Baghdad Buying Spree

Next quagmire, consumer demand:

"Television sets, refrigerators and boxes of satellite receivers are stacked 10 feet high on the sidewalks of Baghdad's shopping districts. Shoppers who have waited for years to be able to spend their hoarded dollars are out in force.

'''When I started in late April, I was receiving one container of DiStar goods per month,' [merchant Massoud] Mazouri says. ''Now, I am getting five to six containers.' Each container holds about 270 television sets or 3,800 satellite receiver units. He says he is grossing $20,000 a day. 'All the sales are done in cash.'

"There was plenty of pent-up demand. …"

Thanks to: Virginia Postrel

Comments

[dude]

hmm. . . kill infidels
or watch Baywatch off the satellite dish?

kill infidels tomorrow

[thoreau]

Give the men of Iraq a good look at Jennifer Garner and never again will they decry the decadence of the west. They'll be too busy drooling. And show them a "Girls Gone Wild" ad and never again will any Middle Eastern man demand that women wear burquas.

As somebody once said "Yankee go home! Just remember to take me with you!"

[CharlesWT]

As if on cue, TV Land is showing CSI from the very beginning, which is fun, but the channel that I am watching more and more is the Paramount Comedy Channel. My favourite shows:

- Futurama: Outrageous sci-fi cartoon. I love the beer-guzzling robot.
- Third rock from the sun: It's ridiculous, I know, but John Lithgow always squeezes the laughs out of me, without fail.
- The Drew Carey show: I don't what it is about this show that tickles me so, but it does.
- That 70's show: I laughed till I cried, then cried some more when it ended. The re-runs still crack me up, though.

As for Arabic television channels, the answer is no, I hardly ever watch them, unless I happen on one of the old Egyptian movies (pre 1966). And the Arabic news channels are even more depressing to watch than the western ones. Arab Street blues.. (Egyptian blogger The Arab Street Files)

[Douglas Fletcher]

Also from Arab Street files:

"With sadness I predict, that out of the ashes of the ultimately doomed administration of Little Bush, will rise a new and infinately more horrifying American imperialist regime, under the leadership of the honorable Rabbi's son, General Wesley Clark. Yes, believe it or not, the American people are *that* gullible. The Bush-ites will be exposed as frauds, yet after an infitesimal instant of respite, less than a heartbeat later, the next mass deception, leading to yet more war-mongering and bloodshed, will commence."

Well at least he likes a good laugh now and then.

[Shady O'Grady]

No joke, nothing helps stem insurgent recruitment like satellite televisions. It's like, "Mamoud, you feel like firing up the old RPG?" "Nah, Law and Order CI is on, maybe later."

[R.C. Dean]

the next mass deception, leading to yet more war-mongering and bloodshed, will commence.

Middle East politics is so confusing. Is he talking about the intifada here?