A quiet Sunday morning, what better time for a quick Dubai News Roundup?

If you haven't seen the comments section lately, we were talking about this one the other day. The article is from November, but somehow I missed it. "Abu Dhabi wants stake in Emirates for bailout cash".

Pretty much Dubai is broke, they went to big brother Abu Dhabi for help, and Abu Dhabi was like, "that's a mighty fine airline you gots there."

Emirates Airline, besides the property thing, is the total crown jewel in, well, the Dubai royalty's crown.

And Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways isn't nearly as big or as well known.

Interesting to see how this'll play out.

Next we have the sequel to 2008's hit Sex on the Dubai Beach story - "British mother fighting jail in Dubai after adultery conviction".

The quickie summary - Brit meets Egyptian man, gets married, moves to Dubai, has kids, is rumored to be sleeping around, gets six months in a Dubai prison.

Bang.

I have about thiiiis much pity for this lady. Sure, it sucks to go to jail, but frick, you're not in jolly ol' England. Did you not see the story about your countrymen and the beach and the sex? You're in a Muslim nation. Married to a Muslim man. What did you think was going to happen?

Ugh.

And if that doesn't pain you, how about this one - "Lindsay Lohan moves in near to the Beckhams in Dubai"?

Let me guess, they all live on Dubai Celebrity Island? I can see the logo already!

I think someone should remind Ms. Lohan that booze, drugs, premarital sex between differently gendered people and all homosexual sex is illegal in Dubai.

That might change her mind a bit.

And switching gears dramatically, lastly we have a story that I imagine will make my wife glad we left Dubai. "Campaign to Curb Stray Cat Menace".

I'll save you the pain of reading this article (the Khaleej Times is about as well written as a Middle School newspaper). Here's the gist - on Thursday the Dubai Municipality announced that they are going to hire an "international expert" in a bid to "control" stray cats.

According to Hisham Fahmi, the Head of the Veterinary Section at Dubai Municipality, the autumn's public awareness campaign “Protection against Stray Cats" "was aimed at educating people about the dangers of stray cats and the diseases they can spread. But then as calls and complaints came in, the [Dubai Municipality] took action by setting cages and capturing the cats.”

Mr. Fahmi then went on to praise HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, for building the world's largest kitty farm. "The cats can play all day and have all of the catnip and balls of yarn that they could ever want".

Or, in reality, the Dubai Municipality probably had a big bonfire 2000 cats tall.

I know this is totally a cultural thing - Arabs just don't like pets that aren't horses or camels (which they still eat, btw). But speaking as someone who owns a stray cat from Dubai, a stray cat from Dubai who is purring like a bastard right this very second, I am downright sickened by this story.

You know, there's a theme common to most of these stories today, and about everything else I've written for the last three years - if you're going to have a city open to Westerners, you're going to have to do some shit that they like or everyone is going to go home pissed off. Especially the British moms who want to snog the co-worker's brother-in-law, the celebrity booze-hounds, the cat fans, and of course the locals.

Can anyone win in Dubai?