The Burj Khalifa in Dubai is now the tallest "man-made" structure, as opposed to those built by squirrels or Pokemon, I guess. Whenever someone announces the Tallest Building Ever, it's always a sign their boom has peaked - and sure enough, Dubai said Gudbai to its boom before the building topped off. It's a handsome structure, and we wish it well. I assume they calculated every possible detail, and it won't lean if everyone goes to one side to look out the window.

I mention it only because it takes the "tallest" crown from a local landmark: the KVLY TV tower, in North Dakota. Until the Burj Khalifa was finished, Blanchard, North Dakota had the world's tallest structure. Seriously. It was built in 1963, surpassed eleven years later by a Polish TV tower that succumbed to the siren song of gravity in 1991. They were doing work on the guy wires when the mast bent and collapsed, and you can only imagine the reaction of the fellow in the transmitter building when he looked out the window and saw the tower start to fall. Even if it wasn't your fault, you'd know it happened on your shift. There's just no way this day will end well. Only a matter of time before the the boss calls to ask why everyone's lost their T.

"The tower is, uh, down."

"I can tell that. Get the signal back up."

"No I mean down down. The tower. It, uh, suffered Sudden Loss of Perpendicularity Syndrome. We're working on it."

"What the hell do you mean, working on it? What happened to the tower?"

"We have a man who's building an emergency transmitter. So far we have a pie plate attached to a rake, but if he stands on a chair we should be able to boost the signal."

No one ever believed me when I said the tallest structure in the world was in NoDak, but it was true. We also had a rather impressive supply of nuclear missiles back in the day, as well. If we'd seceded, who knows what sort of power the state might have wielded. We could have annexed South Dakota without anyone complaining - no one's going to go to war for Sioux Falls. Manitoba might have been trickier.