The Statue of Liberty was, as we all know, donated to America by the country of France and stands as a welcome to all returning Americans, visitors, and immigrants. She stands at just 151 feet tall and as everyone says looks really small in real life.

There’s smaller scale copies of Ms. Liberty all over the place including France’s very own copy which stands facing West to her larger sister.

The suburb of Mountain Brook, Alabama has a 1/5 size Statue of Liberty, whose flame is actually lit with Alabama natural gas.

And there’s a copy of everything in Las Vegas, so of course they’ve got a 1/2 size Liberty Statue outside the New York, New York Casino.

More replicas, and a long list of movie appearances on Wikipedia.

What kind of ship is this? It seems to be using a very strange propulsion system, which makes it look like a cross between a ship and a rocket!

On further investigation I found another one to the west, and after having a closer look in Google Earth, I now believe these are barges being pushed along the thin waterways by small tug-type boats. Does anyone know what they’re transporting?

Thanks to Adam Fannin.

Hurricane Katrina has torn through the United States causing untold damage and horrendous loss of life. Katrina has destroyed the eastern part of the I-10 bridge over Lake Pontchartrain (shown here before it was damaged), flooded 80 percent of New Orleans, and damaged the roof of largest domed structure in the world, the Louisiana Superdome.

The worst affected states, by this, the third most intense system to strike the United States in recorded history, are Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. It is believed that Katrina is, (in monetary terms) the most costly hurricane to affect the USA, and sadly may yet also become the most costly in terms of human lives.

For more information about these events, I recommend the Wikipedia page on Hurricane Katrina, which is updated continually as information becomes available.

The US Space & Rocket Center has loads of cool stuff to see, but this 300+ foot standing replica of a Saturn V rocket is fantastic. I won’t try and describe everything, as Jim Thompson has done such a great job over at Flickr

Many thanks to robindb74, Kyle Siwek, Bob Rogers, Jay Knight, Brad Clarke, Brandon, Michael, Eric, Jason, Bill Mullins, Eric Prestemon and Jim Thompson.