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Sunday, September 28, 2008

Ryugyong Hotel


The Ryugyong Hotel is an unfinished concrete skyscraper. It is intended for use as a hotel in Sojang-dong, in the Potong-gang District of Pyongyang, North Korea. The hotel's name comes from one of the historic names for Pyongyang: Ryugyong, or "capital of willows." Its 105 stories rise to a height of 330 m (1,083 ft), and it contains 360,000 m² (3.9 million square feet) of floor space, making it the most prominent feature of the city’s skyline and by far the largest structure in the country. At one time, it would have been the world's tallest hotel.Esquire dubbed it "The Worst Building in the History of Mankind" and noted that the government of North Korea has airbrushed the building out of pictures. The Christian Science Monitor called it "one of the most expensive white elephants in history" Over the years, the skyscraper has earned such nicknames as the "Hotel of Doom," "Phantom Hotel," and "Phantom Pyramid." Construction began in 1987 and ceased in 1992, due to the government's financial difficulties. The unfinished hotel remained untouched until April 2008, when construction resumed after being inactive 16 years.


Recent Development -

The basic structure is complete, but no windows, fixtures, or fittings were installed when construction came to a halt in 1992, and it has never been certified safe for occupancy. The concrete originally used to build the hotel was of substandard quality, and at one point, according to ABC News, it was actually crumbling.The hotel is so massive that it is clearly visible from nearly everywhere in the city, but it is nearly impossible to get anyone to talk about it. It is often seen as a metaphor of the highly secretive nature of North Korea. Former CNN reporter Mike Chinoy likened it to the giant calcium deposit on the neck of late dictator Kim Il-sung. Like the Ryugyong, the growth was clearly visible despite official attempts to hide it from view. Esquire called the hotel a colossal economic failure, likening it to what would have happened had Chicago's John Hancock Center been left unfinished with no prospect of being completed.

After 16 years of inactivity, foreign residents in Pyongyang noted that Egypt's Orascom Group started refurbishing the top floors of the hotel in April 2008. Though the effect on the architecture has yet to be determined, windows and telecommunications antennae were observed being installed. The Orascom Telecom subsidiary of the group confirmed involvement in the structure to begin developing GSM infrastructure in North Korea for up to 100,000 initial subscribers. Only government officials are presently permitted to use mobile phones and the service has been banned from use by ordinary citizens and foreigners since 2002.

Truth or Consequences, New Mexico


Truth or Consequences is a spa city in and the county seat of Sierra County, New Mexico, United States.[1] As of the 2000 census, the population was 7,289. It is commonly known within New Mexico as T or C.

Originally called "Hot Springs", it took the name of a popular radio program in 1950, when Truth or Consequences host Ralph Edwards announced that he would do the program from the first town that renamed itself after the show. Ralph Edwards came to the town during the first weekend of May for the next fifty years. This event was called the "Fiesta" and included a beauty contest, a parade, and a stage show.

Wedge (Border)


The Wedge (or Delaware Wedge) is a small tract of land along the border between Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Well-intentioned efforts to precisely define colonial boundaries inadvertently created this geopolitical anomaly. This was due, primarily, to the shortcomings of contemporary surveying techniques and the resulting geographical vagaries. It is bounded on the north by an eastern extension of the east-west portion of the Mason-Dixon Line, on the west by the north-south portion of the Mason-Dixon line, and on the southeast by the New Castle, Delaware Twelve-Mile Circle. Ownership of this land was in dispute until 1921, when Delaware's ownership was confirmed by Pennsylvania. The town of Mechanicsville, Delaware, lies within the area today.

Here is the wedge labelled in Google maps - Click here

That's it basically. If you want to read more about this place - it's history - read below.

Even though the area of the Wedge is quite small, just over one square mile (3 km²), to understand its significance requires some background of the colonial history of the Province of Maryland, the Delaware Colony, and the Province of Pennsylvania.

The original 1632 charter for Maryland gave the Calverts what is now called the Delmarva Peninsula above the latitude of Watkins Point up to the 40th parallel. A small Dutch settlement, Zwaanendael (1631-1632), was within their territory, as were other later New Sweden and New Netherland settlements along the Delaware Bay and Delaware River. Although the Calverts publicly stated that they wanted the settlements removed, because of the foreign policy implications for the Crown, they did not personally confront them militarily.

In 1664, the Duke of York, brother of King Charles II, removed foreign authority over these settlements, but in the process the Crown eventually decided that the area around New Castle and land below it on the Delaware Bay should be separated from Maryland and administered as a new colony.

In 1681, William Penn received his charter for Pennsylvania. This charter granted him land west of the Delaware River, and north of the 40th parallel. However, any land within 12 miles of New Castle was excluded from Pennsylvania. This demonstrates how poorly charted this area was, as New Castle is actually about 25 miles (40 km) south of the 40th parallel. The Penns later acquired the New Castle lands from the Duke of York, which they called the Three Lower Counties and are now known as Delaware. Delaware, however, remained a distinct possession from Pennsylvania.

The exact, and even approximate, boundaries of these three colonies remained in considerable dispute for the next eighty years. After settling Philadelphia and the surrounding area, the Penns discovered that it was actually below the 40th parallel, and tried to make claims to the land south of Philadelphia. The Calverts had failed to confirm their hold on their grant, either by surveying it or by establishing loyal settlers. The main progress through the 1750s was to survey the famous Twelve-Mile Circle around New Castle as the northern and western boundary of Delaware, and to establish the Transpeninsular Line as its southern border. A decision was also reached between the Calverts and Penns that the boundary between their respective possessions would be:

1. The Transpeninsular Line from the Atlantic Ocean to its mid-point to the Chesapeake Bay. According to NOAA, the Middle Point monument is at: (NAD27) 382735.8698 N / 754138.4554 W or (NAD83(91)) 382736.29213 N / 754137.18951 W. The monument is a short distance east of Route 50 near Mardela Springs, MD.
2. A "Tangent Line" from the mid-point of the Transpeninsular Line to the western side of the Twelve-Mile Circle.
3. A "North Line" from the tangent point to a line running 15 miles south of Philadelphia (approximately 39° 43' N latitude).
4. The parallel at 39° 43' N was reached as a compromise to the 40th parallel.
5. Should any land within the Twelve-Mile Circle fall west of the North Line, it would remain part of Delaware. (This indeed was the case, and this segment is known as the "Arc Line.")

When this was agreed upon, no one knew what the final shape would really be. Mostly due to the difficulty of surveying the Twelve-Mile Circle tangent point and the Tangent Line, astronomer Charles Mason and surveyor Jeremiah Dixon were hired. This complex border became known as the Mason-Dixon Line. It turned out that there is a small "wedge" of land between 39° 43' N latitude, the Twelve-Mile Circle, and the North Line. The top is roughly ¾ mile (1.2 km), and the side is roughly 3 miles (5 km) long. Clearly Maryland no longer had a claim to the Wedge, as it is east of the Mason-Dixon Line. And because both Pennsylvania and Delaware were owned by the Penns, there was no particular incentive to determine which possession it was a part of, at least until they became separate states.

* Pennsylvania claimed the Wedge because it was beyond the Twelve-Mile Circle and past the Maryland side of the Mason-Dixon Line, therefore neither part of Maryland or Delaware. So by default it should be part of Pennsylvania.
* Delaware claimed the Wedge because it was never intended that Pennsylvania should go below the northern border of Maryland (which originally ran at 40° N all the way to the Delaware River). The North Line is logically an extension of the Tangent Line and therefore should separate Maryland and Delaware. Even though the Wedge is outside the Twelve-Mile Circle, because it is south of the 39° 43' N compromise line, it should not be part of Pennsylvania.

Mason and Dixon actually began surveying the Maryland-Pennsylvania border line at the Delaware River, or at least fixed the longitude of the intersection of 39° 43' N and the river. Even though this point is within the Twelve Mile Circle, the western boundary of Pennsylvania was to be five degrees of longitude west of it, and Mason and Dixon were to survey the Maryland line to Pennsylvania's western border.

By simple merits of the geometry, the Wedge more logically fit as a part of Delaware, which exercised jurisdiction of the area. In 1849, Lt. Col. J. D. Graham of the U.S. Corps of Topographical Engineers, resurveyed the northeast corner of Maryland and the Twelve-Mile Circle. This survey reminded Pennsylvania of the issue and they once again claimed the Wedge. Delaware ignored the claim. In 1892, W.C. Hodgkins of the Office of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey monumented an eastward extension of the Maryland-Pennsylvania border, and created the "Top of The Wedge Line." In 1921 both states settled on this boundary.

Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein


Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein is Afrikaans for, literally, "Two buffaloes shot dead using one shot fountain", which follows a common format for place names in South Africa.

According to one Professor AM de Lange (of the University of Pretoria), it is the name of a farm about 200 km west of Pretoria officially registered with the Surveyor General. The name has also been used in advertising to signify the typical small rural town.

While not strictly grammatically legal, this name also illustrates the compounding nature of Afrikaans: all the descriptive terms relating to one concept can generally be tied together into one long word: properly separated, it can be rewritten as "twee buffels met een skoot mors dood geskiet fontein". Another example of this would be wildewaatlemoenkonfytkompetisiebeoordelaarshandleiding, which translates to "wild watermelon jam competition judge's manual". Such use is, however, not common, and it is generally agreed that words should be separated using one or more hyphens if they become too long or unwieldy.

Anton Goosen, a South African singer, has performed a song with this title, which was written by Fanus Rautenbach.

Aerican Empire


Flag of the Aegian Empire.
The Aerican Empire is an imaginative micronation founded in May 1987. It has no sovereign territory of its own and has never been recognized by any other sovereign state as existing.

The current land claims include:
  • Chompsville: A square kilometer of territory in Australia near the region of Springvale, Victoria
  • Earth: A house-sized area in Montreal, Canada containing the Imperial capital and the site of the Aerican Embassy to Everything Else
  • Mars Colony: Approximately 720 acres (2.9 km2) of the surface of the planet Mars at coordinates 10-11 degrees South by 220-221 degrees East 
  • Northern Plutopia: The northern half of the dwarf planet Pluto
  • Parrwater: A water reservoir near Castor, Alberta
  • Psyche: Adjacent to Chompsville and covering the city of Dandenong
  • Retsaot Island: An island in the region of Ashburton, New Zealand
  • The Pasture: An ill-defined cow pasture located somewhere in the American midwest
  • Verden: The only wholly-invented claim, a non-existent planet.
All of the Empire's claimed territories on Earth are currently controlled by other sovereign nations, and the extraterrestrial colonies are uninhabited.

As with most micronations, the Empire's population has fluctuated wildly with time. In March 2008, the Empire's population exceeded 280 citizens.

The Aerican Empire was founded on 8 May 1987 by Eric Lis, the current Emperor, and a core group of friends. The first ten years of the Empire's history were filled with wars, including battles with rival micronations. During this period, the Empire was almost wholly fictional, incorporating a vast galaxy of planets under its nationality. It was not until the signing of the Aerican Constitution that the micronation pledged only to use war as a last option.

In 2000, the first growth spurt in the Empire's population was triggered by an article in the New York Times. In the months following this, the Empire's membership rose to over five hundred people. This number slowly fell over the following years as members left, eventually stabilizing and rising again with time. The Empire's modern philosophy is summed up in its mission statement: "The Empire exists to facilitate the evolution of a society wherein the Empire itself is no longer necessary."