"Saudi Arabia's puritanical strain of Islam bans many forms of public entertainment, but wedding receptions are private affairs. They are also a primary battlefield for royal one-upsmanship. One family imported Italian-designed furniture for a wedding, then destroyed it to ensure that no one else would sit on it." Simeon Kerr, "To Have and to Hold, Cheaply," Wall Street Journal, 5 December 2002, A16.

Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (left): "Water is precious on the desert planet of Arrakis: so precious that beggers congregate outside our palace to ask for the leavings from our family banquets. We amuse ourselves by dumping the water we don't drink into the sand right in front of them."
Prince of the House of Saud (right): "As you can see, Baron, we could sell this Italian-designed furniture and give the money to our country's poor, or perhaps donate it to Palestinian economic development. However, we don't want some common peasant to sit in it after one of us has graced its surface with his or her fat posterior, so we destroy it instead. That burning couch behind us cost $50,000."
Baron Harkonnen: "We have a lot on common, don't we? I'm an even bigger and fatter pig than you; I'm so heavy that I need an antigravity belt to get around."
Prince of the House of Saud: "I'm working on it. Oink oink oink snuffle grunt oink."
Baron Harkonnen: "Why do you make your princesses wear veils, anyway?"
Prince of the House of Saud: "They're so ugly that even your sandworms wouldn't go anywhere near them."
Baron Harkonnen: "Well, it doesn't matter, as I'm really into boys."
Prince of the House of Saud: "Well, so are we. Sodomy is approved by our particular version of the Koran (the version that allows us to guzzle booze at our private parties, when drinking will get an ordinary Saudi a good flogging). In fact, that's why we're the House of SOD. Get it?"
Baron Harkonnen: "You Saudi rulers really are my kind of people."
Prince of the House of Saud: "Thank you, Baron. Now wait until you meet my next guest of honor, Jabba the Hutt..."