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 the whole of that $100,000. That was the case for businesses, too, unless you were a foreign bank or oil company. Or, on a micro scale, if you were a non-Muslim buying alcohol, which in Abu Dhabi carries a 20 percent tax.

Now, however, it seems clear the UAE, in concert with the other countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council will impose a value-added tax (often known by the initials VAT) sometime in the next couple of years. The story linked, above, brooks no “if” — referring to a VAT “when” it comes into effect.

And a nearly tax-free polity will be no more.

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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 … we could have one of more than 18 hours, from Singapore to Newark, New Jersey.

If it seems like a race is on to find the longest flight … well, I would agree with that.

Some background.

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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 its fixtures (schedule) so that it does not compete against itself.

To wit: Tonight’s game between Manchester United and Aston Villa … was the first Friday night game in the history of the league.

One of the great nights for people seeking recreation, and the Premier League had never touched it. Until tonight.

Why should that be?

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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 heard it while watching Warner Brothers cartoons.

I am concerned that classical might seem too slow and too long, in an era where everyone is in a hurry and short attention spans are an issue.

I have discovered a piece of classical music that is particularly evocative as well as brilliantly presented. Even kids with no background in classical and burdened with a limited ability to focus could be encouraged to listen to this:

Tchaikovsky‘s take on star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet.

And particularly as performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.

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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 be cities of 1 and 2 million, respectively. Perhaps villages of oil workers, and a few support businesses. But no more.

Which was something to ponder, here in the 20-story building where we live, when the AC went out — and stayed out — for about 45 hours, including two nights.

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Many, maybe most journalists at some points in their careers have thought about being a war correspondent.

What could be more intense? What could tell us more about the human condition, and about ourselves, than the most destructive of human activities, seen first-hand?

I was reminded of this while re-reading John le Carre‘s novel The Honourable Schoolboy, which is set in the final stages of wars in Vietnam and Cambodia. The “cover” for the leading character is “war correspondent”, and Le Carre at one point puts that character in the middle of a battle in Cambodia. The random danger and unpredictability of it, and the probably unhealthy fascination many journalists have with war … was nicely depicted by the author. It felt real. As did the notion that only a select few are really cut out for it.

In 2004, I asked the editor of the newspaper where I worked if I could go to Iraq. The heavy fighting of the 2003 invasion was over, but policing was going on, and an insurgency was coming on that would reach a crisis in a few years.

My idea was to “embed” with the National Guard unit based in San Bernardino, California, that had been sent to Iraq. For a month. Or three. Or however long those things went on, back then.

The editor said the cost of life insurance was prohibitive. And that was that.

The closest I have come to something resembling a battle?

Seoul, South Korea, July of 1988.

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North Korea is a wacky place. Dirt poor but nuclear-armed. Beaten down by a Kim family cult of the personality while neighboring South Korea revels in wealth and democracy.

As if the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” (the official name) were not sufficiently different from everyone around them, the country’s leaders have come up with a new way to distinguish themselves.

By creating their own time zone.

When they move the clock back 30 minutes later this week, North Korea will be a half-hour behind South Korea and Japan and 30 minutes ahead of China, and in a time zone of their very own they have dubbed. “Pyongyang time”.

The reason for this?

To show Japan what’s what.

But mostly, to be different. It’s how they roll there.

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The Dodgers melted down spectacularly in Pittsburgh tonight, blowing a 5-4 lead in a nine-run Pirates seventh inning. It ended 13-6, with the Pirates completing a sweep of the most expensive team in baseball.

This game had the feel of a milestone, a turning point, even from the other side of the Atlantic.

Consider:

–Another rocky start from Alex Wood, one of the two starting pitchers the Dodgers picked up at the trade deadline but who have struggled. Mat Latos, the other guy, has one strikeout in 10 innings as a Dodger, against 11 hits, two walks, two homers and seven runs.

—Yasiel Puig continues to demonstrate he is the biggest knucklehead in ball. Reduced a couple times per week to duty as pinch-hitter/defensive replacement by the return of the ghost of Carl Crawford … he contrived to make a throwing error in his two innings in the field. Earlier in the series, he made a poor decision in making a throw, which set up a Dodgers loss in extra innings. (He makes lots of bad decisions.)

—Jim Johnson. This is the real fault line here. The Dodgers have struggled to bridge the gap between starting pitcher and Kenley Jansen this season, and Johnson, the Atlanta Braves closer before the Dodgers traded for him, week before last, has been awful. He has made four appearances with the club and blown two saves and taken two losses. He has allowed 12 runs in 3.2 innings, with 11 hits, three walks and two home runs.

Tonight, Dodgers manager Don Mattingly left Johnson in the game for most of the Pirates’ nine-run seventh inning, which struck me as a punitive sort of thing. “You’ve been a disaster; you’re on your own.” He could also argue, later, that his bullpen was depleted.

However, a Dodgers fan who watched the game on national television, a friend of mine, saw a bigger picture on display in Pittsburgh. A more informed analysis. And a very insightful and fascinating one, in which he suggests the final game of the Pirates’ sweep may have been a turning point for Mattingly and the Dodgers, and between the manager and his bosses, Andrew Friedman, president of baseball operations, and Farhan Zaidi, general manager — focusing on Mattingly’s decision to leave Johnson in there for that spectacular meltdown on the Fox Sunday night game.

Here is that analysis:

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