Spend a day in Dubai yesterday and that place is positively insane. will post in more detail later, but in the meanwhile some initial observations.

About the first thing i noticed – even before leaving the transit area of the airport – was that the local authorities do not have much love for this blog. in fact they have so little love for it that they censor it:

No clue what i have done to piss-off the sheiks, but my guess would be that they also assume some kind of connection between me and 9/11 (see here for a more detailed explanation of their censorship policies).

Now if that is the case then i would not let me into their country (which they did) and if i were them i would reconsider censoring the Internet in the transit zone of an international airport, which is even more pointless that censoring the Internet in general.

Of course they Sheiks themselves like their Internet uncensored, so the wireless network of the Emirates First Class Lounge (which leaks outside the lounge) does not block any pages.

Spend most of the rest running through construction sites taking pictures and talking to a fair amount of construction workers (more on that later). next to the incredible construction boom that makes europe look extremely 20th century the most striking feature is how well maintained public services are:

One would assume that given all the individual wealth that is enjoyed by the Emiraties there would be no incentive to maintain a fairly decent public transport system (which like all other road transport becomes completely useless during rush hour), well regulated taxis or well maintained public parks on prime beach front locations, but all of these do exist and seem to be fairly accessible to a wide range of the population.

… straight from the US Immigration and Customs enforcement website (o.k with a detour via the the excellent subtopia field guide to military urbanism), the chair guy:

This is the most amazing combination of sheer will, imagination and engineering i have come across in ages (subtopia calls it ‘imagination of desperation’). Makes me hope that this has remained undetected for a while before these pictures were taken…

… coming home form the (opening of the going to be) excellent mycreativity event/conference/meeting i stopped by the shoarma place around the corner from my house. The egyptian guy who runs the shop was in chatty mood and somehow we ended up discussing Syriana which he described as…

… a film about the CIA and the Arabs (sic!) fighting about influence about the enormous oil resources of the Persian gulf

… form there our discussion went towards describing how much of a mess this confrontation and between ‘the Arabs’ and ‘the Americans’ had caused and when he handed me my shoarma he concluded the discussion by stating:

but who is going to keep this in check? the Chinese?

… at least that is what the vistor stats of this site seem to suggest:

Looks as if quite alot of people do look for information on the 9/11 attacks around that date and that some of them do end up here. I would guess that this has to do with my 9/11 lamp, but who knows as there are lotsofotherterrorismrelatedpostingshere as well. In any case the bars in the sites/visits row (orange and yellow that us) on the 9th do look like the WTC i remember from my childhood.

Excellent headline from last Saturday’s NRC handelsblad!! (it roughly translates to ‘integration primarily a problem of the natives’ (bablefish suggests ‘autochthons‘ as a translation for autochtonen, but i think natives fits it better).

The article goes on to point out that according to a recent survey immigrants (allochtonen) do not consider integration as an important issue, while the native population (autochtonen) does perceive it as the 4th most important issue (the top three are the health-care system, criminality and cost of living).

Is the title of a photo exhibition at the Netherlands Institute of Architecture in Rotterdam (on show till the 7th of january 2007). the exhibition consists of about a 100 mostly large scale large-scale reproductions of – well – spectacular urban landscapes, exceptional buildings and all kinds of eerie views. Many of the pictures contain very little traces of human live (which has a strange calming effect on me). One notable exception is São Paulo, Sé by Andreas Gursky:

On display this picture is something like 3 x 2 meters and which puts you face to face with the waiting subway passengers the picture perfectly captures the monstrosity of the Se subway station in central São Paulo. Looks like he did digitally add a a level or two (see my own impressions and pictures here).

The rest of the exhibition is pretty amazing as well, especially the ministry of transportation building in Tiblisi (via we-make-money-not-art, which made me aware of the exhibition in the first place. thanks Regine!).

The Guardian is running quite an impressive piece titled ‘One Friday‘ on its website today [i know that it is wednesday today but then those brits drive on the wrong side of the road and are generally confused when it comes to just about every measurement, so this not all too shocking]:

Criticised for their beliefs, clothing and attitudes; accused of not being British enough; reviled as the enemy within – not a day passes without Muslims being attacked in the media. So how does it feel to be Muslim in Britain today? Guardian writers asked people around the country – from a rear admiral to an organic farmer, a rapper to a gay rights campaigner, an accountant to a niqab-wearing teacher – to tell us how they spent last Friday. A G2 special.

Go read it here (warning, it is really long!). My favorite sentence is ‘the other day the internet cafe opposite me was raided, allegedly as part of a transatlantic terror plot. It was ridiculous.’

Which reminds me that we still know next to nothing about that transatlantic terror plot in question. still no news on how exactly they planned to blow up those planes without passports, explosives or tickets. Also not much more information on why liquids on a plane are dangerous. We do however know that denying people to take liquids on a plane is not only stupid but actually dangerous.

Love this picture which i found when i was going through reports from the submidalogia#2 conference this morning:

From what i can make up from his tags the picture was taken in Olinda in Brazil and shows a mobile sound system used to campaign in the presidential elections (see the ‘Lula e Eduardo’ sticker on the car door).Ii particularly like the mixing panel build into the ceiling of the drivers cabin and the serious expression of the driver.

After having found the children’s deposit point in lille last weekend i went on to the belgian coast to take a ride along the coast in in the kusttram (‘coast-tram’). have wanted to do this for a while as i am (a) a sucker for public transport and (b) i really like the idea of having a tram that runs along almost the entire Belgian coast (not that it is that long of a coast with in total 66km).

Unlike almost everything else in begium the coast tram does even make sense. it does run every ten minutes and at least on this sunday was absolutely crowded. crowded with old people that is. if i was well mannered and would offer my seat to the first best old person having to stand in the tram i would not have had a seat for the 2 hours 20 minutes remaining after the 2nd stop (but then i am not well mannered and continue to sit). looks like the belgian coast is some kind of dumping ground for old people. wherever you look the coast is full of grey haired persons, occasionally interrupted by brits carrying away huge quantities of liquor and cigarettes. apparently they store the old people in enormous high rises that line almost the entire coastline. here is an impressive sattelite shot taken from google earth (note the shadows illustrating the height of the buildings):

And here is a shot of the same location taken from the tram:

Now that is form follows function to the max. storing the old people within easy walking distance from the beach, far away from the urban centers and build a tram (o.k. the tram seems to be older than most of these humble dwellings, but who cares) interconnecting all these silos so they can visit each other and walk up and down the coast. perfect. looks like as if this keeps them happy as well as they do not even seem to vote for the vlaams belang (like the rest of flanders does).

Last weekend saw the third edition of dictionary of war. this project is currently collecting 100 concepts on the issue of war, which are presented by scientists, artists, theorists and activists at four events in Frankfurt, Munich, Graz and Berlin. Among those presenting in Graz was Lawrence Liang of the Alternative Law Forum in Bangalore who did an absolutely stunning presentation titled ‘Hostis Humani Generis‘ in which he links concepts developed in the fight against piracy in todays wars against terrorism and piracy (as in file-sharing). here is the abstract…

Abstract wars demand abstract enemies, and the Hostis Humani Generis (or the enemy against all mankind) is a title that has been bestowed on a host of figures; starting with the pirate and now the terrorist, I seek to understand the links between property, piracy and terrorism and propose that the concept of Hostis Humani Generis helps us understand the idea of war as a continuation of property by other means.

… but you should absolutely download the 30 minute video of the presentation (and of course watch it once it is downloaded).