Chill out, you beautiful people, the Versace beach is refrigerated

[Adsos Letter]

Source: TimesOnline

Versace, the renowned fashion house, is to create the world’s first refrigerated beach so that hotel guests can walk comfortably across the sand on scorching days.

The beach will be next to the the new Palazzo Versace hotel which is being built in Dubai where summer temperatures average 40C and can reach 50C.

The scheme is likely to infuriate environmentalists. The revelation comes as more than 11,000 politicians, green campaigners and others are gathered in Poznan, Poland, for the latest talks on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Last week the Met Office released a report warning that if greenhouse gas emissions continued to rise, the world could warm by an average of 5.5C by 2100. Inefficient buildings are one of the world’s greatest sources of greenhouse gases.



Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5338099.ece

[WriteDown]

1. Phew.

I was starting to worry for a minute.

"world’s first refrigerated beach so that hotel guests can walk comfortably across the sand on scorching days"

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. You know...

One would think that the concept of something called "shoes" would have dawned on the wealthy by now.

[Ian David]

7. Maybe they've thrown their shoes? n/t

[No Elephants]

26. Well, they are the horsey set and horses throw shoes. (Iraqis, too, apparently, but that is

literally a different story).

[Orrex]

8. They've gotten spoiled by treading on the backs of serfs

[karynnj]

16. But they would get all sandy

You wouldn't want sand on really expensive sandals now, would you?

This has to be one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard of. Wouldn't putting up a long wide canopy from a hotel door to the beach work to keep it less hot?

[New Dawn]

32. They do not like shoes much since Sunday.

[Mind_your_head]

3. "Wretched Excess" apparently has limitless imagination

too bad such imagination/technology/least of all "money" can't be put towards a higher use/greater good.

It surely *can*, but it's not. Why not?

[Democrats_win]

4. Good question. The excesses of the rich. Another reason to tax them even when they're dead.

[sandnsea]

14. Precisely why the tax was started

Excesses of the gilded age and the rich decided it was bad for democracy for wealth to be accumulated in the hands of a few. Create an exorbitant estate tax so that it would encourage people to do something constructive with their money rather than let the government have it.

[No Elephants]

27. With a few exceptions, money is taxed whenever it changes hands. And that is based on

moving from one individual to another, not from one family or estate to another. Your employer pays tax on money when he, she or it gets it, then you pay tax on it when it passes from your employer to you. And, if you want to gift over $12,500 per year to an individual while you are alive, a gift tax becomes due. Change hands==tax. Same with your estate, except that your estate gets a hefty exemption. The notion that estates should get a much better tax treatment than living people is a little nuts, IMO.

[salguine]

5. I keep saying it—time to bring this back:

[Frank Booth]

6. Don't these damn environmentalists realize that rich folks' feet may be scalded by

hot sand if not for the refrigeration?

Environmental awareness has its place, but we also can't forget about allowing our greatest citizens the comfort they deserve.

[KakistocracyHater]

9. what next? chewers for their food?

?

[elleng]

12. Called

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Royal_Food_Taster_Rendu

[truthisfreedom]

10. There's NOTHING wrong with this. Obama can counter it by promising to develop

green energy that will power it.

[Indenturedebtor]

13. Even greener energy has its costs. Everything we make taxes the environment

These people should be forced to power this monstrosity with bicycles.

[LeftyMom]

23. Are you nuts? Even if it's powered by magical fairy farts, it's still a rediculous waste.

:eyes:

[elleng]

11. AND you can SKI in DUBAI!

INDOORS!

http://www.skidubai.com/

[liberal N proud]

15. What other obscene things can they do with the money the swindled

from middle class and poor?

[Vinca]

17. Heaven forbid the rich and famous would have to wear a flip flop to walk on the sand. nt

[JNelson6563]

18. And the days of vanity went on forever

We keep no check on our appetites......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-YfiGQmXKs

[Starbucks Anarchist]

19. As long as they stay there, it's fine by me.

[bertman]

20. Maybe we could talk President-elect Obama to nuke Dubai instead of Iran.

Just sayin'.

[progressoid]

21. Outstanding! Now I can finally book our vacation there.

:eyes:

[maxsolomon]

22. the real enemy is on conspicuous display in dubai

human greed.

does your firm do work there? then you are a whore.

[LanternWaste]

24. I would imagine...

I would imagine that the corollary is true-- were the typical young child in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to see the daily life of even lower-income America, their reaction to seeing TVs, Gaming Console Systems, I-Pods, shoes and more than one meal a day might engender your same reaction-- "look at all this human greed. Whores".

I would think that it's fundamentally irrelevant as to where my firm is located, as one man's pauper is simply another man's prince, and one man's poverty is simply another man's excesses and greed.

[maxsolomon]

30. you miss my point

many many many US & european firms are doing business there, grasping after monarchial arab money to keep their companies afloat, designing & building projects that are irresponsible in terms of GHG & climate change, and looking the other way at the regressive slave-labor practices of the UAE. this refrigerated beach is just the latest, albeit most perfect, example of the greed that will lead this planet to its doom.

[eppur_se_muova]

25. Can't we just dunk them in liquid nitrogen?

My idea, so I got dibs on that concession.

[underpants]

28. The Frank Deford test

"You can judge a society by how they treat their animals and their beaches"

[tom_paine]

29. The World is burning, and the Aristocrats are playing flame-throwing fiddles.

I wonder what the alien anthoroplogists, the ones who know whatever it is that is REALLY going on (if such a thing could be said in a unifying way), think of us?

Slightly educated monkeys who never figured out how not to shit in their own beds, nor the Elite Monkey Subset of our Slightly Educated Monkey Species who never learn that, while beating the shit out of the other 99.9% of monkeys (or hiring monkeys to do it for them) is more pleasurable to the Elite Monkeys, treating the other 99.9% of Slightly Educated Monkeys with even a small modicum of decency and respect makes the best life for all.

Yes, even the 0.01% Elite Monkeys who never learn, and are the primary reason the human species will be extinct within 5,000 years.

Naturally, they blame us other 99.9% for being so stupid. Even though we decide NOTHING in this world but where to shit and die.

Still, they blame us.

Of course they do. Elite Monkeys NEVER make mistakes.

:puke:

[KamaAina]

31. Just as well Thorstein Veblen never lived to see Dubai

can you say "conspicuous consumption"? :puke: