Shanghai World Financial Center

I am not sure when this building is supposed to be finished, but it is supposed to be even taller than the Taipei 101, which is currently the tallest building in the world. This is a beautiful building and looks like a big clothes pin. I cannot even imagine something as tall as that. It would be awesome to see in person. They are saying that the building will birth a new era for the Asian economy.

World's Tallest Building

I don't know why it didn't get much press, but I think most people don't realize that there is a new "World's Tallest Building". The Taipei 101 holds three of the 4 official World's Tallest Building titles including ground to structural top, ground to roof, and ground to highest occupied floor. The only title not held by the building is ground to pinnacle, which is held by the Sears Tower in Chicago.

The Taipei 101 is the most technologically advanced skyscraper to date. It features fiber-optic and satellite internet connections allowing speeds up to 1 gigabyte per second, the world's two fastest elevators which run at a top speed of 1008 meters per minute or 39 mph, and an 800 ton tuned mass damper held at the 88th floor to stabilize the tower against earthquakes and wind forces.

What is Donald Trump Worth?

Donald Trump

If you have ever wondered what Donald Trump is worth and what he owns well here it is. I think you will be quite humbled. Click on the link to go to his website and find out more about the man and his business.

610 Park Avenue (New York City)
Trump International Hotel & Tower (New York City)
Trump Palace (New York City)
Trump Parc (New York City)
Trump Parc East (New York City)
Trump Park Avenue (New York City)
Trump Place (New York City)
Trump Place II (New York City)
Trump Tower (New York City)
Trump World Tower (New York City)
Trump Grande Ocean Resort (Atlantic City)
Trump World (Seoul, South Korea)
Olympic Tower (New York City)
The Time Warner Center (New York City)
The Park Belvedere (New York City)
The Estates at Trump National (California)
Trump International Hotel & Tower (Chicago)
Trump Grande (Florida)
Mar-a-Lago (Florida)
Trump International Hotel & Tower (Las Vegas)
Trump Island Villas (Canouan Island)
Trump International Hotel & Tower (Toronto, Canada)
Trump National Golf Club (Los Angeles, Bedminster, and Westchester)
Trump International Golf Club (West Palm Beach and Canouan Island)
Trump Taj Mahal
Trump Plaza
Trump Marina
Trump Indiana
Trump 29
Trump Club Privee
The Apprentice
Trumped: The Radio Program
Trump Model Management
Trump Pageants
Wollman & Lasker Skating Rinks

The Lap Pillow

Japanese Pillow

Are the Japanese finally running out of good ideas? This could be the beginning of their fall from manufacturing dominance. :)

TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- Single or lonely Japanese men may get lucky this Christmas.

One popular item for holiday shoppers is the "lap pillow", with skin-colored polyurethane calves folded under soft thighs -- a comfy cushion for napping, reading or watching television.

The 9,429 yen ($90) pillow, which comes with one red and one black skirt, went on sale in late November and maker Trane says shipments have reached 3,000 in just a few weeks.

"We created this item to help tired people relax," said Makoto Igarashi, Trane's managing director.

Care was taken with details such as the softness of the thighs, panty lines on the pillow's "backside" and wrinkles in the lap of the skirt so as to make the pillow look and feel as real as possible.

The Apprentice

This is the greatest show on Earth!! I watched every episode of both seasons and will continue to do so in future years to come.

The reason why I love the show is because I love business and I love being an entrepreneur. The Apprentice is a testament to this kind of spirit and it feeds the entrepreneur within me. I honestly believe that being in business for yourself is one of the toughest things to do in this world and there are times when you just want to give up. Especially when the people around you are describing failure and what it looks like. There are times when an entrepreneur needs someone to tell them what success looks like and feels like to keep the spirit alive.

I say congratulations to Kelly and Jennifer for a job well done. They are both awesome business people that will go far in this world.

Underground Church

I found this blog entry at "From the Desk of Jeff King" and it's about the status of Christianity in England and how it's being reduced to an insignificant movement. I think this is where Christianity is heading in America. Take a look see if you have time.

The Times of London reports that Christianity is crumbling in Great Britain and soon will be driven underground. Jayne Ozanne, senior advisor to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, warns that great persecution is coming to the Church as it continues to implode and fragment over homosexual clergy and other divisive issues. She sees a day coming when Christianity in Britain is reduced to a movement comparable to resistance movements in World War II. Ozanne's comments found their way to WorldNetDaily:

"I remain convinced that the only way for the Church to survive the storms that are currently besetting it is to embrace the hard truth with honesty and humility," wrote Ozanne. Questioning whether Church leaders really believe any more in a God who can move mountains or in a God who can raise the dead, she warns that the Church seems to have forgotten how to meet the cost of being Christian. She continued, "Sacrificial giving is not a concept that we in the West have either embraced or understood. We are too comfortable and, as a result, too compromised. I see a time of great persecution coming, which will drive Christianity all but underground in the West. I believe that this will primarily take the form of a social and economic persecution, where Christians will be ridiculed for their faith and pressurized into making it a purely private matter."

This is Funny

Found on "The Underscore" titled A Reply From the White House:

A person wrote a letter to the White House complaining about the treatment of a captive taken during the Afghanistan war. Attached is a copy of a letter they received back:

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C., 20016

Dear Concerned Citizen:

Thank you for your recent letter roundly criticizing our treatment of the Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Our administration takes these matters seriously, and your opinion was heard loud and clear here in Washington. You'll be pleased to learn that, thanks to the concerns of citizens like you, we are creating a new division of the Terrorist Retraining Program, to be called the "Liberals Accept Responsibility for Killers" program, or LARK for short.

In accordance with the guidelines of this new program, we have decided to place one terrorist under your personal care.

Your personal detainee has been selected and scheduled for transportation under heavily armed guard to your residence next Monday. Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin
Mahmud (you can just call him Ahmed) is to be cared for pursuant to the standards you personally demanded in your letter of admonishment. It will likely be necessary for you to hire some assistant caretakers.

We will conduct weekly inspections to ensure that your standards of care for Ahmed are commensurate with those you so strongly recommended in your letter. Although Ahmed is a sociopath and extremely violent, we hope that your sensitivity to what you described as his "attitudinal problem" will help him overcome these character flaws.

Perhaps you are correct in describing these problems as mere cultural differences. He will bite you, given the chance. We understand that you plan to offer counseling and home schooling. Your adopted terrorist is extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat and can extinguish human life with such simple items as a pencil or nail clippers. We do not suggest that you ask him to demonstrate these skills at your next yoga group.

He is also expert at making a wide variety of explosive devices from common household products, so you may wish to keep those items locked up, unless (in
your opinion) this might offend him.

Ahmed will not wish to interact with your wife or daughters (except sexually) since he views females as a subhuman form of property. This is a particularly sensitive subject for him, and he has been known to show violent tendencies around women who fail to comply with the new dress code that Ahmed will recommend as more appropriate attire. I'm sure they will come to enjoy the anonymity offered by the bhurka - over time.

Just remind them that it is all part of "respecting his culture and his religious beliefs" - wasn't that how you put it?

Thanks again for your letter. We truly appreciate it when folks like you, who know so much, keep us informed of the proper way to do our job. You take good care of Ahmed - and remember... we'll be watching. Good luck!

Cordially...
Your Buddy,
Don Rumsfeld

Scott Peterson Sentencing

This is my take on the death sentence of Scott Peterson. There are times in our lives when it is necessary to cry and beg for our lives. A real good time is when a handful of people that couldn't get out of jury duty are about to get together and talk about having you killed. Either the guy is heartless, stupid, or just really smart and knows that the last person killed by California was in 1992 and he has hundreds of people in front of him on death row. I don't know what the guy was thinking.

I do know one thing. If Scott Peterson and his wife were ugly, uneducated people; we would have never heard about it. Who decides what becomes pop culture like this? Really! Who was the first person to say, "Let's put this on national news." Just a thought.