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Doomsday Deluxe

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I frequently enjoy watching the Doomsday Preppers program on the National Geographic Channel.  I get a particular kick out of hearing the reason each particular family gives for building a bunker and making plans for Armageddon.  At the end of each story, the producers at Nat Geo usually reference the consensus of expert opinion concerning the particular doomsday scenario discussed by the featured family.  A popular fear is that earth will get knocked off its axis, causing a polar shift.  (You’ve probably heard Matt Damon mention that one on the TD Ameritrade commercial – wherein he credits the Mayans for starting the rumor.)  Although many of the preppers’ fears are far-fetched, there are certainly many legitimate causes for the sort of concern which could lead a perfectly reasonable person to initiate efforts toward the Ultimate Plan B.  My personal favorite threat is Fukushima.

A number of reports have recently been published concerning the efforts made by more upscale preppers to build designer bunkers.  This situation really cries out for a new television program:  Beverly Hills Bunkers or Celebrity Preppers of Palm Beach.

The Raw Story website ran an AFP report describing the efforts by developer Larry Hall to convert abandoned missile silos into luxury bunkers.  At this point, Hall has found four buyers who have plunked down nearly $2 million each for a silo bunker:

“They worry about events ranging from solar flares, to economic collapse, to pandemics to terrorism to food shortages,” Hall told AFP on a tour of the site.

These “doomsday preppers”, as they are called, want a safe place and he will be there with them because Hall, 55, bought one of the condos for himself. He says his fear is that sun flares could wipe out the power grid and cause chaos.

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Built to withstand an atomic blast, even the most paranoid can find comfort inside concrete walls that are nine feet thick and stretch 174 feet (53 meters) underground.

Instead of simply setting up shop in the old living quarters provided for missile operators, Hall is building condos right up the missile shaft. Seven of the 14 underground floors will be condo space selling for $2 million a floor or $1 million a half floor. Three and a half units have been sold, two contracts are pending and only two more full units are available, Hall said.

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He is also installing an indoor farm to grow enough fish and vegetables to feed 70 people for as long as they need to stay inside and also stockpiling enough dry goods to feed them for five years.

The top floor and an outside building above it will be for elaborate security. Other floors will be for a pool, a movie theater and a library, and when in lockdown mode there will be floors for a medical center and a school.

Complex life support systems provide energy supplies from sources of conventional power, as well as windmill power and generators. Giant underground water tanks will hold water pre-filtered through carbon and sand.

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Interested buyers have included an NFL player, a racing car driver, a movie producer and famous politicians, he said, but he now requires all the money up front.

Blake Ellis of CNN Money gave us a peek at how “the one percent” is getting ready for doomsday:

Northwest Shelter Systems, which offers shelters ranging in price from $200,000 to $20 million, has seen sales surge 70% since the uprisings in the Middle East, with the Japanese earthquake only spurring further interest. In hard numbers, that’s 12 shelters already booked when the company normally sells four shelters per year.

Who spent $20 million on a bunker?  Oprah?  Bill Gates?  Lloyd Blankfein?

Inquiring minds want to know how their favorite celebrities will be riding out The Apocalypse.  Which porn stars will Charlie Sheen invite to his Doomsday Den?  How many people within one degree of Kevin Bacon will Kyra Sedgwick allow into his bunker?

There is definitely a television show here – and it’s bound to draw a bigger audience than the number watching Doomsday Preppers.  Any guesses as to which network runs with this?


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The Six Degrees Of Barack Obama

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July 28, 2008

Back in 1993, John Guare’s play, Six Degrees of Separation, made it to the big screen.   Shortly into the story, Stockard Channing’s character, Ouisa Kittredge, explained the following to her daughter:

I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people —  six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet — the President of the United States, a gondolier in Venice.  … Just fill in the name.   I am bound — you are bound — to everyone else on this planet by a trail of six people.

Not long afterward, three students at Albright College:  Craig Fass, Brian Turtle, and Mike Ginelli, were watching the movie, Footloose, on television.  The next movie to come on the television that night after Footloose was Quicksilver.   This led the trio to recall all the movies Kevin Bacon had been in, as well as all the people with whom Bacon had worked.   They developed their own party game called “The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”.   Their next step was to write a letter to Jon Stewart, expressing their theory that Kevin Bacon was “the center of the entertainment universe”.   This led to their appearances on Stewart’s TV show, as well as The Howard Stern Show and an article in Spy magazine.  Under the game’s rules, the number of degrees by which an actor is removed from Kevin Bacon, is referred to as that actor’s “Bacon Number”.   Although he was initially annoyed by all of this, Kevin Bacon (whose Bacon Number is  O) went on to from a charity called SixDegrees.org.

At this point in the Presidential campaign, the McCain camp must believe that their next attack strategy should be to connect Barack Obama to some Islamic terrorist and make him look more like that cartoon on the cover of The New Yorker.   McCain had tightened up the race for a while but his stupid “cost of gasoline” campaign ad, his desperate attacks on Obama’s patriotism and Obama’s successful world tour have put McCain behind by as much as 9 percent (Gallup, July 27).   As a result, the game is now on to find someone (some terrorist – hopefully Islamic) who can be connected to Barack Obama.   Since everyone in the world is connected by six degrees (as we learned from John Guare’s movie) McCain’s people are probably looking for the most menacing individual out there, with the lowest “Obama Number” possible.

This past weekend brought some publicity to a couple of men with an “Obama Number” of 1.   The first was Barack’s half-brother, Bernard, who was found by the British Sun tabloid.  Their article published on Saturday, July 26, referred to him as “Muslim Bernard”.   Bernard, a convert to Islam, runs a car parts firm in Nairobi, Kenya and is not a terrorist.  Nevertheless, McCain’s people must have been energized by the identification of someone who is a Muslim with an “Obama Number” of 1.   Who knows?   They might find that sought-after “Islamist terrorist” with an Obama Number as low as 2.

Not to be outdone, Sunday’s Times of London found another half-brother of Barack Obama, living in southern China.   The Times reported:

Mark Ndesandjo is the son of Barack Obama’s late father and his third wife, an American woman named Ruth Nidesand who runs the up-market Maduri kindergarten in Nairobi.

The Times article described Mr. Ndesandjo as someone who “has been helping to promote cheap Chinese exports in a low-profile business career”.  McCain’s people must have been delighted by the term “cheap Chinese exports”.   Now they have someone with an “Obama Number” of 1, a half-brother, whom they might try to link to the lead-painted toy scandal.  Nevertheless, this still isn’t juicy enough.   They need a terrorist with a nice, low Obama Number.   The McCain camp must have been encouraged by the statement in the Times piece that said “Barack Obama senior fathered eight children by four different women.”   Now, if only one of those eight could be connected by one degree to a terrorist   .   .   .