Boom town: "Is Dubai, in fact, the fulcrum of the future global trading and financial system? Is it, in embryo, what London was to the 19th century and Manhattan to the 20th? Not the modern centre of the Arab world but, more than that, the Arab centre of the modern world." —Guardian Unlimited

Not since William Gibson's Disneyland with the Death Penalty have so many geeks been so enthralled by totalitarianism. [Holy cow! Has it really been thirteen years since that article came out? Oh man, I feel old. -ed.]