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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Wacky holidays

It would be nice to report on having uneventful Ramadan holidays, but the truth is that while millions risked life and limb in a treacherous journey back to their hometowns, I was abducted by Aliens and fortunate to make it back alive. Freaky time on the mothership mind you – could have sworn that one of the green buggers said his name was ET – although he didn’t look very alien to me – looked more Chinese – or was it that he said his name was Eddy Tansil? Shit. I can’t really remember. But who cares? People come and go, don’t they?

The aliens also told me they operate out of their base in Sumatra. This gives them easy access to whom they say are the “chosen ones” – i.e. the orang utans at Bukit Lawang.

Orangutan

These hairy creatures are the future of the universe the aliens said – and all remaining 15,000 of them will be progressively transported from Planet Earth to Omega 1 (Nebula XX1) over the next five years or so in a series of UFO shuttle runs.

But while the aliens are on Planet Earth, they also make occasional trips to Jakarta.

For “recreational” activities, they told me. Cos an alien’s gotta do what an alien’s gotta do. Literally a case of beam her up Scotty!

Image courtesy of alien-squid-prawn.com (note to DPR: if it’s good enough for aliens, why not us? And why is Ariel still behind bars for having done NOTHING wrong? And he hasn't even be charged. If that's not totally wacky, I don't know what is!)

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