Obama, Indonesia, and Egypt...

I like Barack Obama. If I was an American I would have voted for the man. But, Mr. President, you are letting your 3 plus years in Indonesia go to your head and cloud your judgment. Indonesia is not a shining example that Egypt must follow as an example of how to transit from a dictatorship to democracy.Perhaps you and your team need to revisit some of your perceptions of Indonesia. The reform

Watching Porn and Thoughts of Rape and Pedophilia...

It is interesting how an argument that links pornography to all sorts of society ills is trotted out to justify a crackdown. There is a distinct difference between arguments regarding the morality of porn and arguments about porn leading to increases in occurrences of rape and pedophilia. So, when high ranking individuals in government ministries, agencies, or the police force make statements to

"Poor" SBY...

The President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono or "SBY" to those in the know, has gone on the record (Kompas) intimating to high-ranking police and military officers that he understands their suffering on the salary front because he has not had a salary rise in more than seven years.However, this is the kicker, what the president did not say is that his salary is already twenty-eight times

Foreign Sex Tourism to Bali..

I read this the other day and sort of pondered whether to write about it or not. I pondered because writing about how the system fails so enormously might encourage pedophiles to chance their hand in the wild frontiers of child sex tourism that are the poor provinces of Eastern Bali. The most impoverished of the provinces; Singaraja, Buleleng, and Karangasem, are those that are most at risk.Sadly

A New Year & A New Minimum Wage for Jakarta...

Every year the minimum wage for Jakarta is increased. This is done through the issue of a gubernatorial regulation. The most recent of those was issued in November of 2010. The regulation, No. 196 of 2010, came into immediate force on 15 November 2010. However, the reality is that it came into effect on 1 January 2011.The new minimum wage for Jakarta is IDR 1.29 million per month. In Australian