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Dubai's Gold Rush Is Over
Why Not Try Dubai?

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Baroness
02/12/09

In reply to Dubai's Gold Rush Is Over
An artist friend of mine is going back to the UAE for the 3rd time in 2 years, a six-week residency, generous arts grants there. She told me that of all her Emirati friends there, 90 percent of them are gay, her own estimate. The place of course has some severe Wahabi prohibitions on the books, but behind closed doors, gay people congregate and are left alone, women wear Chanel and drink and smoke. It's an interesting dichotomy, strict rules but laissez-faire in practice.

Interesting too: She's Japanese, but many there assume she's Chinese, of which there are many there, involved in business, construction etc. For whatever reason, the Chinese are widely disliked. But she says caucasian Western men are fawned over. Go figure. Just some 2nd hand impressions.
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JacquesPaysan
02/12/09

In reply to Dubai's Gold Rush Is Over
Maybe in five years, after the crash, they could reopen the city as a post-apocalyptic theme park. I'd totally go to see that.
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valet_of_the_dolls
02/12/09

@JacquesPaysan: There's something very J.G. Ballard about that, and I approve.
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lil red
02/12/09

In reply to Dubai's Gold Rush Is Over
Dubai is a grand money laundering syndicate of the finest kind- perhaps poverty has taken a bite out of illegal drug smuggling:
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JacquesPaysan
02/12/09

@lil red: Somehow I always imagined this to be true. The money had to be coming from somewhere, and all the tacky reeks of wealthy criminals.
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BadUncle
02/12/09

In reply to Dubai's Gold Rush Is Over
I dunno, Owen. This sort of prediction seems a bit early into the re/depression. The same predictions were made about southern California from the 1870s to the early 90s, with each catastrophic economic collapse. People want beaches and beer, and Dubai is the developed nook of that part of the world catering to this basic, human need.
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Robert Synnott
02/12/09

In reply to Dubai's Gold Rush Is Over
This is one economy I am glad to see failing. Something always struck me as horrific about how happy the western world was to tolerate them and visit them and invest them, just because they're rich. Few people would go on holiday to Iran, say, but Dubai is nastier to women than Iran is.
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lobstr
02/12/09

@Robert Synnott: They are? Hijabs aren't required in Dubai..
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Mediahohoho
02/12/09

@lobstr: Although the local, indigeneous population practices the strict Wahhabi Islam that makes the entire gulf such a loathsome place, one almost never sees locals. Infidels and their outrageous skin are tolerated for the sake of parting visitors from their money.
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skahammer
02/12/09

@Robert Synnott: And there's no basij in Dubai either, is there? Might need a source on your assertion, there.
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Mediahohoho
02/12/09

In reply to Dubai's Gold Rush Is Over
This gives me fond reminders of the conservatives who posted on here in November about how all the i-bankers and hedge funders woould be fleeing Wall Street for Dubai when Obama won.

Guess that strategy didn't pan out either.
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IvyLeagueMetalhead
02/12/09

In reply to Dubai's Gold Rush Is Over
I hate to admit it, but I find the idea of threatening people who can't pay their monstrously overloaded credit cards with jail time a satisfying idea.
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Mediahohoho
02/12/09

@IvyLeagueMetalhead: Funny, I have the same fantasy about the chuckleheads issuing the credit cards.
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BadUncle
02/12/09

@IvyLeagueMetalhead: It was a really popular idea in Dickensian England.
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Uncle_Billy_Slumming
02/12/09

@IvyLeagueMetalhead:

Let he who is assuming the guise of the sinless get stoned first.
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Uncle_Billy_Slumming
02/12/09

In reply to Dubai's Gold Rush Is Over
[sigh] There are going to be a lot of lonely mcmansions out on those manifold private islands. Squatters will move in.

It's really sad. I've got an afghan(i) friend who has been living and working in dubai, for a latvian company that hasn't paid him in 6 months. He keeps pretending like they will eventually pay him, but meanwhile works on me to help him secure a work visa here.
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bringmemyTofu
02/12/09

In reply to Dubai's Gold Rush Is Over
Oh man, if only I were in Dubai. I would find that abandoned car and write "Wash Me" into the dirt on the side window. God, that would be awesome.
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Vivien Smith-Smythe-Smith
02/12/09

@bringmemyTofu: At least you're constructive... I would be unable to resist the urge to draw penises on the bonnet!
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blix
02/12/09

@Vivien Smith-Smythe-Smith: Blame it on Perez Hilton for the perfect crime.
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homoviper
02/12/09

In reply to Dubai's Gold Rush Is Over
Next stop: Qatar.
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TheRtHonPM
02/12/09

In reply to Dubai's Gold Rush Is Over
What is up with the desert that makes people lose all sense of perspective and good taste? cf. Las Vegas.
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Lizawithazee
02/12/09

@TheRtHonPM: Heat exhaustion and dehydration.
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Weegee's bored
02/12/09

In reply to Dubai's Gold Rush Is Over
I can't think of the name of that country without thinking of Sinatra. What song was that, "Strangers in the Night?" Dubai Dubai doo, do Dubai Dubai, ..."
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izzyrowlands
02/12/09

In reply to Dubai's Gold Rush Is Over
Bnch f dmb, flthy -rbs. nyn wh vr thght nvstng n Db ws gd d...wll, 'd lk t sll thm brdg nd thn thrw thm ff f t.
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BadUncle
02/12/09

@izzyrowlands: Dude, are you seriously tossing out "bunch of dumb, filthy A-rabs," or is there some kind of delicate, nuanced comedy I'm missing?
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tammyfey
02/12/09

@BadUncle: I think it's good ol' repressed but punishingly urgent sexual desire masked as bigotry.
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BadUncle
02/12/09

@tammyfey: It's almost a cry for a spanking.
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jackvinyl
02/12/09

@izzyrowlands: why?
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miss_msry
02/12/09

@izzyrowlands:

You're a boob.
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Owen Thomas
02/12/09

@miss_msry: And now he's gone.
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CaptainFantastic
02/12/09

@Owen Thomas: Not as of this comment, he isn't.
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CaptainFantastic
02/12/09

In reply to Dubai's Gold Rush Is Over
Look! The guy in the gold-chromed Mercedes is moving directly into a shopping cart.

(wicked glare off of that hood, huh?)
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