Spammers have found the blog and now I have to monitor it it or turn it off. I cannot figure out why a spammer would waste their time of a blog than no one but me ever visits? I'd think they'd have better things to do, unles their really fat and can't get out of their chair....
Posted by Jim at 02:31 PM | Comments (0)