'The World'

I just watched a documentary on Dubai. Perhaps the most outragous feature of the tiny kingdom is The World:

The World Islands, are a collection of man-made islands shaped into the continents of the world, located off the coast of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. It will consist of 300 small private artificial islands divided into four categories - private homes, estate homes, dream resorts, and community islands.

Each island costs between 10-45 million US dollars to buy (without building, just the land). Of course it reminded me of Second Life´(in principle anyway...if not in magnitude).