Three towers

From left to right:

1- Decadence and Sin: Address hotel (3rd place in terms of relative height).

2- Humility and peace. Minaret (2nd place).

3- Agressive Expansion. Burj Khalifa (1st place).

Here is the same picture as one from the previous post, but minus the plane. This shot was taken a few days after the picture with the plane.

Enjoy...

PS: Am thinking of submitting this to a photo competition.. any ideas?

Photographic winner...

... yes, Mr Rosh is correct!!! It's the Burj Khalifa.

A small prize for those who can guess how many tries it took to get this shot!

Hello guys.. great to see you: Dots, Mr Rosh, AA Rose, Ema...

and, I guess I'm here now.. that's what counts!

What's hanging?

Guess what is hanging from the bottom of this plane?

The Abundance of Idiocy

...and various other tales!

1- Why do very small cars drive around with all their lights? low beams and fog lights included? You only need the fog lights when it's foggy. Dumb asses. I'm also seeing big cars driving with just their fog lamps. It must be perceived by cool by those with IQ's of under 10. Or those who are overdrawn in that department. Yesterday they just baked the cake, and some guy was desert driving with just his fog lamps.. needless to say, he could barely see!

2- Why are the authorities fixated with banning speeding? When you really need to ban people who change lanes suddenly and those who do not observe lane discipline. Actually I noticed that all drivers almost have their own lane. The FJ Cruiser number 6669 from Al Ain drives at the fast lane always. The Corolla number 84204 Shj2 drives with his fog lights at the 2nd lane. The Emirates Bus dude with 31 people drives on the 3rd lane, the heavy laden truck going to Gusais drives on the 2nd lane too, but does just 60kmh. You can see this poses problems when you're doing Emirates Road speeds! Still, the authorities will penalise speeding rather than incorrect lane discipline. Dumb.

3- If your empty plot of land is surrounded by pavements and is made of 100% pure UAE silicon, and you park on it, then the RTA will automatically slap you with a fine for "parking on the pavement". But you cannot slap them with trespassing.

4- If you're Indian then you do not look before you cross the street, but you cross quickly. If you're Arab then you also do not look, but you pass much more slowly, especially in the face of oncoming traffic. Must be all that obesity and mental retardation...

5- In the UAE indicators are used to confirm a lane change. In other countries they are used to indicate before a change. We'd like to see more Indicators used and less Confirmators.

6- to be continued...

RIP to aircrash victims

On a flight from Dubai to Mangalore (not Bangalore) yesterday disaster struck as the plane tried to make a tricky landing at what is called a "tabletop" runway. i.e. one which is proceeded with a valley or a drop that makes overshooting the runway a scary adventure.

Sadly 158 out of the 160 passengers perished. Even more sadly, the flight departed from Dubai and included a Gulf News member of staff who perished as well. Incidentally, it was Gulf News that rocked my morning by reporting this sad piece of news.

http://gulfnews.com/news/world/india/air-india-plane-crashes-in-southern-india-1.630447

Before people get too excited, the pilot was British with more than 10,000 flying hours and 26 landings at Mangalore. The co-pilot was Indian, and although he had less flying time than his Captain, but, he had more landings under his belt on this dangerous strip.

May they rest in peace.

Now turn to the left

I found this hilarious picture that I thought I'd share with you following the Farah Malhass post that so many of you absolutely devoured!



I believe the picture speaks for itself! I believe it's from 2008.

image link

Here is my original post on bodybuilding:
http://bujassem.blogspot.com/2010/05/farah-malhass-arab-female-bodybuilder.html

I actually went to school with one of the guys in the picture.. he's a very cool guy and I wish him the best :)

Calling all cops

First of all let me congratulate Dubai Police on their excellent results at the Dubai Government Excellence Awards 2010.



If you remember, it wasn't long ago since I last ranted about driving in the UAE and specifically Dubai. Specifically from Sept 2009:

http://bujassem.blogspot.com/2009/09/loony-lanes-driving-post.html

This is when I listed the top 20 things that the stupid/crazy UAE drivers tend to do when behind the wheel of a car.

More recently, from Jan 2010 I wrote this post:

http://bujassem.blogspot.com/2010/01/lane-dis-cipline.html

The topic is pretty straight-forward, it's all about lane-discipline.

So after more than a year since my return to Dubai, I'm still suffering from the f***ing idiots on our roads. They come in all shapes and sizes (fat and thin) and (Nissan Armadas to Nissan Sunnies), as well as slow and fast, left and right lanes, up or down a bridge, and driving pretty much in anyway they like.

We unfortunately had an assasination here in Dubai of a Hamas leader, not the most peaceful group, but since when has Dubai become the playground of thugs so openly? Our Police really does an amazing job going after the killers and of course liaising with Interpol etc..



They also do an amazing job keeping us safe in our homes, streets (pedestrian only), offices and airports.. Seriously, I have no criticisms on that front, and can safely say that Dubai probably is one of the safest cities in the world.

Now, my issue is this: The police spends a lot of time, effort and money to do the all the right things but with the wrong priority. Ok, it's great that we're going to go and put the Mossad chief in prison, and to liberate Palestine, and so on, but why not do all that after you've improved the situation on the road.

Sorry, but by giving stupid black points and rediculously expensive fines to motorists left right and centre you are not improving the situation and that cannot be considered good Police work. I'm sorry, but it just is not the case.

Both my parents have got black points on their licenses and they are probably one of the safest drivers that I know. All of this happened in 2010. Their driving attitudes and styles did not increase this year, nor have they had any accidents since they been both driving that was their fault. Dad had an accident where his car was totalled but that was more than 15 years ago by a guy with an Omani car and no license or insurance. So why is the Police penalising people that are at no risk to the public?

As a younger male driver, I am statistically more dangerous, and yet I have less black points than either parent! My felony was to use the 4x4 capabilites of my car and to drive in the sand to avoid the congestion due to a traffic accident ahead, probably caused by bad lane-discipline.

So the issue is this, from the zillions of Dirhams made from fines, why doesn't the Police spend some money to work on lane-discipline? I believe if we observe the right lane discipline we will benifit with:

1- Better safety. If you are slow, stay right, and if you're overtaking then go left. Never leave the lane to your right empty, and if it is then move into it. If everyone knows exactly which lane he/she should be in, then it's only normal for accidents to be reduced.

2- Higher road capacity. When you look at motorways in a civilised driving country like the UK, you'll notice the slow lane has the most wear and tear to it, because it's got the most traffic on it (including trucks). However, here the most utilised lane is the 2nd lane from the fastest, because everyone seems to think it's their lane. If you're a complete idiot, then you'd "park" in the fastest lane and not care about people behind you. This leads to huge inefficiency in the utilisation of the road. My humble estimate is that if we observe proper lane discipline then we can easly increase the road capacity by 30-40% without any changes to the road (thus no cost). All this by changing our driving attitute.

3- Predictability of driving leads to less road rage. Less road rage means less accidents and of course less speeding. But wait a minute, less speeding is bad if you get more than 600 million dirhams annually from fines (zawya) which is approx 15% of the Police's annual budget, and an even higher percentage of its undesclosed revenues.

I can go on and on, but we cannot continue to drive to be an international city with open borders and expect people to want to live here if we cannot get simple things right. Dubai has an amazing will to succeed and can do anything if it puts its mind into things. Who would have thought Dubai can build 3 terminals in less time it takes London to build one (T5 Heathrow = 19 years, wiki)?? Dubai famously built extensively into the sea and built the tallest building in the world. Given the current economic climate, it seems that's a title that Burj Khalifa (formerly Burj Dubai) will have for a long time to come. Dubai also designed and built a world-class metro system in under 5 years. Other countries take 10-15 years for FAST projects.

Why can't we get our brains together to fix the situation on our roads. After all I believe Dubai's roads are probably the best in the Gulf and the Arab World even, and more fun to drive in that the roads I been on in England for sure, but not Wales!

So please Dubai Police, please, please, do something about lane-discipline!

Urbanization (sic) of Dubai

I found these amazing pictures via NASA (I subscribe to the newsletter).
They chart the rapid development of Dubai via sattelite images from 2002 to 2010.
I'll shut up and let the pictures do the talking.







By the way it's worth checking NASA's page on this as they have twice the number of pictures that I have uploaded.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/dubai.php?src=eoa-ann

Mabhouh gone quiet

Hasn't the media gone silent on the recent Dubai assassination?
Steps need to be taken to ensure that the UAE does not turn to a place where filthy monkeys do their filthy business.



Abed Al Raouf Al Mabhouh (centre), the son of Mahmoud Al Mabhouh, carries the coffin of his father along with Hamas members during his funeral procession at the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, near Damascus, Syria on January 29, 2010.

Image Credit: AP

Latuff on Dubai

Simply Brilliant!

Thank you Carlos Latuff



http://Latuff2.deviantart.com/art/Mossad-agents-now-wanted-154934328



Seems we'll have a busy week with loads of zionist visitors hahaha
Shame they can enter my blog even with an israeli passport :p

Expat Arrivals - new website

You might notice that I added links to two websites on the right hand side of my site:

http://www.expatarrivals.com/dubai/moving-to-dubai

http://www.expatarrivals.com/abu-dhabi/moving-to-abu-dhabi

This was after being approached by the site to help market their site. It seemed like a good idea since the sites had some useful information for people wishing to relocate to the United Arab Emirates.

If you are interested in the UAE, then drop me a question via e-mail (it's in my profile) or this blog post through comments below.

Happy relocating!

Dubai assassination is latest of Mossad’s miscalculations

Dubai assassination is latest of Mossad’s miscalculations

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100219/OPINION/702189968/1080/foreign

Alan Philps

* Last Updated: February 19. 2010 12:29AM UAE / February 18. 2010 8:29PM GMT

It is said that the perfect spy is someone who cannot attract a waiter’s attention in a restaurant. This seems to be true of the hit team which murdered the Hamas military leader, Mahmoud al Mabhouh, in Dubai last month. The individuals revealed by the Dubai police are no Sean Connerys or Mata Haris, rather the type of people you would not remember if you bumped into them on the street.

The unforgiving camera angles of closed circuit TV footage and the dorky disguises they used only accentuate their grim ordinariness. Surely the ranks of young men and women wanting to join the world’s security services – many of them addicts of the BBC’s Spooks and similar glossy intelligence dramas – will now fall off.

The painstaking work of the Dubai police has proved one thing. The all-seeing surveillance camera has killed off the notion that a forgettable face, a wig and a moustache are enough to make a good sleuth. To the surprise and embarrassment of the Israelis, the Dubai police have been able to combine their surveillance footage with visual intelligence from different hotels, the airport and passport control, as well as cell phone information, to put together a timeline of the operation and a compelling movie, complete with cast list – an Ocean’s 11 stripped of glamour.

As the Israeli investigative journalist and expert on the Mossad, Ronen Bergman, has concluded: “This is the end of an era, the end of the assassination that leaves no trace, where you could perform such an operation with no marks. In the modern age it leaves a lot of marks, whatever way you perform it.”

Apart from that, there is much that remains murky in the operation. Reaction in Israel, initially quietly jubilant, is now tempered with unease over the political and diplomatic fallout. The standard Israeli government response to any accusation of assassination on foreign territory, the challenge of “Prove it!”, is pitifully threadbare in this case. The fact that the passports of British citizens who live in Israel were cloned to provide false papers points the finger unerringly at Mossad and makes the organisation look cavalier with the security of its own citizens.

According to security sources quoted by the BBC yesterday, the cloning of the passports was done to a very high degree of sophistication, beyond the capability of most intelligence services. This is further evidence of Israeli involvement, as Israel has a long record of faking British passports.

In the 1980s Israel promised to stop this practice after a courier taking a consignment of eight blank British passports to the Israeli embassy in Bonn – then the capital of West Germany – left them in a phone booth. The passports were picked up by the German police, and eventually traced to Israel.

The passport issue, as well as the revelation that the Israeli embassy in London was funding a Palestinian double agent who was hiding a big arms cache in the city of Hull, caused the British government to order a freeze in relations with Mossad and the expulsion of three operatives. The Mossad station in London was effectively closed down – but not for long. By 1998 there were five operatives back working in the London embassy, according to a standard history of the organisation.

The summoning of the Israeli ambassador to London, Ron Prosor, to the foreign office yesterday to explain the use of fake British passports should be seen in this light. While politics demands that the Israelis be reprimanded when they are caught out, normal co-operation between western intelligence services and Mossad tends to be restored fairly quickly. The key fact is that the Israelis are never caught cloning American documents. That would get the organisation into real trouble, whereas the wrath of European countries can be dismissed, or so it has proved in the past.

There are calls in the Israeli press for the current Mossad director general Meir Dagan to quit. But it seems unlikely he will go. He has a reputation for daring which pleases the Israeli public. He would have known that a murder in a five-star hotel would yield some embarrassing surveillance footage, but it was clearly considered a risk worth taking.

Israel wants the world to be repeatedly reminded that its arm is long. Mr Dagan is generally credited with the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, the military commander of Hizbollah, in Damascus in 2008 – though there is always the possibility of several forces being involved together. With al Mabhouh, the aim would be to remove the stain of failure dating from the failed assassination by poisoning of the Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Amman in 1997.

Vengeance and doing what makes the spooks feel good is not a policy, however. It is hard to think of any strategic gains that Israel has acquired from its long history of assassinations. When dealing with broad-based movements such as the Palestinians, no man is irreplaceable. Indeed, the dead man is replaced in time by someone usually more ruthless, and sometimes more competent.

In 1988 Israeli commandos killed Abu Jihad, the Fatah military commander, in front of his wife in Tunis. If such a respected figure as Abu Jihad had been alive, it would surely have been easier for Israel to make a historic accommodation with the Palestinians over the past 15 years.

The tactical lesson of the impossibility of carrying out a clean murder in a five-star hotel with security cameras in every corridor has been learnt. The real question is: what strategic goal does Israel achieve by carrying out assassinations? Certainly not its proclaimed goal of peace.

aphilps@thenational.ae

Burj Khalifa - Officially Opened - Pictures!

Dear Readers,

Finally, Burj Dubai, or Burj Khalifa has been officially opened by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashed al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai last night 4 Jan 2010. Which also marks his 4th year as Ruler of Dubai.

Here are some pics I took when I went up the Burj, and some pics from the opening night as well. Enjoy!



Pic from the opening night, with the fireworks doing their stuff!



More Fireworks from 4 Jan 2010!



This was taken from the 124th floor, or the observation deck. The highest floor is 158.
You can see how small other skyscrapers below are!



My favorite picture! The shadow of the Burj intersects SZR Junction 1, or the Defence Roundabout (old name).



A good view of the Business Bay



How small is Dubai Mall from this altitude?!



Ok, the engineer in me had to take this shot! The cleaning cradle is seen here from level 124 all the way to the supports much higher up. Cool view :)



This is a pic of the Address hotel (that I hate so much, but that's another story)

Enjoy and copy with referencing to this blog, coz these pictures are all mine.

Burj Al Arab - Happy 10th Brithday!

The implosion of the Chicago Beach Hotel in 1997. (credit: The National)

Burj (برج): A tower. The word is Arabic in origin.

The amazing 7-star hotel, The Burj Al Arab, celebrates 10 years this month! As usual, The National has an excellent article about it. Please have a read here:

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091201/NATIONAL/711309906/1182/enewsletter

It's really worth reading it! Good work from Leah Oatway.

The architects and engineers for this iconic building that needs no introduction were Atkins. Before Burj Al Arab, I never heard of Atkins, but after seeing their masterpiece being built (I used to drive by the building site everyday), I was very impressed with the company that is one of the world leaders in the engineering field.

Although I've only been inside the Burj Al Arab a few times, I believe that it perfectly manifests Dubai's and the UAE's ambitions to be a world class city and a world class country respectively.

The Burj Al Arab (Hotel) is 321 m high, and the new Burj Dubai (tower) is 818 m high. Even though the newer, taller Burj is much more impressive in terms of numbers, I doubt it will do to Dubai what the Burj Al Arab did and continues to do.

Having said that, I can't wait for the grand opening of Burj Dubai... have they set a date yet? I'm betting on 4 Jan 2010!

Eid Squared

Greetings dear readers.

Eid greetings come multiplied... First of all Eid Mubarak on the occasion of Eid Al Adha where the faithful walk in the footsteps of the Prophet Mohamad (PBUH) who walked in the footsteps of the Father of the Prophets - Abraham (PBUH).

May your times be happy and your meals delicious (but healthy!)

We're about to approach another Eid (celebration) in two days.. anyone excited about National Day?

I'm looking forward to participating in the huge procession at Emaar Boulevard :-)

Dubai Airshow 2009

Dear Reader,

I know it's been a while since my last post, but life's spare time allocator has been unkind to me of late. As thus, I have to make do with less time online as I'd like. However, there is a certain plus to this, because I have been able to buy and read more books in the meantime.

A well-read blogger is certainly a better blogger!

Anyway, I had the good fortune of being invited to Dubai's Airshow for this year, and I went a little bit overboard with my camera. Like a Japanese tourist let loose with a gazillion megapixel camera in the middle of the Vatican's miles-long museums!

Here is a story better told by more pictures and less words:

1- The beautiful and graceful new Airbus A380

Probably the largest civilian jet ever made. The first to ever have two levels of passenger seats throughout the length of the plane. Very graceful and elegant. If you were there on 19 Nov 2009, you'd notice how amazingly skilful the test-pilot was in manoeuvring this mammoth at very low airspeeds without stalling!





2-The beauty of the wingspan

Don't you just love panoramic shots? Please click on the picture below to enlarge to appreciate its beauty.



3- Armed Forces

Can't say much except I didn't really feel their presence added much to our dear UAE.
Good old tax-dollars paying for a few posers.







4-Idiots were spotted inside

The queue to get into the airshow on the last day was immense. Probably half a kilometer long. The security was tight with metal detectors and xray machines. However, there was no minimum requirements for the IQ of the persons allowed in. This is a great shame. You had idiots like those below sitting on a helicopter drone thinking that they are cool. Perhaps they need to be reunited with their mothers and their playstations. There were even bigger idiots that I couldn't get myself to photograph who decided to sit inside a jet engine. That is complete fucking nuts. You have around a metre of "metal" between the tip of a jet engine and the rotating blades, and these idiots managed to sit in that narrow strip. They could easily cause damage worth tens of thousands of dirhams and even more if they lent on the blades. I wished if I could start up the engines and take them to full throttle only to suck these idiots into the engine and dissect them in a blink of the eye. However, the engine is worth more than the idiots combined, and plus I didn't have access to that particular cockpit. Darn!



5- UAE Armed Forces

Always lovely to see a UAE flag on some military hardware. Well-done boys!



6- Italian Tricolore 10-plane acrobatic team

As you might know, the Italians have an excellent acrobatic team that is of a similar calibre to the UK's Red Arrows. Fortunately the aeroplani italiani were on display that day and they were absolutely brilliant. Italians are fiercely proud of their "tricolore" flag, or the flag with three colours: Red, White and Green. Most spectators probably thought that the colours were for the UAE flag (which is a fortunate coincidence). However, ignorance is rife, and in this case can be possibly overlooked.

The Italians however did put up an excellent display, especially when they criss-crossed and looked as if they were going to crash into each other as shown in the picture!










7- See you in 2011!

This exclusive event is held every 2 years, so see you in 730 days or so inshalla!
إن شاء الله
لو ما زلنا أحياء نرزق



So long!

BuJ