Home → Archives → by month → April 2007
Alles wandelt sich, nichts vergeht.
o.T.
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Not yet feeling sick today?
It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps. [Each] of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration
... says Naomi Wolf in The Guardian →
[via vowe.net]
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Abandoned KMS/OBM shop
Photo taken 2005
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Abandoned KMS vessel (for converting pig iron into crude steel by means of oxygen blown through the bottom of the vessel) at Maxhütte Iron and Steel Works, Bavaria, delivered by VAI Vöest Alpine Industrieanlagenbau, Austria (the name on the supporting ring, now Siemens Metals and Mining Technologies). KMS is an advacement of the original OBM process with lime and coal injection through the bottom and a side tuyere for top-blowing of additional oxygen.
Currently, the shown facilities are undergoing demolition. It's one of the beauties of steel: by design, making fresh means recycling old steel, so the very same device that once produced steel will soon be turned into new one itself.
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Posted in category Endangered Machinery
Enfants carolorégiennes
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Children of Charleroi; living, playing, and posing in the Rue de la Providence
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Posted in category Endangered Machinery
Cromme
Cromme wird also Siemens-Aufsichtsratschef, parallel zu seiner Rolle als eben solcher bei ThyssenKrupp. Das ist der Cromme, für den es seinerzeit hier in Dortmund Protestsprüche à la "Keine Crommen Dinger!" gab, da er als Krupp-Kapitän zusammen mit Berthold Beitz erst Hoesch feindlich übernahm, dann das eigene Werk in Rheinhausen schloss und so Dortmund zwar zum Haupstandort machte, dann aber auch galant überschuldete, um anschließend das eigentliche Ziel zu erreichen, nämlich mit Thyssen zu ThyssenKrupp zu fusionieren und die Dortmunder Altlast alsbald zu entsorgen, sprich der Cromme, der an der Ruhr mal richtig aufgeräumt hat. Die feindliche Übernahme war eine Deutschlandpremiere, Rheinhausen von Protesten begleitet, wie sie das Land noch nicht gesehen hatte, und die Thyssensache wurde, David gegen Goliath, auch erstmal feindlich versucht - die Vertuscher bei Siemens dürften nicht viel Freude haben.
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Rue de la Providence
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The Charleroi quarters of Dampremy and Marchienne are examples of how industrial cities can look like once most of the industry has left and when no public funds for revitalization are at hand: vast industrial areas abandoned long ago but still inaccessible to the public, residential areas - often situated along through roads between industrial sites - in run-down condition, lots of vacancies, street life dominated by migrant workers and their sons. To improve the living situation despite of funds shortage, the majority of unused wall areas and even some walls of working industries were given to a European graffiti festival in 2004. Several kilometers of walls were filled, and likely, the city has seen worse ideas before.
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Posted in category Endangered Machinery
Summer
Brussels, yesterday noon: 29°C. The Netherlands, yesterday evening: 24°C. This is mid-April, after a winter almost without any frost at all. Last year we didn't know what to do with all the snow, and the year before that, deep frost seemed neverending. Let's see what 2008 will bring.
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Three degrees of threat
"Tourist or terrorist?" is what you get asked normally when taking photos of industrial landscapes. When we by chance witnessed an hazardous waste incident this weekend, the first question asked was a different one, though:
"Journalists?"
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Sabaton
Dry and fiercely played metal with actual singing instead of the silly growls other bands deliver. Swedish. Four free MP3 files from their excellent 2005 album Primo Victoria: Thundergods, Panzer Batallion, Primo Victoria, Hellrider.
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:: in category Music
Three Steel Valleys
Travelling from the Ruhr to Charleroi where buying a book on Pittsburgh - filed under "The Three Steel Valleys Tour, Easter 2007". (Actually, it's a Five Valleys tour, but the other two are just en-route stuff).
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Living in Germany (III)
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Bergheim, the Rhineland: garden gnome guarding Niederaußem lignite power plant. Installed power: 3,801 MW.
ALSO SEE
Living in Germany (II): Herne
Living in Germany (I): Herten
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Posted in category Endangered Machinery
"Sparen Sie sich Ärger, Zeit und Kosten"
"Lassen Sie absolut nichts im Innenraum Ihres Autos liegen." Steht in Düsseldorf ausgerechnet auf — Parkscheinautomaten.
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Shooting Tourists (II)
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Rhenish Lignite Mining Area (west of Cologne, Germany)
ALSO SEE
Shooting Tourists (I)
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Shooting Tourists (I)
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Rhenish Lignite Mining Area (west of Cologne, Germany)
ALSO SEE
Shooting Tourists (II)
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Kein Aprilscherz
Klick = groß und komplett
Tabelle: Kicker
Das stärker werdende Leid zog sich über Jahre, jetzt ist es geschafft: die lokale Kickervereinigung steht ausgerechnet seit dem 1. April auf einem Abstiegsplatz. Vielleicht kann man aus dem Stadion nach der Pleite im zweiten Zweitligajahr ja einen Dienstleistungspark machen. Oder sowas.
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