Random Assortment

- Viewed in the Pluit district of Jakarta: “Warung H. Tupac Shakur”
A warung is a food stall, and H. stands for Haji, one who has performed the pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj). I didn’t actually know Tupac Shakur was a Haji; nor that he was still alive; nor that that he had a food stall in Pluit. You learn something every day.

- What international relations are all about: Apparently, last month the president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, called Peruvian president Alan Garcia "fat and not very anti-imperialist"
(Via FP passport blog)

- A surprisingly high ratio of left-handed U.S. presidents
(via Marginal Revolution)

- In honor of visa-applying grad student friends
(from PhD Comics)

- Jakarta’s traffic really is something to behold [a traffic jam is “macet” (“ma-chet,”) a really bad one is “macet total.”] The Jakarta government has been combating this problem for years. Toll roads were built (guess whose daughter is their part-owner) and more recently whole lanes in downtown highways were cleared for public transportation – in itself a great idea.
Jakarta built the busway system that runs all along the main thoroughfares. The system is good, I think, and quite well designed too. There’s a problem, however. Despite the enormous cost (in public lanes, especially) the system is lacking one central ingredient: enough buses. In order to reduce traffic (which is not the only point of the system, but a central one,) the lanes need to carry more passengers than they would otherwise. Most of the time, however, the busway lanes are empty, waiting for the occasional busway-bus, while the other lanes are more macet total than ever.
The proposed solution? Cops on roller-blades!