UAE hotel boasts ‘most expensive Christmas tree’

A glitzy hotel in Abu Dhabi has put on show a jewel-encrusted Christmas tree which it says is worth over $11m (£7m).

Items of jewellery studded with scores of precious stones are draped on the tree’s branches, along with more traditional baubles and lights.

While the tree alone is worth a mere $10,000, the jewellery adds more than $11m to the value, said the hotel’s general manager Hans Olbertz.

The Emirates Palace hotel would ask the Guinness World Records to certify the tree as the world’s most expensive, Mr Olbertz said. A jewel-encrusted Christmas tree in the Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi, the UAE Along with stars and lights, watches and bracelets adorn the tree

The bracelets, necklaces and watches which adorn the 13m (43-foot) tree contain 181 diamonds, pearls, emeralds, sapphires and other precious stones.

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I doubt you can get near it – “We have 24/7 security, four security guards closely monitoring the space plus security cameras.”

Posted in Pop Culture | 3 Comments

Study Confirms That Fox News Makes You Stupid

Yet another study has been released proving that watching Fox News is detrimental to your intelligence. World Public Opinion, a project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, conducted a survey of American voters that shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. What’s more, the study shows that greater exposure to Fox News increases misinformation.

So the more you watch, the less you know. Or to be precise, the more you think you know that is actually false. This study corroborates a previous PIPA study that focused on the Iraq war with similar results. And there was an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that demonstrated the break with reality on the part of Fox viewers with regard to health care.

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Posted in Political, Pop Culture | 2 Comments

Distribution of Racial and Ethnic Groups

The New York Times has a nifty interactive map that takes Census data and tells you the racial and ethnic distribution anywhere in America.

Here’s the Metroplex and my neck of the woods.

Give it a try here.

And for the heck of it, I had to check out the city of White Settlement.  I really don’t know a whole lot about that area, other than we played a few schools in that region when I was in high school, but I alway felt the name of the city sent a strong message,  as if it was named that for a reason way back when.

Posted in DFW, Interesting | Comments Off on Distribution of Racial and Ethnic Groups