Wretched Excess Department: Burj Dubai Opens Today!

It's a New Year. Let's say you had a kind of disappointing 2009 — disappointing in that one of your major companies, Dubai World, had a little, um, $22 billion shortfall — and you
had to be bailed out a couple of times by neighbor/rival Abu Dhabi, what do you do for an encore?

We're going to Disney World!? No! We're building something bigger than Disney World!

It's Dubai! You open the world's tallest building! Eat our dust, Taiwan and Malaysia!

Puny Empire State and Sears Tower: so second millennium!

160+ stories! Disney World on the Gulf triumphant! Burj Dubai opens today! Said to be 2,684 feet. Isn't that over half a mile (a mile is 5280 feet) high? On a clear day (and most of them are) they say you can see Iran!

Most of all, it is a symbol of the last couple of decades in Dubai, probably more than it's a symbol of the coming one. As the second picture suggests, it will rather dominate the already impressive skyline.

Who's next? I'm guessing Shanghai will eventually try to top this, but can't think of any other city that's trying to build such a wretchedly excessive skyscraper in a post-9/11 era. (Why did "Tower of Babel" just come into my head? It's not unknown to Islamic tradition.) Did no one learn anything from the inability to evacuate the twin towers? Or do they assume that can only happen in America? Anyway, congratulations, I guess, on the world's biggest building and your new metro, which the Ruler rode at least once, which should cheer you up while you pay off that $22 billion.

The pictures are from Wikipedia and therefore presumably do not violate anybody's copyright.