Here we are at another World Championship of Athletics, the second-biggest event in what Americans call “track and field”. And another round of Usain Bolt setting world records? The 100 meters on Sunday and the 200 on August 29? I still have not come to terms with the records he already has because of the […]

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A topic that comes up, eventually, with everyone who plays fantasy baseball or football or basketball or soccer … When a player from your fantasy team meets up with someone from the team you support … to which side do you focus your psychic energy? Or, making it simple, whom do you want to come […]

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Final score: Al Ahli 8, Fujairah 1. And there is your season-opening game of the Arabian Gulf League season. One of the richest clubs in the league against one of the smallest, and 8-1 is a bit of a statistical outlier, but it’s not like anyone who knows UAE football says: “What? That’s not possible!” […]

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One of the biggest selling points for people and businesses relocating to the UAE, over the first 44 years of its existence, has been the near universal absence of individual taxes. No individual income tax. No sales tax. No inheritance taxes. No property taxes. If you were paid $100,000 by your employer … you received […]

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The UAE has just about anything you could want, but I am not at all sure that, in the whole country, we have a mechanized batting cage. And I feel like taking a few swings about now.

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A sort of steady one-upmanship here in the aviation world. Who has the longest commercial flight in the world? At the moment, it’s Dallas-Forth Worth to Sydney, at 16 hours and 55 minutes. By February 2016, it will be Dubai to Panama City, at 17 hours and 30 minutes. But not long after that … […]

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This is one of those “information I stumbled across while looking up something else” sorts of thing. A variety of national anthem information, with tunes, sorted by various headings. Including “formerly official/unofficial” anthems no longer being played.

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The English Premier League, in much of the Old World, is rather like the NFL is in the U.S. In attracting viewers and attention, it crushes whatever happens to be going on at the same time. What is curious is how the Premier League has, so far, not really taken full advantage of spreading out […]

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Do kids get much exposure to classical music anymore? I worry about this. We had a music appreciation class, when I was in eighth grade. We would listen to some of the classical classics. I was not familiar with quite a few of them, but often I would recognize a passage. Often because I had […]

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Air conditioning is a very serious concept, in the UAE. Without it, the country is close to uninhabitable over the six-plus months of summer. To make do without it for any length of time is to be reminded of how perilous is civilization’s grip on this land. Without AC, Abu Dhabi and Dubai would not […]

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