Of politics and sausage

As they say, making legislation is like making sausage. There's a final product, but you surely don't want to see the ugly process of it being made.I'm reminded of that old adage thanks to the political horse-trading that's going on, now that the election numbers are in and the presidential wannabes are all jostling for position. Kalla and Wiranto, SBY and take your pick of Boediono, Megawati, Prabowo, or even the Sultan of Yogyakarta.It's all a bit unseemly, much like New York Governor David Paterson's recent botched selection of a senator to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In fact the governor was so damaged by the affair that his...

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Lombok, getting on my nerves

Someone please stab me in the eye.Look, I love Lombok as much as the next guy. But the western media's obsession with 'The Next Bali' story is starting to rub me the wrong way. To wit, here's the latest version from Forbes. The trope goes thusly: Bali and its execrable Kuta Beach are overrun with hammered (usually Australian) tourists, therefore it's time to look to other undiscovered islands in the archipelago ... and hey, there's Lombok right next door. Write it up!If I see one more article like this I'm going to go postal. First of all, Lombok is not as 'undiscovered' as clueless feature editors would have you believe. Second, this story is...

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Election 2009: Lessons Learned

Now that we've had some time to digest the numbers - 'quantitative analysis,' they call it in the investment world - we can draw some conclusions from the recent Indonesian elections. And perhaps the biggest surprise of all was that there was no real surprise.President SBY's party came out on top, an event predicted by most polls in the runup. What wasn't quite as foreseen was the significant slump borne by the main opposition parties, like Golkar and Megawati's PDI-P. Late in election seasons most populations shift back to the status quo instead of the great unknown, and this time was no different. But the sub-20% showings were particularly...

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Election 2009: It's he-ere!

It seems like the buildup has been forever- although not quite as long as the interminable American version - but the elections are finally imminent. Glory glory hallelujah.Consensus is that the party of the generally inoffensive SBY will prevail, although polls have been fairly close in recent weeks. The 'Intelligence Unit' of the venerable Economist magazine predicts as much here, although noting that he'll be under rising pressure in coming months thanks to a global economy that's been brought to its knees.The electoral process will likely be a messy event, given the huge population and the thousands of far-flung islands we're talking about....

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And the winner is ... Megawati's party?!

Heed well the old children's fable of the tortoise and the hare. Because with just a week to go before the general elections, a new poll bombshell has Megawati's party pulling ahead.For months President SBY and his Democratic party have been mopping the floor with rivals in most polls. But this survey by the Strategic Centre for Development and Policy Review has the party of Sukarno's daughter - noted for her particular fondness for cooking and gardening, not so much for her policy brilliance - ahead by a half-point, with SBY's cohorts second and Golkar a close third.All of them, crucially, fall short of the 20% barrier to nominate a presidential...

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Favorite Place on Earth

If there's anyone who knows something about travel, it's Arthur Frommer. The creator of the Frommer's travel-guide series has been to just about every nook and cranny in the world. His favorite of them all, though? None other than Bali.We find this out courtesy of a new book from National Geographic, "My Favorite Place on Earth," where assorted celebrities let us in on their secret haunts. Other favored spots: The Simpsons creator Matt Groening likes Kauai, Hawaii, while Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler prefers Nepal - and designer Isaac Mizrahi singles out good old Brooklyn. (Big ups!)As for myself, I'd have to say Cambodia's Angkor Wat, Martinique...

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