Friday, January 16, 2009

God Bless America!

Over the last 60 years, construction on the largest man-made structure in history was begun and now approaches completion while drawing only the smallest attention from mainstream media. This incredible structure stands astride an astounding area of 1.0577 x 1014 square feet! The actual height and capacity of this great building is not yet known because construction is not yet complete, but the marketing department insists that the breakthrough materials and methods used for construction of this massive monument will provide only the highest quality of life for all 305 million of its occupants.

Among the proudest innovations is a new “environmentally friendly” recycling technique which allows the girders used to support the lower, more foundational levels to be removed and “recycled” into the basic structural members of higher stories. Taking inspiration from the financial sector, this technique works on the principle of diverted load whereby the girders, pillars, and other needless structural elements of the building are encouraged to “delegate” so as to make better use of their precious time and energy. This clever maneuver allows for the “promotion” of certain elements which appear to be unnecessary to higher levels in the overall structure. Thus, a considerable percentage of construction materials used on the wide and once-sturdy base, can be relocated to a slightly smaller upper level; and the process repeats.

When asked about the emerging shape of his new creation, the chief architect—an American born failed-plumber, turned failed-financier, turned failed-politician, turned chief architect—suggested, “I prefer to think of the whole scheme as less of a pyramid and more of a dome.”

Regardless of the shape, the American’s “Dome” boasts other earth-shattering innovations as well. “I think I’m most proud of the new insulation system,” commented Zephyr Hindenburg, head of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. “We have achieved a system which completely shuts out all external fluctuation and influence. This allows us to heat the air inside and then recirculate that same hot air throughout the entire building without having to worry about the various climates outside these walls.”

Mr. Hindenburg refused to comment on the massive proportion of world energy used to accomplish this anti-climatic miracle, but did direct us to his mistress who is the head of the marketing department: “We have brilliantly invested the resources of only a small majority of the world into this single monumental structure,” said a busty Candy Honeywell, clad in a see-through tank-top and cutoff low-rise silk thong with half of the corporate logo microscopically emblazoned on the remaining fabric, “and because of that we have become not only the world’s leading outsourcing economy of construction labor, but also the chief technological innovators in dome-based construction schemes. Once this incredible building is complete, we won’t have to rely on the world for other input, oversight, or perspective—only natural resources. At the same time, we will have solved such inter-domal environmental problems as global warming with the massive cooling towers we’ve located in the Canadian wilderness. Together with the coal-burning power plants we’re building in the South American rain-forests, (internal) climate issues will be a thing of the past. What a brave new world we live in!”

But most experts around the world are concerned about the massively-myopic-lens-shaped structure because the foundation is already showing signs of major structural instability. The engineers responsible for the construction process were unavailable for comment on account of being too far above the ground overseeing construction of the upper levels to come down to earth and see for themselves. Nonetheless, we expect the first radio wave transmission regarding this issue to reach them in the next week and hope that a response will soon follow. In the mean time, the building is functioning beyond expectations in other ways—specifically in shutting out the outside influences of said world-wide experts. And despite the looming structural issues, the building’s owners—the Chinese scrap metal companies which have financed the construction—maintain a very optimistic outlook.

Until the construction reaches it’s final point, the inhabitants of the great monument remain blissfully settled inside its comfortable accommodations. Having never learned to speak a language except English, the single-language system has worked wonders in allowing this society to build its way into elevated national security; surely, a tribute to their lasting greatness!