This large mural in Newtown, Sydney, Australia, of the The Natural History Museum in London, has since disappeared, replaced by a building of offices, shops and apartments. This mural, painted with spray cans, was a massive undertaking for an artist, knowing that the work would eventually be destroyed...

In front of it was a realistic concrete sculpture of a 1980/90s computer and full cathode-ray tube. Amazing obsolescence.

Below, Gus called this: "Staircase to Nowhere" in a new building in New York... introduced here as a counterpoint to the utilitarian staircase of the museum above...

A massive fire has engulfed the roof of Notre Dame cathedral in the heart of the French capital, toppling its spire and sending thick plumes of smoke high into the blue sky as tourists and Parisians watched in horror from the streets below.

Flames that began in the early evening burst through the roof of the centuries-old cathedral and engulfed the spire, which collapsed, quickly followed by the entire roof.

It was not immediately clear what caused the fire, which drew crowds of people to gather in nearby squares as a huge plume of smoke wafted across the city and ash fell over a large area.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-16/notre-dame-cathedral-paris-engulf...

Notre Dame of Paris in "better times"... (Picture by Gus). By the look of it (scaffolding), some restoration was going on. One must say that although no cause of the fire has been determined, "old" roofs are dusty. The accumulation of this dust is a MAJOR fire hasard. The dust can act like a bomb... Any grinding, sawing cutting and dust making activities by restoration — even dust from stone — would add to the old dust and become powerful explosive like thermite... Remember:

1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure.

Her Majesty The Queen

This was the year Winsor Castle got destroyed by a major fire. The major loss was to the fabric of the castle. The false ceiling in St George's Hall and the void for coal trucks beneath the floor had allowed the fire to spread. It burned as far as the Chester Tower. Several ceilings collapsed. Apartments burnt included the Crimson Drawing Room (completely gutted), the Green Drawing Room (badly damaged, though only partially destroyed by smoke and water) and the Queen's Private Chapel (including the double-sided 19th century Henry Willis organ in the gallery between St George's Hall and Private Chapel, oak panelling, glass and the altar).

St George's Hall survived with the walls largely intact, but the ceiling had collapsed. The State Dining Room in the Prince of Wales Tower and the Grand Reception Room were also devastated. In total, 100 rooms were affected by the fire. Smaller apartments damaged or destroyed included the Star Chamber, Octagon Room, Brunswick Tower (covered in 12 feet (3.5 m) of debris), Cornwall Tower, Prince of Wales Tower, Chester Tower, Holbein Room and the Great Kitchen, which lost its plaster coving and most of the medieval timber. The external wall above the bay window of the Crimson Drawing Room (between the Prince of Wales and Chester Towers) was seriously calcified.

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A dust explosion is the rapid combustion of fine particles suspended in the air within an enclosed location. Dust explosions can occur where any dispersed powdered combustible material is present in high-enough concentrations in the atmosphere or other oxidizing gaseous medium, such as pure oxygen. In cases when fuel plays the role of a combustible material, the explosion is known as a fuel-air explosion.

Dust explosions are a frequent hazard in underground coal mines, grain elevators, and other industrial environments. They are also commonly used by special effects artists, filmmakers, and pyrotechnicians, given their spectacular appearance and ability to be safely contained under certain carefully controlled conditions.

Thermobaric weapons utilize this principle by rapidly saturating area with an easily combustible material and then igniting it to produce explosive force. These weapons are the most powerful non-nuclear weapons in the world.

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And talking of explosion, this one was about one hundred metres from the floating restaurant, famous for its beer and sausages, that I have visited many times: 

Specialists detonated a World War II bomb in Frankfurt's Main River, causing a spectacular water fountain. Hundreds of residents living nearby were evacuated ahead of the explosion.

https://www.dw.com/en/frankfurt-wwii-bomb-detonated-in-river/a-48323783

Gus' picture of the bridge from the floating restaurant... 

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The Élysée used the fire of Notre-Dame de Paris to carry out a project that had been put on the back burner. It has set new rules, outside tender procedures and respect for heritage not to restore the cathedral, but to transform the Île de la Cité into Europe’s leading touristic destination on the eve of the Olympic Games of 2024. To avoid judicial constraints, he [Meyssan] arbitrarily retained the "hypothesis of a construction incident".

When the fire of Notre-Dame began on the evening of April 15, 2019, all the French media and many foreigners turned to the burning cathedral. Many foreign TVs started their editorials with this news, but not France 2.

The public channel had planned to devote its news to President Macron’s announced speech entitled the "Great National Debate". The script, completely drowned by the counterpoint provoked by this unforeseen drama, preserved the TV schedule, not without having first regretted that the president postponed his speech sine die; a speech in F2's eyes much more important.

The coldness of most journalists and the stupidity of the politicians’ hot comments suddenly showed the gaping gulf between their intellectual world and that of the ordinary French people. For the ruling class, the beauty of Notre-Dame can not make us forget that it is a monument of Christian superstition. On the contrary, for the public, it is the place where the French meet as a people to supplicate or give thanks to God.

In terms of communication, there will probably be a before and after this fire: a majority of French was stunned by this disaster, and revolted by the arrogant indifference of the ruling class.

Immediately, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron decided not to rebuild Notre Dame, but to realize a difficult project that had been waiting in drawers for two and a half years.

In December 2015, a mission was sponsored by the President of the Republic, François Hollande, and the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo. It lasted a whole year while Emmanuel Macron was Minister of Economy, Industry and Digital.

Many personalities participated, including Audrey Azoulay, then Minister of Culture and now Director of Unesco [1], or the Prefect Patrick Strzoda, then Chief of Staff to the Minister of Interior and today Emmanuel Macron.

It was headed by the President of the National Monuments Center, Philippe Bélaval, and the architect Dominique Perrault.

Noting that the island of the City is, since its remodeling by Baron Haussmann in the nineteenth century, an administrative complex closed to the public, housing the Sainte-Chapelle and the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, the mission proposed to transform it into a "Island-monument". The opportunity is provided by the removal of the Palace of Justice, the reorganization of the Prefecture of Police and the hospital of the Hotel Dieu. [now] It will indeed be possible to reorganize everything.

The mission has thus listed 35 coordinated projects, including the creation of underground traffic routes and the canopy of many interior courtyards, to make the island a must-drive for 14 million annual tourists and also French people.

The report of the mission [2] evokes the incredible commercial value of this project, but does not say a word about the heritage value, particularly spiritual, of Sainte-Chapelle and Notre-Dame that it addresses exclusively as tourist sites, sources potential income.

Unfortunately this ambitious project could not, according to its authors, be realized quickly not so much because of the absence of financing as heavy administrative habits and enormous legal constraints. Although there are only a few people living on the island, the slightest expropriation can last for decades. More surprisingly, the director of the National Monuments Center seemed to regret the prohibition to destroy part of the heritage to enhance another part. Etc.

In the hours that followed, it was obvious that very large funds would be offered by donors ranging from ordinary citizens to super rich magnates. The objective of the Élysée was therefore to set up an authority capable of leading both the reconstruction of Notre-Dame and the transformation of the Ile de la Cité.

The next day, April 16, during a televised speech, President Macron declared: "So, yes, we will rebuild Notre-Dame Cathedral even more beautiful, and I want it to be completed within 5 years" [3]. Let’s forget the "I want" characteristic not of a Republican elected, but of a business leader. Five years is extremely short, especially considering the century and a half of the construction of the cathedral. However, it is the time necessary for the work to be completed in time for tourists from the 2024 Olympic Games. This was the date planned by the Bélaval-Perrault mission.

Two days later, on the 17th of April, the Council of Ministers was entirely devoted to the consequences of the fire. Three important decisions were recorded:

• Appoint the former Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, General Jean-Louis Georgelin, to lead from the Elysee a special representation mission "to ensure the progress of the procedures and work that will be undertaken ».

• Have the parliament adopt a bill [4] governing the collection of funds, regularizing the appointment of General Georgelin who has reached the age limit and above all exempting his mission from all tendering procedures, heritage protection laws, and any constraints that may arise.`

• Launch an international architectural competition to rebuild Notre-Dame.

Another decision was made: to stifle any debate on the causes of the fire in order to avoid a judicial inquiry disturbing this beautiful arrangement.

Immediately, the new prosecutor of the Republic of Paris, Rémy Heitz, appointed by personal intervention Emmanuel Macron, ensures that the criminal track would not be pursued and that the fire ibe declared as a construction site accident.

This attitude provokes an outcry from the site’s experts, firefighters, craftsmen and architects, for whom no worksite element was able to cause such a fire, at this place and at this speed.

The insistence of the Prosecutor and that of the Prefect of Police, Didier Lallement, to take a stand at a time when no investigator had been able to visit the scene of the fire attests to the development of an official version which does not constrain to long investigations blocking the site. It also feeds questions about the arbitrarily dismissed track, that of an anti-Christian or anti-religious act, especially in the context of the vandalism against the churches (878 profanations in 2017), the arson of the Saint-Sulpice church on March 17, or even the fire of Al-Marwani mosque on the Al-Aqsa esplanade in Jerusalem.

In addition, knowing that the majority of large fires occur in the context of real estate projects, the hypothesis of a deliberate act to allow the transformation of the Ile de la Cité must be examined. These questions are all legitimate, but in the absence of investigation no definitive answer can be made.

Certainly, the goal of President Macron is commendable, but his method is very strange. While it is not possible to launch such a project without changing the rules of law, but if the appointment of a senior general officer is a guarantee for "effectiveness", it does not respect the law.

Translation 
Jean-Louis Scarsi

Major adaptation by Jules Letambour

Read more:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article206340.html

Hurling an inconvenient truth into the midst of this gushing outpouring of billionaire and corporate largesse is Philippe Martinez, head of the France’s CGT trade union. Martinez makes the point that “If they can give tens of millions to rebuild Notre Dame, then they should stop telling us there is no money to help with the social emergency.”

The social emergency he’s referring to concerns the plight of France’s economically disadvantaged – the poor, unemployed, low waged – who have been left behind at a time when President Macron, pejoratively disdained as ‘president of the rich’ by the tens of thousands of men and women who make up the Yellow Vests mass movement, continues to parade around the European and world stage. A leader so out of touch with his own people that his every word and gesture only succeeds in adding more fuel to the fire of popular discontent.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/457425-notre-dame-rich-yellow-vests/

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See also: 

The fire on April 16, 2019, seriously damaged the famous Gothic cathedral, with images of flames consuming the roof and toppling its 19th-century spire shocking the world. French President Macron said earlier that the cathedral is expected to open again in 2024.

Several critics have warned that plans to radically alter the interior of the medieval cathedral and symbol of Paris will convert the world-famous Notre-Dame de Paris into an "experimental showroom," The Telegraph reported on Friday.

According to the report, citing reconstruction plans obtained by the outlet, the fire-ravaged cathedral risks imitating a "politically correct Disneyland," as confessional boxes, altars, and classical sculptures will be replaced with modern art murals and new sound and light effects to create "emotional spaces" under the proposed alterations.

There will reportedly be themed chapels on a "discovery trail," with an emphasis on Africa and Asia, and Bible quotes in several languages, including Mandarin, will be projected onto chapel walls. Moreover, the trail's last chapel will place a heavy emphasis on the environment.

"It’s as if Disney were entering Notre-Dame," Maurice Culot, a prize-winning French architect, urbanist, theorist and critic is quoted in the report as saying. "What they are proposing to do to Notre-Dame would never be done to Westminster Abbey or Saint Peter’s in Rome. It’s a kind of theme park and very childish and trivial given the grandeur of the place."

Also, an undisclosed senior source close to the renovation reportedly stated that the plans risk turning the cathedral into an "experimental showroom," mutilating the work of Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, the celebrated architect who restored the cathedral following the French Revolution's ravages in an attempt to recapture the spirit of Medieval Christianity.

"Can you imagine the administration of the Holy See allowing something like this in the Sistine Chapel?” the source said. "It would be unimaginable. We are not in an empty space here."

The source emphasized that the current plan is "political correctness gone mad."

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/20211127/as-if-disney-were-entering-notre-dame-critics-blast-cathedrals-woke-rebuilding-plan---report-1091056763.html

Note: https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110810104713718

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FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW ÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷⁄⁄⁄!!!!