Monument to Small-Nation Penis Envy
The only way to make sense of Dubai is to never forget that it is not real. It is a fable, a fairy tale. More correctly, it is a cautionary tale. Dubai is the story of the three wishes, where, as every kid knows, with the third wish you demand three more wishes. And as every genie knows, more wishes lead to more greed, more misery, more bad credit, and much, much, much more bad taste. Dubai is Las Vegas without the showgirls, the gambling, or Elvis. Dubai is a financial Disneyland without the fun. The first thing you see when you arrive is the airport, with its echoing marble halls. It is big enough to be the hub of a continent. Dubai suffers from gigantism -- a national inferiority complex that has to make everything bigger and biggest. This includes their financial crisis.
http://rdd.me/jklmifvs
Meanwhile, in Abu Dhabi...
Models in full riot body armour and chemical survival suits waved cheerily for photographs, while one stall holder demonstrated a black breathing mask for use in a nuclear attack next to a tray of boiled sweets and a pot of free pens. In the British pavilion, defence minister Gerald Howarth came under growing pressure to explain the UK's role in arming dictatorial regimes in the region after the government revoked licences to sell arms to Bahrain and Libya. "Nothing to say today," Howarth told the Guardian as he waited -- fruitlessly as it turned out -- to greet Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, whose attention had been drawn to a handgun on a rival stand.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/21/abu-dhabi-arms-fair-idex-2011/print
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