There's no such thing as a free lunch...Or is there?

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It's official. The next president of Indonesia is former army general Prabowo Subianto. Quite how the next five years will pan out is anyone's guess but hopefully the foreign pundits who always bring up his dodgy human rights record will be proven wrong. Nonetheless, on policy making, Prabowo's popularist move to literally offer the poor 'a free lunch' every day of the week does not augur well for the future. Such a policy - if it ever came to fruition - would cost a phenomenal amount of money and likely lead to huge inefficiencies (food waste) and poor incentives (make people lazy). Another concern is Prabowo's strong nationalist bent. Thus, in the possible event that he finds himself with his back against the proverbial wall in the face of stern economic challenges, there is a big chance that he will simply scapegoat foreigners. But he will have to be careful. Construction of the new capital city, Nusantara, for example, is highly dependent on foreign in
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King Abdullah bans hand kissing!

Kissing someone’s hands is pretty dodgy behavior when you think about it. I mean you simply don’t know where they’ve been. Much more hygienic to kiss someone’s face – at least you know they couldn’t have been scratching their genitals with their cheek ten minutes ago. Hand kissing is also sickeningly obsequious of course. It may be pretty common in Indonesia, but it still gives me the creeps when I see it.

So I was well pleased to see that the King of Saudi Arabia agrees with me. He’s even issued a decree on this important matter:

The King of Saudi Arabia has banned Saudi citizens from kissing his hand or the hand of anyone else in the royal family. King Abdullah made the decree while meeting princes, officials and citizens at the Al-Salam Palace in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah.

"Brothers, there is something in my mind that I want to tell you. Kissing hands is something alien to our values and ethics, and is refused by free and honest people," he told the delegations meeting him.

"It also leads to bowing, which violates God's law as the faithful bow only to the one and only God. Hence I hereby declare my total rejection of this matter, and I ask everyone not to kiss the hand of anyone except their parents as a mark of devotion," he continues.

Note that he doesn’t prohibit the kissing of other body parts. But I’m sure that’s not an oversight. After all, he’s never hidden his affection for other men, including fellow conservative Mr Bush…

King Abdullah kissung former president George Bush
Not in public please ...

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