Cool.
(Pun intended)
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Well if they really were that rich, they'd build their own mountains instead. HA!
Looks fun, as long as Al-Qaeda is not having their Winter retreat there!
I saw this project when I was in Dubai in 2005. They have the world's only 6 star hotel and are also in the process of building the world's tallest building.
Nathan, I remember your pic of the hotel, only I thought it was a 7 star hotel. Anyway, conspicuous consumption / construction.
Your right. It was the world's only seven star hotel.
Hmm, I wonder--what constitutes a star?
Money porn. Just think what that money could have funded to help feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick. Instead it's used to build a ski resort in the desert by people who have more money than morals.
Many people are poor all over the Islamic world, I do not know for sure how many. "conspicuous consumption". A muslim once told me that many people did not like how the rich lived, their decadence, relationship with the West, modern ways, oil wealth, while so many were in misery and hardship - and that was one reason some of them want to bring down the rich governments, businessmen and royal families.
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Let's take the log out of our own eyes first before we criticise these people. There isn't one of us who couldn't give more of our disposable money to help the poor. If the first world countries got together and scaled down their rampant consumerism and then diverted the funds to the poor, world poverty could be solved overnight.
I am told that there are people in the United States who don't have access to medical care and there are people in the United States who don't receive an age pension. I am told that the minimum rate of pay in the United States is about $4 an hour - how can a man feed and house his family on that? If a country as rich as the United States can't afford to look after the poor and the less skilled it is a bit hypocritical to criticise other countries.
(1) These people are Muslims. They do not have a tradition of worrying overmuch about the poor. In fact, they don't give a flying fig about the poor, except to use them as covers for funnelling money to Hamas and al Qaeda.
(2) These people are arabs. They do not have a tradition of worrying overmuch about how much Americans pay for a gallon of gas. In fact, they don't give a flying fig about Americans, except to use their greed and corruption as excuses for their own tradition of tribal backstabbing.
(3) And remember, these people are CIVILIZED [ie, westernized] arabs -- arabs graced with the radiant virtues of American corporate culture. They are rather deviously insolent versions of Gunga Din. Americans, being more insolent and blockheaded themselves than formerly, have noticed the the insolence before the deviousness.
One of the first things that crossed my mind when I saw this was the recollection of former President Richard Nixon turning the White House thermostats down to a bone-chilling temperature so that he and his wife Pat could enjoy a roaring fire in the fireplace in the middle of summer.
The other memory was of Jim Bakker, the former Assemblies of God televangelist, and his wife, Tammy Faye Bakker, who had outfitted their pet dog's dog house with air conditioning so he could keep cool in the summer heat.
Ralph - I thought Islam required almsgiving as one of it's five pillars. Doesn't that count as caring about the poor? Or are you suggesting that all zakat is going to terrorist organizations?
[Deleted for violation of Da Rulz, Rule No. 1, No rudeness. -- Edited by Siteowner]
Oh, yeah, it isn't like Dubai is alone, there are LOTS of these things:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Ind...ndoor_ski_slope
But please don't act like waste and consumerism are Arab or European problems, we have our own issues with that.
Sharon: A high minimum wage does not help the poor. If the minimum wage is higher than what you are worth on the free market, you become unemployed. e.g. If a business gets $3 worth of value from you, and the minimum wage is $4, they will not employ you employment.
Papist: This building has little to do with the price of gasoline, which is determined by the amount of gas provided on the market, and by what people around the world are prepared to pay for that gas. Constructing expensive projects does not mean that the Saudi's get to add on another dollar to the gas they sell - rather, the causality is the other way round.
The pointless luxury of this building is more a product of the Saudi economy, which, being mostly driven by a single commodity, oil, concentrates riches into the owners of the means of production of the commodity. This is why Saudi society is so unequal - very different to western societies, with their huge number of paths to riches.
"it isn't like Dubai is alone, there are LOTS of these things"
I did not know that, very interesting link regarding Indoor ski slopes, thanks! Interesting technology. But then, I am historically fascinated by V-2 Rockets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Ima...August_1943.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Ima...gust_1943_2.jpg
I was beginning to worry the Arab Indoor ski slope was maybe secretly being used as an Al-Qaeda training center, for a planned invasion of Canadian ski resorts, and future attacks on ski resorts around the world.
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I am sure CSIS has planned for any such winter terrorist attacks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Can...ligence_Service
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More knavish ski training in the desert, right in the U.S.A.:
http://www.petcaretips.net/Wylie_Ski.jpg
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"So now you know why gasoline $2.95 a gallon for regular unleaded."
I thought it was because we invaded Iraq. Y'know.. Blood for Oil and all that jazz. hm.. wait a tic..
"So now you know why gasoline $2.95 a gallon for regular unleaded."
This line was taken from the original email from which I took the content of this post. People like facile answers, I suppose, and my borrowing of that line contributed to that, for which I owe my apologies. On the one side, it's overly facile to suggest, as the NPR groupies do, that it's all about blood for oil. On the other hand, as Rob Spear has the common sense to point out, a building of this sort has little to do with the price of gasoline.
The price of gasoline is driven supply and demand -- by pressures imposed by the OPEC countries coupled with the price the market is willing to bear at the pump. There are also, obviously, the daily fluctuations caused by speculations on futures, but the single most decisive fact is the price of crude bought and delivered to the refineries.
It's true that causality doesn't run in the direction assumed by the quoted line: the Ski Dubai project does not inflate the price of crude. On the other hand, the lavish spending exemplified by the Ski Dubai project is clearly an effect of the price OPEC has succeeded in commanding for the production, marketing, and delivery of its crude, and in that way the two things -- for better or for worse -- are related.
It would have been better to reverse the cause-effect logic of the last line thusly: "So now you know how some of your $2.95 a gallon for regular unleaded is being spent by those who supply you with fuel."
Ralph - I thought Islam required almsgiving as one of it's five pillars. Doesn't that count as caring about the poor?
Indeed, Islam requires zakat (almsgiving) as one of its "5 pillars." The problem with Islam on this score is a lot like Catholics who are similarly bound by obligation when it comes to charity and alms and almsgiving and yet insensitively drive SUVs, Humvees, and look the other way when they pass the Knights of Columbus passing out Tootsie Rolls and soliciting charity on behalf of the mentally retarded in front of WalMart stores. Only, in the case of Jihadists it goes a good bit farther: they assure their poor young boys of their betrothal to dark eyed maidens in the world beyond if they but immolate themselves in car bombs on behalf of Al-Queda, etc. We know the wealthy Saudi families who support Osama's ventures. The synthanatosis (I was going to say symbiosis, but that would have been inappropriate) is staggering.
The guys from Dream Works are building one of these in Las Vegas right in the middle of the desert as well.
I thought from the pictures that it was going to be a new church, designed on "Vatican II" principles.
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