Saudis ban 'lewd' license plates (eg. 'USA')

[emad]

Source: bbc

Saudi Arabia has banned vehicle licence plates which are seen as "offensive" in English when Arabic letters are given in the Latin alphabet, reports say.

Saudi newspaper al-Watan said the banned words included "sex" and "ass", but the list was topped by "USA".

Al-Watan said 90,000 existing plates were to be replaced.

Personalised plates are popular with wealthy young Saudis. One plate recently sold at auction for 6m riyals ($1.2m), the newspaper reported.


Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7995865.stm

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No wonder Prince Bandar has done a runner...

[MADem]

1. I'll bet they have no problem with ones like

KID or GRL or BOY, based on the recent ruling by a Saudi judge that the marriage of an eight year old child to a forty seven year old pervert was "OK."

Bandar, FWIW, is happily esconced in the Condi Rice/Hillary Clinton job in SA--he's their SECSTATE equivalent. It was a big bump-up for the mixed race son of a concubine. He's way up the food chain nowadays.

[Submariner]

2. Bandar is an international criminal

Frontline on PBS just did a report about where the big money goes around the planet. When the subject of multi-Billion dollar bribes came up in the conversation, he was all okay with it, he has no problems whatsoever with big bribes. Part of the program dealt with Halliburton/KBR paying bribes for contracts.

[MADem]

3. I have some horrible news. Saudis don't have problems with bribes at all.

None of them. Neither do Persians, Afghans, Turks, Egyptians, anyone from the UAE, Tunesians, Libyans...I could go on and on. It's the way you grease a wheel in that part of the world. And it's not just the BIG bribes--it happens in tiny ways, every day. Example: You want your phone installed? You can call the phone company and get on the list...and wait. And wait. And wait.

Then the guy shows up to hook you up. No palm grease? Ooops. A problem with the line. Wait six more months.

But, if you are smart enough to call up and suggest that you'd be VERY, yes, VERY grateful for an early intervention, and follow through with a nice "gift" (which will be refused, and which you will press upon the phone installer, INSISTING that he take your "gift") you will get your phone hooked up, and you will have a nice clear line.

Same way if you hire a car and driver. You pay what you owe, you may even haggle the guy down, and then you give a generous tip. It will be refused. You INSIST. The guy takes it "so not to hurt your feelings." Next time you call for a car, that guy is there with the best vehicle in the fleet.

We don't do it, so we don't like it. But if we refuse to do it over there, they don't "get" it.

It's why we use Viagra and Cialis as "bribes" for aging warlords in Iraq and the Stan. No, I'm not joking. They love it. It fosters cooperation, too. There's some slush-funding going on (horrible under Bush, apparently) and they're trying to get a handle on it and account for the dough better. But in a cash society, it's iffy.