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That city cannot easily be sliced into three sections . Hovering over this debate , as with all debates in Iran , stands the supreme leader , Ali Khamenei , and his relationship with these competing power centers . His nose was prodigiously long , crooked and inflammatory ; his eyes full , brilliant , and acute ; his chin and cheeks , although wrinkled with age , were broad , puffy , and double ; but of ears of any kind there was not a semblance to be discovered [ page 4 :] upon any portion of his head . As a last resource , therefore , having got rid of my coat , hat , and boots , I cut loose from the balloon the car itself , which was of no inconsiderable weight , and thus , clinging with both hands to the net-work , I had barely time to observe that the whole country , as far as the eye could reach , was thickly interspersed with diminutive habitations , ere I tumbled headlong into the very heart of a fantastical-looking city , and into the middle of a vast crowd of ugly little people , who none of them uttered a single syllable , or gave themselves the least trouble to render me assistance , but stood , like a parcel of idiots , grinning in a ludicrous manner , and eyeing me and my balloon askant , with their arms set a-kimbo . Yet , strange to say , I beheld vast level regions of a character decidedly alluvial , although by far the greater portion of the hemisphere in sight was covered with innumerable volcanic mountains , conical in shape , and having more the appearance of artificial than of natural protuberances . Such perils , although little considered , are perhaps the greatest which must be encountered in balloons . The first is that if we act now we can share the burden of bringing the system into balance across more generations . But the ; aeronaut , still greatly discomposed , and having apparently no further business to detain him in Rotterdam , began at this moment to make busy preparations for departure ; and , it being necessary to discharge a portion of ballast to enable him to reascend , the half dozen bags which he threw out , one after another , without taking the trouble to empty their contents , tumbled , every one of them , most unfortunately , upon the back of the burgomaster , and rolled him over and over no less than half a dozen times , in the face of every individual in Rotterdam . How would a corporate CEO behave if earnings shortfalls received wide publicity , but performance above expected earnings was ignored ? Here he finds , among other odd things , that the people enjoy extreme happiness ; that they have no law ; that they die without pain ; that they are from ten to thirty feet in height ; that they live five thousand years ; that they have an emperor called Irdonozur ; and that they can jump sixty feet high , when , being out of the gravitating influence , they fly about with fans . While such questions sometimes play a major role in campaigns , often they are ignored or glossed over during the heat of a campaign , particularly when they involve difficult tradeoffs between conflicting values or strong constituencies . In fact the probability of moving out of poverty is about the same in the U.S. as it is in Europe . Kollek made people understand that and reach into their wallets to make that splendor possible . On the other hand , I was not aware that , in any recorded ascension , a diminution had been proved to be apparent in the absolute rate of ascent ; although such should have been the case , if on account of nothing else , on account of the escape of gas through balloons ill-constructed , and varnished with no better material than the ordinary varnish . It would contain more than forty thousand cubic feet of gas ; would take me up easily , I calculated , with all my implements , and , if I managed rightly , with one hundred and seventy-five pounds of ballast into the bargain . This approach , however , was still impetuous in the extreme ; and it soon became alarmingly certain that , although I had probably not [ page 43 :] been deceived in the expectation of an atmosphere dense in proportion to the mass of the satellite , still I had been wrong in supposing this density , even at the surface , at all adequate to the support of the great weight contained in the car of my balloon . Thence it had been their custom , time out of mind , to migrate annually to some portion of the earth . The pigeons appeared distressed in the extreme , and struggled to escape ; while the cat mewed piteously , and , with her tongue hanging out of her mouth , staggered to and fro in the car as if under the influence of poison . Somaliland , although devoid of international recognition , functions well as a virtually independent , increasingly democratic entity based on pre-1960 borders and a British colonial heritage . Comparable intergenerational studies show exit rates out of poverty being higher for the Italians than they are for the U.S. To be sure , I had heard of the student who , to prevent his falling asleep over his books , held in one hand a ball of copper , the din of whose descent into a basin of the same metal on the floor beside his chair , served effectually to startle him up , if , at any moment , he should be overcome with drowsiness . Yet if the United States and Iran were allied in seeking stability in Iraq , a range of new choices becomes thinkable .