Category: Current Affairs

Here are his vows.

Here are her vows.

Under an obscure Texas law, their marriage was not officially valid until publicly announced, and these blog posts constituted the announcement.

I know them, they will make a splendid couple, congratulations!

Words fail.  Pictures fail.  Some things you just have to experience.

That is my main message (and when a blogger says words fail that means something!).  Conditional on certain failure I will try to say more next week when I have collected my thoughts.

Chris Masse posed me this question.  Here are some reasons why not:

1. The city is unwalkable.

2. The temperature can hit 120 in summer, with humidity of up to 90 percent.

3. Much of the place resembles Las Vegas but without casinos.  You can’t even access www.tradesports.com.

4. Most of the modern buildings are ugly or at best mediocre.

5. Most items are no cheaper here than in the United States.

6. Few people are interested in studying economically fertile but politically dystopian Blade Runner-like scenarios.

7. It is more fun for men than for women.

On the other side:

1. Many of the visitors and potential visitors hold a different aesthetic than do North Americans.  They admire the city’s aspirational qualities for its own sake and care less about traditional beauty in the sense of European high culture.  Some would call them "tacky."  Others would say that observing an Arab success is worthy on its own terms.

2. Retail space per capita is four times that of the United States.

3. I am told it is only a ninety minute flight from Karachi.

The bottom line: Yes, Dubai will become a major tourist center.

Yes, he is the one who visits Los Angeles and thinks of labor unions.  Here is his take on Dubai.  Consider this bit:

The hotel driver is waiting for you in a Rolls Royce Silver Seraph. Friends have recommended the Armani Hotel in the 160-story tower or the seven-star hotel with an atrium so huge that the Statue of Liberty would fit inside, but instead you have opted to fulfill a childhood fantasy. You always have wanted to be Captain Nemo in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

Your jellyfish-shaped hotel is, in fact, exactly 66 feet below the sea surface. Each of its 220 luxury suites has clear Plexiglas walls that provide spectacular views of passing mermaids as well as the hotel’s famed "underwater fireworks:" a hallucinatory exhibition of "water bubbles, swirled sand, and carefully deployed lighting." Any initial anxiety about the safety of your sea-bottom resort is dispelled by the smiling concierge. The structure has a multi-level failsafe security system, he reassures you, that includes protection against terrorist submarines as well as missiles and aircraft…

After Shanghai (current population: 15 million), Dubai (current population: 1.5 million) is the world’s biggest building site: an emerging dreamworld of conspicuous consumption and what locals dub "supreme lifestyles."

Dozens of outlandish mega-projects — including "The World" (an artificial archipelago), Burj Dubai (the Earth’s tallest building), the Hydropolis (that underwater luxury hotel, the Restless Planet theme park, a domed ski resort perpetually maintained in 40C heat, and The Mall of Arabia, a hyper-mall — are actually under construction or will soon leave the drawing boards.

OK, that is 2010 he is writing about, but it will happen and soon.  Funny thing is, Davis doesn’t even seem to like the place.  Thanks to Boing Boing for the pointer.

1. My very chatty and friendly Pakistani barber, while holding a razor to my throat, asked me to pledge that we would continue an email correspondence for the rest of our lives.  Every sentence he referrered to me as "Very Great Boss," and repeatedly expressed his satisfaction that I was not one of those "two-assed men" who are otherwise so common.  Imagine Borat with Eric Idle-like intonations.  But you know, I still am not sure if he was weird.

2. If they promise you a "surprise desert tour," be warned it will involve scaling (and descending) a fifty-foot high sand dune with a four-wheel drive at full speed.  No matter what they tell you, this is not fun.  Afterwards the driver spoke: "We have accidents (pause)…but not so many casualities [sic].  The vehicles roll over, but the sand is soft."

3. If you want to find heavily veiled women (not hard to do), the easiest way is to visit the fancy shopping malls and head directly for the make-up counter.

4. I am told that the dowry for the average (native) Dubai woman is now running about $150,000.  Many Dubai men are substituting into foreign women.

5. The "traditional" belly dance was done by a Russian woman; Dubai women are no longer allowed to do such things in public.

This was not a big item in the Dubai papers, but Daniel Drezner has the scoop with all the appropriate links.

Here are a few facts of note:

1. Dubai is expected to run out of oil by 2010.  Oil is already less than seven percent of gdp.

2. The city diversified by creating low-tax, low-regulation, free trade zones.

3. The three most trusted associates to the Sheikh are also the city’s three leading businessmen and three leading real estate magnates.

4. Dubai is constructing what will be the world’s tallest building, and perhaps also the world’s second tallest building.  The city claims to have the world’s largest shopping center (disputable).

5. The city is growing about fourteen percent a year.

6. Eighty percent of the population is expats.

7. UAE (Dubai is a part of it) is ranked 137th in the world on press freedom.

See The Financial Times, 13 July 2005.  And did I mention that I am here in Dubai now?  It is, after all, on the way to Singapore.

Warning: Do not travel on airplanes with a picture of Mohammed Atta in your luggage.

The SecretLover collection of cards is "the first
line exclusively for people having affairs."  There are cards to give to your secret lover on birthdays, special occasions, even anniversaries!

I want to go on record as saying that I am totally opposed to this depraved idea.  I hope that this business fails utterly.  It’s hard enough to remember my wife’s birthday, Valentine’s day, our anniversary etc.  And now I’m supposed to send my secret lover cards as well?  Outrageous.

Thanks to Avery Katz for the pointer.

Daniel Gross has a good short piece explaining how and why the markets reacted to the tragic attack in London today.  Oil prices, and travel and airline stocks all fell rapidly.

NewspaperDirect offers 270 papers from 50 countries in the exact layout of the original, including color photos.  Watching America translates articles from the foreign press about America, very useful for getting that second opinion.

Thanks to Carl Close for the first pointer.

Gerhard Schroeder’s…Social Democratic Party (SPD) said yesterday it would campaign for a new "tax on the rich."  The party’s top executive…said its electoral manifesto would include a three-point surcharge, to be added to the top 42 per cent rate of income tax, for anyone earning more than 250,000 Euros.  Franz Muentefering, the SPD chairman…made clear it was intended more as a psychological [sic] than as a fiscal step.

The surcharge is intended to "rally disaffected voters."  The quotation is from the 27 June Financial Times.  Here are some previous posts from the series: "The Earthquake that is Germany."

In Korea, a woman’s dog [****] on the train. When people on the train
asked her to clean up the mess, she became belligerent.

Then bloggers, including one with a camera, got to work:

Within hours, she was labeled gae-ttong-nyue (dog-****-girl)
and her pictures and parodies were everywhere. Within days, her
identity and her past were revealed. Request for information about her
parents and relatives started popping up and people started to
recognize her by the dog and the bag she was carrying as well as her
watch, clearly visible in the original picture.

Here is the link.  Here is Daniel Klein on reputation.  Here is a relevant image.