11_231728, originally uploaded by kallgan

Funny photoshop renderings of the War on the CCTV Complex.
Related:

• After the Fire: Mandarin Oriental Beijing Aftermath
• Mandarin Oriental Beijing, at the CCTV Complex, is on Fire

Bridge, originally uploaded by plemeljr

New York Times comes out in favor of the East River Bridge tolls outlined in the Ravitch Plan, in an unsigned editorial, If Drivers Win, Riders Lose:

Just about every commuter pays a fee of some sort — except for drivers who use those bridges. This is manifestly unfair to millions of others who take the bus, subway or railroad in this area to get to work.
Charging drivers their fair share was an important part of proposals offered last year by a commission led by Richard Ravitch, who once ran the authority. To put the entire system on a stronger financial footing, and to avoid both drastic fare increases and service cuts, the commission’s plan required contributions from riders, businesses and people who drive cars.

CCTV Hotel burned down, originally uploaded by drea_beijing

As we wrote about yesterday, the CCTV Complex was on Fire. Above is what is left of the OMA building. Also check out these fire photos.

The Muppet Show forms the basis of all that is good in childhood television (Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock forming the other sides of the Jim Henson iron triangle). So CNN’s article, Surprising stories behind 20 Muppet characters is a welcome bit of nostalgia and gives me an opportunity to nominate Pepe the King Prawn as the best second tier muppet:

Pepe the King Prawn’s full name is Pepino Rodrigo Serrano Gonzales. I heart Pepe. He was a chef in Madrid before going Hollywood on “Muppets Tonight” in 1996. He was paired with Seymour the Elephant (Pepe was originally going to be a mouse) on the show, but Seymour never developed quite the same following and was only in two episodes. He rarely gets names right — some of his mispronunciations include “muffins” instead of Muppets, “Kermin” instead of Kermit and “Scooper” instead of Scooter. He’s quite full of himself — in addition to thinking that he’s quite the ladies’ man, he also fully expects to win several Oscars.

Pepino Rodrigo Serrano Gonzales – awesome

Volume, Crisis • February 2009, originally uploaded by bldgblog

BLDGBLOG has the newest C-LAB publication, Volume #19 Crisis. Most interesting is the above image which features skies from different movies forming a panorama of aerial catastrophe. You should view it large for the full grandeur.

Kevin has a rundown of the Obama Bailout Plan, which can be summarized as:

• Creation of a Bad Bank financed from private investors to buy up the Big Shitpile from banks
• Direct capital injections from TARP to financial institutions
• Expansion of the joint Treasury/Federal Reserve lending for student loans, car loans and credit card debt; up to $1 trillion
• $50 billion homeowner mortgage restructuring initiative

I’m not an economist, but this looks like a very sensible plan to me covering a wide latitude of financial instruments from the Big Shitpile (which financial gurus should lose their jobs over), to continued capital injections, to consumer spending, to home mortgages. While there is concern that we don’t go into moral-hazard territory with buying toxic assets at inflated prices and saving people’s McMansions, the fact that this is a multi-faceted plan strikes me as a positive development. The worst thing to do right now is to announce this or that plan will be a silver bullet, saving the economy. That is why listening to the President last night talk about health care as another leg of the recovery stool is very encouraging.

The CCTV Complex is on fire. Or more specifically, the Mandarin Oriental, Beijing designed by OMA at the CCTV Complex. From the NY Times:

A fierce fire engulfed one of the Chinese capital’s most architecturally celebrated modern buildings on Monday, the last day of festivities for the lunar new year when the city was ablaze with fireworks.
By late evening the blaze was still raging and the cause remained unknown, but it seemed clear that the 34-story structure, not yet completed, had been rendered unusable.

As BLDG BLOG put it, The Boom is Over.