Consie

Ideally, international law might play a role but since UAE probably never signed any of the UN human rights covenants and even its signatories disregard the rules all the time, it's probably a matter of national sovereignty still. And I suppose I agree with you, that Dubai can create any laws they want. But then I don't believe Westerners should support the emirate... especially all the fashion houses over there who rely on gay talent and business. Plus the multinationals, the tourism companies, etc.

Well 2 and a half years later and I think I got my answer... DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Sofia, a 34-year-old Frenchwoman, moved here a year ago to take a job in advertising, so confident about Dubai’s fast-growing economy that she bought an apartment for almost $300,000 with a 15-year mortgage. Now, like many of the foreign workers who make up 90 percent of the population here, she has been laid off and faces the prospect of being forced to leave this Persian Gulf city — or worse. “I’m really scared of what could happen, because I bought property here,” said Sofia, who asked that her last name be withheld because she is still hunting for a new job. “If I can’t pay it off, I was told I could end up in debtors’ prison.” With Dubai’s economy in free fall, newspapers have reported that more than 3,000 cars sit abandoned in the parking lot at the Dubai Airport, left by fleeing, debt-ridden foreigners (who could in fact be imprisoned if they failed to pay their bills). Some are said to have maxed-out credit cards inside and notes of apology taped to the windshield. The government says the real number is much lower. But the stories contain at least a grain of truth: jobless people here lose their work visas and then must leave the country within a month. That in turn reduces spending, creates housing vacancies and lowers real estate prices, in a downward spiral that has left parts of Dubai — once hailed as the economic superpower of the Middle East — looking like a ghost town. No one knows how bad things have become, though it is clear that tens of thousands have left, real estate prices have crashed and scores of Dubai’s major construction projects have been suspended or canceled. But with the government unwilling to provide data, rumors are bound to flourish, damaging confidence and further undermining the economy. Instead of moving toward greater transparency, the emirates seem to be moving in the other direction. A new draft media law would make it a crime to damage the country’s reputation or economy, punishable by fines of up to 1 million dirhams (about $272,000). Some say it is already having a chilling effect on reporting about the crisis. Last month, local newspapers reported that Dubai was canceling 1,500 work visas every day, citing unnamed government officials. Asked about the number, Humaid bin Dimas, a spokesman for Dubai’s Labor Ministry, said he would not confirm or deny it and refused to comment further. Some say the true figure is much higher. “At the moment there is a readiness to believe the worst,” said Simon Williams, HSBC bank’s chief economist in Dubai. “And the limits on data make it difficult to counter the rumors.” Some things are clear: real estate prices, which rose dramatically during Dubai’s six-year boom, have dropped 30 percent or more over the past two or three months in some parts of the city. Last week, Moody’s Investor’s Service announced that it might downgrade its ratings on six of Dubai’s most prominent state-owned companies, citing a deterioration in the economic outlook. So many used luxury cars are for sale , they are sometimes sold for 40 percent less than the asking price two months ago, car dealers say. Dubai’s roads, usually thick with traffic at this time of year, are now mostly clear. Some analysts say the crisis is likely to have long-lasting effects on the seven-member emirates federation, where Dubai has long played rebellious younger brother to oil-rich and more conservative Abu Dhabi. Dubai officials, swallowing their pride, have made clear that they would be open to a bailout, but so far Abu Dhabi has offered assistance only to its own banks. “Why is Abu Dhabi allowing its neighbor to have its international reputation trashed, when it could bail out Dubai’s banks and restore confidence?” said Christopher M. Davidson, who predicted the current crisis in “Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success,” a book published last year. “Perhaps the plan is to centralize the U.A.E.” under Abu Dhabi’s control, he mused, in a move that would sharply curtail Dubai’s independence and perhaps change its signature freewheeling style. For many foreigners, Dubai had seemed at first to be a refuge, relatively insulated from the panic that began hitting the rest of the world last autumn. The Persian Gulf is cushioned by vast oil and gas wealth, and some who lost jobs in New York and London began applying here. But Dubai, unlike Abu Dhabi or nearby Qatar and Saudi Arabia, does not have its own oil, and had built its reputation on real estate, finance and tourism. Now, many expatriates here talk about Dubai as though it were a con game all along. Lurid rumors spread quickly: the Palm Jumeira, an artificial island that is one of this city’s trademark developments, is said to be sinking, and when you turn the faucets in the hotels built atop it, only cockroaches come out. “Is it going to get better? They tell you that, but I don’t know what to believe anymore,” said Sofia, who still hopes to find a job before her time runs out. “People are really panicking quickly.” Hamza Thiab, a 27-year-old Iraqi who moved here from Baghdad in 2005, lost his job with an engineering firm six weeks ago. He has until the end of February to find a job, or he must leave. “I’ve been looking for a new job for three months, and I’ve only had two interviews,” he said. “Before, you used to open up the papers here and see dozens of jobs. The minimum for a civil engineer with four years’ experience used to be 15,000 dirhams a month. Now, the maximum you’ll get is 8,000,” or about $2,000. Mr. Thiab was sitting in a Costa Coffee Shop in the Ibn Battuta mall, where most of the customers seemed to be single men sitting alone, dolefully drinking coffee at midday. If he fails to find a job, he will have to go to Jordan, where he has family members — Iraq is still too dangerous, he says — though the situation is no better there. Before that, he will have to borrow money from his father to pay off the more than $12,000 he still owes on a bank loan for his Honda Civic. Iraqi friends bought fancier cars and are now, with no job, struggling to sell them. “Before, so many of us were living a good life here,” Mr. Thiab said. “Now we cannot pay our loans. We are all just sleeping, smoking, drinking coffee and having headaches because of the situation.” Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/world/mi...tml?_r=1&em Can you believe they still have debtor's prisons? And with the government cracking down even harder on press freedom coupled with a legal system straight out of the stone age... who would ever want to move here? I think it's clear that this experiment in super-wealth is a failure.

Haha, good point. I can't imagine "Forever" blasting out of the windows of an Escalade in the hood. :) Then again, Rihanna is pretty "pop" yet she performs with convicted felon TI...

At least Adele is getting a much deserved bump. I liked how Kanye gave her the Grammy, since he was one of the first to promote Chasing Pavements in the US (on his blog early last year). As for Coldplay and Taylor Swift... <_<

Haha, age ain't nothin but a number... something tells me you'll still be screaming "fukk the establishment!!!!!!" well beyond 40... Happy birthday!

I thought the same initially. After all, what discussion can there be? Is anyone going to say "I disagree, he was right to hit her, domestic abuse is sometimes warranted" But this could lead to a broader discussion of something that occurs every single day around the world and is usually kept secret. We could go anywhere with this... alcoholism, the Middle East... I'll start with hip/hop culture. The whole "smackin' bitches" attitude glamorized by rap lyrics is revolting and should not be tolerated. I know it seems silly but I really think Obama should speak out about it - after all he has an entire generation of African Americans looking to him as a hero and role model. I hope he loses every one of those pricey endorsements, too. If Michael Phelps lost a Kellogg endorsement simply by sticking a pipe in his face, I certainly hope Brown won't continue dancing for Doublemint Gum on TV...

I'm skeptical too but Ledger earned this one. PSH was his only competition. I hate dismissing comedic performances, but Pitt and Gleesan, while both very good, didn't earn the award. Downey Jr I can't comment on (haven't seen Tropic Thunder), but I suspect the same.

Very, very true. Most Latin American countries are very rich in resources, human and natural, but economic development has been hindered by endless political and military corruption. Much of it created or sustained by the US's reprehensible actions across the continent during the Cold War, I must add. The US is directly and indirectly responsible for millions of deaths in Latin America throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s. Also oil wealth rarely results in true, fair, sustainable development. Look at Venezuela for an example of how an economy too closely tied to the price of oil tends to collapse every 15 years or so. This resulting in Chavez, who has proven he's more interested in geopolitical politics than actually tending to the poor in his country.

Regarding sexual crimes and priests... I think that within our lifetimes, the Catholic church will probably relent and finally allow priests to marry and possibly even allow gay priests. I think at that point, the phenomenon of priests committing sexual crimes will probably cease. Or maybe I'm being too optimistic... I just think there are a ton of progressive priests and lay people but the Church has ostracized them so much that they're just walking away from Catholicism. Hence its numbers have been dropping for decades, and they barely have a presence left in some places (Europe). So I think Catholicism needs to change or it will die off.

I stand corrected, I should have remembered that from my Apologetics class when I was a kid! :) Still I think the whole concept of papal infallibility comes dangerously close to breaking the first commandment...

This is true, alcoholism is a disease and many people do experience dependence... but how many teenagers do? I think the biggest problem with teenage drinking is the "forbidden fruit" kind of culture surrounding it. When you're raised to believe even a drop of alcohol is wrong or not acceptable, you may want to try it even more. As far as teenage binge drinking, some of blame must lie with ignorance. Kids who don't know the difference between a glass of beer and a glass of vodka, don't understand how alcohol takes up to 30 minutes to take hold, don't conceive of drinking alcohol without getting drunk... they are more likely to drink themselves silly and do something stupid. And I believe introducing alcohol in incremental amounts at a younger age may help educate kids about alcohol.

Obama's words have been deeply critical, considering he's not one for too much hyperbole (but he called them "shameful" and "the height of irresponsibility"). Meanwhile... Rudy Giuliani (former mayor of NY and failed Republican presidential candidate) in one single interview on CNN last week, defended massive Wall Street bonuses (they stimulate the economy), condemned tax cuts for the poor (doesn't stimulate economy, it's a social welfare agenda), then pushed for further government bailouts of banks. So he supports corporate welfare but not social welfare. And I'm not singling him out just because. His comments reflect the bizarre and contradictory line of thinking guiding the entire Republican party! How a party of the rich and for the rich ever convinced America they were the party of the "common man" is among the most astonishing occurrences in political history. No wonder Gallup Poll just released a new political map showing only 4 states in the US remain solidly Republican (Utah, Idaho, Alaska and Wyoming).

A 35 thousand dollar fukking toilet. Jesus fukking Christ.

Wall Street’s Socialist Jet-Setters The New York Times By MAUREEN DOWD Published: January 27, 2009 WASHINGTON As President Obama spreads his New Testament balm over the capital, I’m longing for a bit of Old Testament wrath. Couldn’t he throw down his BlackBerry tablet and smash it in anger over the feckless financiers, the gods of gold and their idols — in this case not a gilt calf but an $87,000 area rug, a cache of diamond Tiffany and Cartier watches and a French-made luxury corporate jet? Now that we’re nationalizing, couldn’t we fire any obtuse bankers and auto executives who cling to perks and bonuses even as the economy is following John Thain down his antique commode? How could Citigroup be so dumb as to go ahead with plans to get a new $50 million corporate jet, the exclusive Dassault Falcon 7X seating 12, after losing $28.5 billion in the past 15 months and receiving $345 billion in government investments and guarantees? (Now I get why a $400 payment I recently sent to pay off my Citibank Visa was mistakenly applied to my sister-in-law’s Citibank Mastercard account.) The “Citiboobs” — as The New York Post, which broke the news, calls them — watched as the car chieftains got in trouble for flying their private jets to Washington to ask for bailouts, and the A.I.G. moguls got dragged before Congress for spending their bailout on California spa treatments. But the boobs still didn’t get the message. The former masters of the universe don’t seem to fully comprehend that their universe has crumbled and, thanks to them, so has ours. Real people are losing real jobs at Caterpillar, Home Depot and Sprint Nextel; these and other companies announced on Monday that they would cut more than 75,000 jobs in the U.S. and around the world, as consumer confidence and home prices swan-dived. Prodded by an appalled Senator Carl Levin, Tim Geithner — even as he was being confirmed as Treasury secretary — directed Treasury officials to call the Citiboobs and tell them the new jet would not fly. “They woke up pretty quickly,” says a Treasury official, adding that they protested for a bit. “Six months ago, they would have kept the plane and flown it to Washington.” Senator Levin said that the financiers will not be able to change their warped mentality, but will have to be reined in by Geithner’s new leashes. “I have no confidence that they intend or desire to change,” Levin told me. “These bankers got away with murder, and it’s obscene that close to nothing is being asked of financial institutions. I get incensed at the thought that a bank that’s getting billions of dollars in taxpayer money is out there buying fancy new airplanes.” New York’s attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, always gratifying on the issue of clawing back money from the greedy creeps on Wall Street, on Tuesday subpoenaed Thain, the former Merrill Lynch chief executive, over $4 billion in bonuses he handed out as the failing firm was bought by Bank of America. In an interview with Maria Bartiromo on CNBC, Thain used the specious, contemptible reasoning that other executives use to rationalize why they’re keeping their bonuses as profits are plunging. “If you don’t pay your best people, you will destroy your franchise” and they’ll go elsewhere, he said. Hello? They destroyed the franchise. Let’s call their bluff. Let’s see what a great job market it is for the geniuses of capitalism who lost $15 billion in three months and helped usher in socialism. Bartiromo also asked Thain to explain, when jobs and salaries were being cut at his firm, how he could justify spending $1 million to renovate his office. As The Daily Beast and CNBC reported, big-ticket items included curtains for $28,000, a pair of chairs for $87,000, fabric for a “Roman Shade” for $11,000, Regency chairs for $24,000, six wall sconces for $2,700, a $13,000 chandelier in the private dining room and six dining chairs for $37,000, a “custom coffee table” for $16,000, an antique commode “on legs” for $35,000, and a $1,400 “parchment waste can.” Does that mean you can only throw used parchment in it or is it made of parchment? It’s psychopathic to spend a million redoing your office when the folks outside it are losing jobs, homes, pensions and savings. Thain should never rise above the level of stocking the money in A.T.M.’s again. Just think: This guy could well have been Treasury secretary if John McCain had won. Bartiromo pressed: What was wrong with the office of his predecessor, Stanley O’Neal? “Well — his office was very different — than — the — the general décor of — Merrill’s offices,” Thain replied. “It really would have been — very difficult — for — me to use it in the form that it was in.” Did it have a desk and a phone? How are these ruthless, careless ghouls who murdered the economy still walking around (not to mention that sociopathic sadist Bernie Madoff?) — and not as perps? Bring on the shackles. Let the show trials begin. Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/opinion/...tml?_r=1&em

Russ you are one of my favorite posters, so funny! And with the exception of your objection to Robyn and maybe tiesto (maybe for sentimental reasons), I absolutely agree with you. i made the mistake of downloading the Annual 2009 album... with possibly 1-2 exceptions it was just awful. Also the new club looks super cheesy.

His third US #1 of the year... after So What and I Kissed a Girl.

Kelly shares the top spot with Sweden. Max Martin, Dr Luke and the old Cheiron guys are officially back. They really are the best pop producers in the world... Kelly's new song (as was Pink's So What) is just mind-numblingly catchy, utterly irresistible.

Perhaps I’m beating a dead horse by continuing to post in this threat, but I have ONE more point to add. The Catholic church, pre Vatican II, officially claimed that life began when the brain was formed in the fetus. But in the 60s after the Vatican II Council, the church declared that life actually begins at the MOMENT of conception. Thus justifying the restriction on contraception in the decades following. Onward the church marches BACKWARD...

I still haven't forgiven the US media for its atrocious behavior during the 2003 Iraq invasion (and most of Bush's first term). Although the American media has improved recently, the British media are generally much better (more comprehensive world coverage, less biased reporting). I'm talking about The Guardian, The Economist and BBC here. For anyone who wants to keep in touch with current events, just forget the major networks, forget CNN... New York Times, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor and National Public Radio are the only decent American media outlets left, in my opinion. And some periodicals like Atlantic Monthly. WSJ isn't my thing but its decent.

Interesting. I was listening to an Israeli academic a few weeks back who used the same argument to justify the war in Gaza. He claimed that when tensions simmer for years, it's like a pressure cooker, they need to be released via war. The goal of war is, in the end, eventual peace. So once the war is finally done, people have gotten it out of their systems and peace will come. Not that I buy a word of it but someone might! But I digress...

And Catholics believe he's infallible! I've often wondered which is worse... Catholics believe they don't know/understand God's will so they rely on priests/Popes to determine it. Protestants believe anyone and everyone can decide what they think about it. One is so very undemocratic but can "force" people to be good (in theory)... the other one places the decision in the hands of the individual (sounds lovely), but opens the door for absurd interpretations to suit one's own preconceived world view. In the end, of course, Rob's comment in this thread is true.

I had the same question. There are a lot of atheists on the net these days, coalescing in unusual places like facebook, reddit.com and other user-generated fora. Though it's not an atheist group, the "Anonymous" group's campaign against Scientology shows that even online groups can cause a stir. It's probably only a matter of time before the Pope's youtube is hacked :lol:

Age ain't nothin' but a number. Keep it going as long as you want!

Interesting chart. I'm always skeptical when I hear people say "x was a hit in japan!" because I hardly ever see any Western acts on the Oricon. Yet then those same Western acts tour Japan and huge crowds show up. :huh: The only song I can think of that really did seem a huge Japanese hit was "Girlfriend" by Avril Lavigne.

You're right, it is. In fact, most people think the US Treasury's decision to let Lehman Brothers fail was a huge mistake (since then they've kept a ton of US banks open with bailout money). But still, Scott makes a good point about nationalizing banks considering they are now essentially government entities. If it's public money, the public should get to decide what is done with it, not the corporate board of directors who hold shares in a company now valued at virtually nothing. There is something sickeningly wrong about this toxic mix of corporate and public. In the US there have been huge fights over which banks get bailout money and which banks don't. Many suspect certain banks are receiving money for political reasons. Madness! Also, banks like Bank of America got bailout money, used it to buy up other banks (Merrill Lynch, for example) and are now begging for more money! There is no transparency over where the public money is going and how it is spent.