The $2 million dollar president

I talked to an Iranian acquaintance yesterday. He told me that there was news about Susilo (the Iranians call him Susili due to the lack of the letter 'o') on Iranian television. He told me he was amazed that the Indonesian presidents gets many facilities including a house (I assume the presidential palace), swimming pool, and bodyguards. The television states that the country spends 2 million dollars a year to run the facilities.

That sounds about right.

He also added, that the Iranian President has to rent his own house (meaning not enough money to buy the house).

"Well," I sarcastically told him. "That's because Indonesia is a rich country. Not like Iran."

My friend added "and Indonesia does not spend all its money on uranium."

10 minutes flat

I asked for a copy of my grade transcript from the University of Pittsburgh (where I'm currently studying) yesterday. An official transcript.

Okay, so back in Indonesia, I would have to send in a request (putting my name on a book). Then wait three days for it to be printed (10 copies, each copy about 4 pages). I'm not sure what kind of printer they used back in Indonesia, but it took that long :).

Then once it's finished. I would have to go to the dean's office to have it sealed. Another 3 days. I'm not sure why all the run around. There's no easy way to do these things in Indonesia.

Anyway back to my story. So there I asking for my transcript. I told the person behind the table what I wanted. She told me to fill out a form (basically just put my social security number and my name), gave her my pitt ID. She asked me how many I needed (I asked for 8). Then, as I was about to ask her when I would be able to pick the transcript up, the printer started printing, and out came my transcript. All 8 copies of them.

I was amazed. She asked me if I wanted it sealed in an envelope (which I did). She even asked me whether I wanted the university to send it to the respective graduate schools which I intended to register to. I was in awe. Talk about service.

Anyway the whole process took about 10 minutes. Let's see that's 288 times faster than in Indonesia (6 days, assuming 8 hour workdays). Or if you prefer to talk in percentage that's .34% of the time it takes to do it in Indonesia, or 28800% increase over the speed in Indonesia.

I was so amazed it was so fast I had to keep myself from asking "that's it?"

Iraqi blog and other rambles

Was reading the news in yahoo.com, read one of the mandatory iraq news (mandatory meaning there seems to be one everyday). Found a link to this site. Take a look at it, tt's much better than my blog :)

Girl Blog from Iraq

Talking of Iraq. The US presidential debate was about 4 days ago. One of the most divisive factors in the US presidential race is the stance on Iraq. Was there WMD (well I guess that question isn't being debated as much)? Was there a need to attack Iraq? Was the war justified? And so on and so on.

How divisive are the elections? If you care to look at the content of the yahoo message board, you'll find republicans and democrats, conservatives and liberal, right wing and left wing bashing each other. Each side thinks the other side are stupid. There are rarely intelligent comments on the yahoo boards, so if you want to waste some time looking at stupidity, read it.

This is in stark contrast with Indonesia. There are no divisive issues in Indonesia. All the candidates know they need to get rid of corruption, re-ignite the economy, and so on. Those rethoric about what's needed are always given to the public. The good news is that the candidates understand the problem.. the bad news none of them has really good solutions. So in a campaign, after they sell out the same rhethoric... they start singing to woo the public. Everybody's happy... Don't you just love Indonesian politics?