Taking a break...

I've got some deadlines in the next few weeks, so before the end of the year blogging will be light. Hope to get back up to speed by January, 2008...

Until then, Happy Holidays!

Computer Troubles...and Thanksgiving Wishes

I've been having some problems with my laptop lately, and may have to reboot and reformat the whole thing. So, the blog may be offline for a few days. Meanwhile, to all readers: Happy Thanksgiving!

China Takes Africa

From today's NY Times Magazine article by James Traub:

Angola is a very, very poor country, but it is also an extremely rich one, for immense deposits of oil lie under the South Atlantic Ocean within its territorial waters. Thanks to the growing appetites of several developing nations, China in particular, that need oil to sustain the furious expansion of their economies, last year Angola, which otherwise has almost no economy, had more than $10 billion to play with. And it has used that money to pay more advanced countries to rebuild its infrastructure. This vision — call it “Development by China” — looks like a catastrophic mistake to the Western experts and institutions that have scrutinized, invested in and at times despaired of Angola.

And yet Development by China looks more like Africa’s future than its past. Angola is not alone in having choices, for the high price of oil has begun to transform the prospects of African countries once viewed simply as basket cases. Earlier this month, Nigeria, the continent’s oil giant, signed an $8.3 billion agreement with China to build an 1,800-mile railway. Oil production in Africa is expected to double over the next 20 years while it stays flat or declines in much of the rest of the world. And China has already begun, in myriad ways, to serve the interests of these emerging clients, while the United States, preoccupied with terrorism, has seen its dominant status slip. Angola, once a cold-war pawn, can now serve as a kind of test case in the latest struggle to shape Africa’s destiny. Call it Chinese-style globalization.

Thomas Sowell on Milton Friedman

From Opinionjournal.com:

As one of those privileged to have studied under Friedman, I felt a special loss at his death but also a sense of good fortune to have learned from him, not only when I was at the University of Chicago but also in the years and decades since then. He was a tough, no-nonsense teacher in the classroom but a kind and generous human being outside.

Students were not allowed to walk into his classroom after his lecture had begun, distracting others. Once, I arrived at the door just minutes after Friedman began speaking and had to turn around and go back to the dormitory, wondering all the while whether what he taught that day would be on the next exam. After that, I was always in my seat when Friedman entered the classroom. He was also a tough grader. On one exam, there were only two B’s in the whole class--and no A’s.

The other side of Friedman was his generosity with his time to help students, and even former students. In later years, long after I had left the University of Chicago, he helped me with his criticisms and advice on my work--only when asked. When I was offered an appointment to the Federal Trade Commission in 1976, he was asked by the White House to urge me to accept but he declined to do so. It was the best non-advice I ever got. I would have been miserable at the FTC.
Although in recent years we were both members of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, we each lived miles away and neither of us was physically present there with any great frequency, so the chance that we would both be there on the same day was virtually nil. The last time I saw Friedman in person was in 2004, when we were jointly interviewed on television. Afterwards, he gave me a ride in his little sports car over to the Stanford faculty club, where we joined a group for lunch. Then he drove back to his home in San Francisco, 30 miles away, though he was at the time in his 90s.

More recently, I happened to chat briefly with Friedman on the phone a few days before his death, and found his mind to be as clear and sharp as ever. That will always be a special memory of a very special man, one of the giants of our time--intellectually, morally, and as a human being.

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Milton Friedman, 94

From MichelleMalkin.com:

Today, upon news of the death of Nobel Laureate economist Dr. Milton Friedman, Gordon St. Angelo, president and CEO of the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, offered the following statement:

America has lost a true visionary and advocate for human freedom. And I have lost a great friend.

Milton’s passion for freedom and liberty has influenced more lives than he ever could possibly know. His writings and ideas have transformed the minds of U.S. Presidents, world leaders, entrepreneurs and freshmen economic majors alike. The loss of his passion, incisive mind and dedication to freedom are all national treasures that we mourn for today.

Milton never chose to slow down; even at 94 he kept fighting to bring educational equality to all of America’s children. And it’s this vision, this drive for educational liberty that the Friedman Foundation will continue to bring to families throughout America.

His impact on my life over the last 33 years was significant. His impact on the world was momentous. Without a doubt, few people have done more to advance civil and economic liberties throughout the world during their lifetime than Dr. Milton Friedman.

Here's an excerpt from a July, 2006 Wall Street Journal interview which included Mrs. Friedman:

Mr. Friedman here shifted focus. "What's really killed the Republican Party isn't spending, it's Iraq. As it happens, I was opposed to going into Iraq from the beginning. I think it was a mistake, for the simple reason that I do not believe the United States of America ought to be involved in aggression." Mrs. Friedman--listening to her husband with an ear cocked--was now muttering darkly.

Milton: "Huh? What?" Rose: "This was not aggression!" Milton (exasperatedly): "It was aggression. Of course it was!" Rose: "You count it as aggression if it's against the people, not against the monster who's ruling them. We don't agree. This is the first thing to come along in our lives, of the deep things, that we don't agree on. We have disagreed on little things, obviously--such as, I don't want to go out to dinner, he wants to go out--but big issues, this is the first one!" Milton: "But, having said that, once we went in to Iraq, it seems to me very important that we make a success of it." Rose: "And we will!"

BTW, Milton Friedman had kind and generous soul. He helped with my book PBS: Behind the Screen-- the final chapter tells the story of how Friedman got Free to Choose on the air, over the opposition of PBS executives. It was based in part on a long on-the-record telephone interview with Friedman, who spoke frankly and at length to a total stranger. He later paid the ultimate compliment a writer can give, when he quoted from my work in his autobiography (co-written with Mrs. Friedman) Two Lucky People:

As Laurence Jarvik writes, "While Galbraith was seen as a moderate by PBS, Friedman, who called himself a liberal and who advocated laissez-faire free-market policies, was viewed as an extremist." He quotes Allen Wallis as saying "The public broadcasting people regarded Friedman as a fascist, an extreme right-winger. They didn't want to have anything to do with him." (p.474)

IMHO, Friedman was a real mensch, who left the world a better place than he found it...

Here's a link to the Free to Choose website. A new PBS show about Friedman is scheduled to air in January, produced by Bob Chitester of the original series. It is called The Power of Choice: The Life and Ideas of Milton Friedman.

Christopher Hitchens on Borat

From Slate:

Is it too literal-minded to point out what any viewer of the movie can see for himself—that the crowd at the rodeo stops cheering quite fast when it realizes that something is amiss; that the car salesman is extremely patient about everything from demands for pussy magnets to confessions of bankruptcy; and that the man in the gun shop won't sell the Kazakh a weapon? This is "compliance"? I have to say, I didn't like the look of the elderly couple running the Confederate-memorabilia store, but considering that Borat smashes hundreds of dollars worth of their stock, they bear up pretty well—icily correct even when declining to be paid with locks of pubic hair. The only people who are flat-out rude and patronizing to our curious foreigner are the stone-faced liberal Amazons of the Veteran Feminists of America—surely natural readers of the New Statesman. Perhaps that magazine's reviewer believes that Borat is genuinely shocked when he finds—by video viewing—that Pamela Anderson has not been faithful to him and he will thus not be the first to "make romance-explosion on her stomitch." (And either the love goddess agreed to stage the moment when Mr. Sagdiyev tries to stuff her into a "wedding bag," or she and her security team displayed a rare indulgence to the mustachioed interloper.)

The joke, in other words, may well be on the prankster. I thought the same about Da Ali G Show. As far as one can tell, most youth culture is as inarticulate and illiterate and mannerless as Sacha Baron Cohen made it out to be: The elderly dupes who did their best to respond (Gen. Brent Scowcroft on the anthrax/Tampax distinction being the most notable) were evidently resigned in advance to quite a low standard of questioning. You can see the same fixed expressions on the faces of politicians when they attend a "real" event, like Rock the Vote, where wry, likable smiles are obligatory, and the only dread is that of appearing uncool.

Having gone this far in a curmudgeonly direction, I may as well add that any act that depends too much on the scatological is in some kind of trouble. Borat—and Borat—rely on excremental humor from the very first frames. This isn't unfunny just because it's infantile and repetitive and doesn't know when to stop; it's unfunny because the revulsion produced by feces is universal and automatic and thus much too easy to exploit. This is especially true when, in a cheap knockoff of Luis Buñuel, our hero decides to introduce the unmentionable topic at the dinner table. (To be honest, I am still reeling at the relative composure of that Birmingham society lady. If I wasn't trying to change the subject, I would say that I admired her phlegm.)

Daniel Pipes on What Went Wrong in Iraq

From his article in The National Interest:

Alongside the easy and fast victory over Saddam Hussein, the Bush Administration made a critical conceptual mistake—raising short-term expectations too high. Nomenclature alone required Operation Iraqi Freedom to quickly produce a vibrant, healthy, open, calm Iraq, with anything less constituting failure. Talk of a "free and prosperous" Iraq serving as a regional model foisted ambitions on Iraqis that they—just emerging from a thirty-year totalitarian nightmare, saddled with extremist ideologies, deep ethnic divisions and predatory neighbors—could not fulfill.

As Iraqis failed to play their appointed role, frustration grew in Washington. Deepening the trap of its own making, the administration forwarded these ambitions by bogging itself down in such domestic Iraqi minutiae as resolving inter-tribal conflict, getting electricity and water grids to work and involving itself in constitution writing.

Had the U.S.-led coalition pitched its ambitions lower, aspiring only to a decent government and economy while working much more slowly toward democracy, Iraq's progress over the past four years would be more apparent. The occupying forces should have sponsored a democratically-minded strongman to secure the country and eventually move it toward an open political process; and this approach would have the benefit of keeping Islamists out of power at a moment of their maximal popular and electoral appeal.

Kazakh President to Western Countries: "Don't Tell Us What To Do..."

In case you didn't understand what prime minister Feliks Kulov said in Kyrgyzstan, the president of Kazakhstan also expressed his frustration with foreign meddling, according to Pakistan's Daily Times:

ASTANA: Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev said on Friday his country had had enough of foreign advice and should not “blindly copy” Western models of democracy.

It was not clear what prompted his speech, although it comes in the week that neighbouring Kyrgyzstan changed its constitution to slash its president’s powers and ahead of a likely “no” to Kazakhstan’s chairing the OSCE, a democracy and rights body.

“We already have enough advisers from here and there, from the West and from across the ocean, telling us how to live and work,” Nazarbayev told a congress of the Civic Party, which supports him and is merging with his Otan (Fatherland) party. “Enough already,” he said. “Kazakhstan is not a state that can be ordered about and told what to do. We know what we need to do and do what we need.”

...The only hint that Kyrgyzstan may have been on Nazarbayev’s mind was a reference in his speech to trouble around the world, both “for distant and nearby neighbours”. As recently as September, Nazarbayev publicly repeated that he was still intent on chairing the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 2009, a role he sees as bringing international prestige. The 56-member organisation is due to announce a decision next month. Western states had offered support for his chairmanship in return for democratic progress. But, following Nazarbayev’s Soviet-style 91 percent margin of victory in last December’s election, that support has ebbed.

In his speech, Nazarbayev said: “We should not pull up our trousers and run after every foreign recommendation ... We should not blindly copy foreign schemes.” He said political reforms in Kazakhstan should instead be “balanced” and take into account the people’s will.

Nazarbayev last launched an attack against Western values in June 2005, saying his country could not subscribe to Western-style democracy as it had a different culture and needed to guard against instability in a volatile region.

Christopher Hitchens on the Fall of Donald Rumsfeld

From his Mirror (UK) article, The Man Who Would Not Listen:

Is it only five years since the society columns in Washington were describing Donald Rumsfeld as “hot”, and printing stories about how ladies of a certain age wanted his phone number?

The aplomb he displayed during the campaign in Afghanistan, and the way he seemed to enjoy his press conferences, were just the tonic that the country appeared to need after the humiliation and panic of 11 September.

It didn’t hurt that the Secretary of Defence had been seen in his shirt-sleeves, helping direct rescue operations after a plane ploughed into the Pentagon.

As the Taliban fled and Afghans greeted American soldiers as liberators, the escape of Osama bin-Laden was a detail that could be taken care of later, and “Rummy” seemed able to do no wrong.

By this month, it seemed not only that he could do nothing right, but that everything that had gone wrong was his fault.

President Bush's Veteran's Day Proclamation

From the Veteran's Administration Veteran's Day website:

A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

Through the generations, America's men and women in uniform have defeated tyrants, liberated continents, and set a standard of courage and idealism for the entire world. On Veterans Day, our Nation pays tribute to those who have proudly served in our Armed Forces.

To protect the Nation they love, our veterans stepped forward when America needed them most. In conflicts around the world, their sacrifice and resolve helped destroy the enemies of freedom and saved millions from oppression. In answering history's call with honor, decency, and resolve, our veterans have shown the power of liberty and earned the respect and admiration of a grateful Nation.

All of America's veterans have placed our Nation's security before their own lives, creating a debt that we can never fully repay. Our veterans represent the best of America, and they deserve the best America can give them.

As we recall the service of our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen, we are reminded that the defense of freedom comes with great loss and sacrifice. This Veterans Day, we give thanks to those who have served freedom's cause; we salute the members of our Armed Forces who are confronting our adversaries abroad; and we honor the men and women who left America's shores but did not live to be thanked as veterans. They will always be remembered by our country.

With respect for and in recognition of the contributions our service men and women have made to the cause of peace and freedom around the world, the Congress has provided (5 U.S.C. 6103(a)) that November 11 of each year shall be set aside as a legal public holiday to honor veterans.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim November 11, 2006, as Veterans Day and urge all Americans to observe November 5 through November 11, 2006, as National Veterans Awareness Week. I encourage all Americans to recognize the valor and sacrifice of our veterans through ceremonies and prayers. I call upon Federal, State, and local officials to display the flag of the United States and to support and participate in patriotic activities in their communities. I invite civic and fraternal organizations, places of worship, schools, businesses, unions, and the media to support this national observance with commemorative expressions and programs.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirty-first day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-first.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Ann Coulter on the Democratic Victory

From Ann Coulter.com

So the left won the House and also Nicaragua. They've had a good week. At least they don't have their finger on the atom bomb yet.

Democrats support surrender in Iraq, higher taxes and the impeachment of President Bush. They just won an election by pretending to be against all three.

Jon Tester, Bob Casey Jr., Heath Shuler, possibly Jim Webb — I've never seen so much raw testosterone in my life. The smell of sweaty jockstraps from the "new Democrats" is overwhelming.

Kyrgyzstan's Failed November Revolution

While the US elections were coming to a head, an attempted coup has been averted in the former Soviet Republic of Kyrgyzstan. Face-saving compromise language for the constitution provided a fig-leaf for protest organizers, who failed to force the resignation of Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev--their original demand, and impetus for a week of protests. Despite red tents and red flags, these November events did not become another red revolution.

Russian president Vladimir Putin reportedly played a key role in urging Bakiyev to hang on. Kommersant's Mikhail Zygar interviewed one of the leaders of mass protests in Bishkek held on the anniversary of the Russia's October Revolution (actually November 7-8 in the Western calendar). He admitted the coup attempt had failed:

I spoke with senior parliamentarian Dooronbek Sadyrbaev, known in Soviet times as a film director and dissident, in private in a yurt.

“I think we have lost. Yes. The opposition lost,” he said. “The young liberal leaders of our opposition made the same mistake Sartacus did. He didn't want to attack when he had 300,000 people, so he had to attack with 30,000. I tried to convince them that we had to do that as quickly as possible.”

“You were for a coup? For storming the presidential palace?”

“Of course! We had to neutralize Bakiev and Kulov in the first day and not miss the moment. We had to storm the presidential palace and turn them over to a court. Bakiev played for time and our young leaders did not make a decision. But that won't save Bakiev. He won't last to the end of is term.”

The Revolution and Counterrevolution Are One

The parliament waited all day for instructions from the president.

“At first we wanted new parliamentary and presidential elections three months and six months after the new constitution was passed,” parliament member Melis Eshimkanov recounted as he smoked nervously. “But they all wanted to serve out their terms – to 2010. The president and the administration. So we conceded to them. Let them serve their damn terms! Now we are waiting for the president to sign the order.”

A few hours later, the president declared new conditions. Besides the demands the opposition had already accepted, he wanted to be the coauthor of the new constitution, to have the right to approve ministers and appoint judges without consulting with the parliament. The parliament agreed to it. And still the president didn't sign the order.

“He spoke with Putin on the phone Tuesday evening and that gave him new strength,” they said around the parliament.

Olga Mikushina's report on the Central Asian website Ferghana.ru, features an interview with Kyrgyz political scientists Nur Omarov and Alexander Knyazev. Alexander Knyazev also called the events a coup attempt:

Establishment of the Constituent Assembly was illegitimate indeed. I accept it. It was nothing short of a coup d'etat... particularly without the parliamentary quorum.

The two experts go on to argue that the failure of the coup strengthened the current governing "tandem" of Bakiyev and prime minister Felix Kulov, and weakened the parliamentary opposition.

Nur Omarov: Crisis in the camp of the opposition leaders is undeniable nowadays. It should have been expected. Whenever a group is acting against something or someone, its members inevitably end up at each other's throats sooner or later. I'd like to add as well that all of that is happening as though in some other life, leaving society and the population absolutely unaffected. Social protest is what is absent. Neither side in the square included any socially active people. Some turned up because they had been paid to do it, others because they had been forced to (like budget sphere employees) but nobody was a genuine social protester.

Alexander Knyazev: Society is worn down. The population of Bishkek will only rise in response to something like that what happened last March - pogroms and all that. City dwellers will be better organized if it comes to that than residents of rural areas. After all, the former do have something to lose. It's like nomads and farmers. Whenever the former will leave to avoid trouble, the latter will remain and put up a fight to defend what is his.

Question: What turn will the events take now?

Alexander Knyazev: Bakiyev and Kulov need interaction and cooperation. Reinforcement of the executive branch of the government and security structures is what they need.

Nur Omarov: That's right. It is the executive branch of the government that handles the problems the population is facing. Properly or inadequately, regardless of whether it wants it or not. As I see it, an attempt to split the tandem is the worst mistake Bakiyev may make now. Left to their own devices, they are not even nearly as strong as when they operate together. Bakiyev won the November round. It's time Kulov solidified his position. The regime has emerged from the confrontation with the least damage to itself.

Why should Americans care about this?

Because many in Kyrgyzstan appear to believe that the opposition is supported by the European Union and the US government. As in Venezuela, where a failed coup attempt supported by the US strengthened the Chavez regime and increased anti-American sentiment throughout Latin America (Bush just lost Nicagaragua to Daniel Ortega, for example); perception of American and EU meddling in Kyrgyz politics (especially failed meddling) threatens to inflame anti-Americanism throughout Central Asia. Since the US air base in Manas, Kyrgyzstan supports the war in Afghanistan, and might be useful for any operation against Iran, it might be prudent to reconsider continuing any American (or EU) support for the Kyrgyz opposition. Especially given the comments of prime minister Felix Kulov in today's Washington Post:

"The adoption of a constitution within minutes deserves to be in the Guinness Records Book," Kulov said, referring to two quick votes late Wednesday after which parliament adopted the amendments. "We have to be wise to avoid groundless aggravation of the situation and prevalence of unsatisfied ambitions over reason."

Translation for Americans and EU readers: "Leave Kyrgyzstan alone..."

My Dinner With Chris...

...Matthews.

Here's the background:

Last night, the sister of someone I know came to town for a visit. We had a nice time at the Kennedy Center's "Performance Plus" event--a talk by George Washington University professor Jessica Krash devoted to songs about love and death, featuring excerpts from works by Schumann, Brahms, Mahler, Corigliani and others. She really did a great job, though some of us wondered why she left out Wagner's Liebestod...In any case, the ticket price included a free wine-tasting (3 Italian vintages, perhaps in honor of incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi?), some free nuts, as well as 1/2-off parking ($7.50 instead of $15). So it was a good deal, as well as educational, and fun.

Afterwards, we decided to try a new restaurant that just opened on the same block as our neighborhood Politics and Prose Bookstore. It still had no sign out front, maybe because it is supposed to be so happening that you peek through a peephole in the front window to see if it is open. It was.

We entered the dark interior, stripped bare to plaster walls and wooden beams. Inside we discovered the joint is named Comet Ping Pong. It is a pizzeria with a wood-fired oven. The "hip" touches include eating off of (pseudo) ping-pong tables, and a real ping-pong area in the back.

The place was very dark, but we did make out--a few tables away--a famous celebrity pink-shirted CNBC talk-show host, Chris Matthews. He was sitting with WJLA-TVs local news anchor (his wife) Kathleen Matthews, alongside what looked like family members. We don't know what they ordered, probably some sort of pizza, because that's all they seemed to serve, but they seemed to be having a good time.

Our team ordered two vegetarian pizzas: one with anchovies and onions, the other with tomato sauce and mozzarella. They were served on a single tray--no plates!--and although the waiter had said they would be 9-inches in diameter, it would be more honest to say they were 9-inches long and about 3-inches wide.

And one of them was burnt.

The salad tasted like it came out of a supermarket pre-washed plastic bag.

The glass for the chardonnay served to the sister of someone I know was smaller than the glasses orange juice used to come in NYC diners when I lived there a quarter of a century ago (very small).

And our waiter seemed to be about 16 years old.

There was no menu, and no prices. There was a board listing pizzas, but no prices on that, either. After some questioning our server told us what things cost, approximately. The $9.00 pizza price quote turned out to be sort of a Washington budget estimate. One pizza cost $10, the other $12....

Still, it was a lot of fun to hobnob with local celebrities, on the day after the historic Democratic wave swept the House and Senate--especially since Matthews used to work for the legendary Tip O'Neill. Now, if we only had been able to hear what he had been saying...

Kazakh Fashions Come to Washington

From Teresa Wiltz's fashion column in today's Washington Post:

Designer Azhikhan, her blond hair providing striking contrast to her Central Asian features, seemed eager to present an alternative view of the Kazakh woman.

Did she see the [Borat] movie?

"Yes," she said, shaking her head and smiling. "I saw."

And did she laugh?

"Yes. Very funny. But some situations . . . I felt a little bit sad.

"Everything, it's not true. . . . The faces are not exactly Asian faces. . . . We're beautiful women in Kazakhstan. We like expensive clothes. We have high buildings! We have Bentleys! I have a home that cost $3 million."

Judging by Azhikhan's designs, Kazakhstan is a land where the women are rich, modest -- this is, after all, a largely Muslim nation -- and shivering from the cold. Think Doctor Zhivago transplanted into the cellphone excesses of the 21st century: rich jewel shades, earthy prints and pelts. Fur -- chinchilla, mink and faux -- cropped up in everything, trimming funnel necks on great, charcoal velvet coats, slung around the hips of a paisley-esque maxi-skirt, punctuating jackets shot though with shimmers of Swarovski crystals. (About the fur: It's a tossup as to who would be more unwelcome here: Sacha Baron Cohen or the red-paint slingers of PETA.)

Why Fire Rumsfeld Now?

President Bush's announcement yesterday shows that elections do make a difference. The Democrats wanted Rumsfeld's head--and they got it. (One Republican commentator told local news radio that if Bush had done this a month before the election, the Democrats might not have taken the House.)

As far at the Robert Gates nomination goes, if I were the Democrats, I might want to give Gates a very hard time in confirmation hearings--and maybe reject him altogether, just to show who's boss...

Kazakh Woman Takes On Borat

In yesterday's Washington Post, Gauhar Abdygaliyeva published her op-ed responding to Borat's insult humor with intelligence and class:

Kazakhstan is the world's ninth-largest country in land area. It is in Central Asia along the famous Silk Road, which once stretched from Venice to Beijing. We "walk on oil," but that's not the only thing we were blessed with. Our social and economic achievements in the past decade have been remarkable.

But I would rather speak of my people. I am in my mid-20s and am myself a good example of what today's Kazakhstan is about. I was the first of three children born to an average Soviet family in the year of the Moscow Olympic Games and the Oscar-winning movie "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears." My dad worked at the Space Research Institute of the Kazakh Academy of Sciences, while my mom taught computer science at the National Technical University. The tradition of education in my family, which led me to degrees in international law and business administration and now has brought me to this country, is strong in Kazakhstan. That is why its people are among the most educated in the world and have a 98 percent literacy rate.

Borat says women can now ride "inside of bus" in Kazakhstan. Actually, men and women enjoy equal opportunity, and our women are more likely to be driving the bus. Before arriving in the United States, I worked for the best local law firm and then a U.N. field mission, and I had a car and an apartment in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana.

People in Kazakhstan take pride in their ancestors, the nomadic Turkic tribes that managed to unite and retain a territory the size of Western Europe for centuries, despite their vulnerable location between the Chinese and Russian empires. For many years the mostly Sunni Muslim Kazakhs, first as part of the Russian empire and then the Soviet Union, welcomed Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, Koreans, Jews, Chechens and Uighurs to their land regardless of their religious beliefs. Those people either chose to come or were deported to Kazakhstan by the communists for various reasons. At different periods my country has been affected by wars, famine and repression.

With the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the economic turmoil brought hardship. Many of my Russian, German, Korean and Jewish friends left for their historical homelands, but many others chose to stay and build a modern, thriving Kazakhstan together. Today those troubles are a thing of the past, and our people look to the future with great optimism.

The Kazakh flag Borat uses in the movie, with an eagle soaring in the blue sky under the sun, is our symbol of independence and pride. If your eyes have ever welled up when you saw the Stars and Stripes, you will understand how we feel about it.

The "moviefilm" by Sacha Baron Cohen, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," is playing well in American theaters. One can only applaud the humorist's talent, but the movie is entertaining only because the world is so unfamiliar with reality.

Making Sense of the Election

What does it mean? Democrats now control the House, the Senate hangs in the balance. it is the end of Bush's dominance, reaffirming his lame-duck status. He may try some dramatic ploys--even bombing Iran is not beyond the realm of possibility--but momentum has shifted to the Democrats. If they stick to bread-and-butter issues, and can get credit for ending the Iraq war without blowing up the world or the Middle East--they may position the party to win the White House in 2008.

How does Bush govern in this situation? He'll probably have to do what the Democrats want...

CSPAN's Intereactive Election Map

You can follow the state=by-state and district-by-district results of today's US elections, here.

Is John Kerry a Republican Double Agent?

The Pew Center reports that the Democratic lead has been shrinking since the former Democratic Presidential candidate--a "D" student himself--mocked the intelligence of American servicemen and women fighting in Iraq:

...nationwide Pew Research Center survey finds voting intentions shifting in the direction of Republican congressional candidates in the final days of the 2006 midterm campaign. The new survey finds a growing percentage of likely voters saying they will vote for GOP candidates. However, the Democrats still hold a 48% to 40% lead among registered voters, and a modest lead of 47%-43% among likely voters.

The narrowing of the Democratic lead raises questions about whether the party will win a large enough share of the popular vote to recapture control of the House of Representatives. The relationship between a party's share of the popular vote and the number of seats it wins is less certain than it once was, in large part because of the increasing prevalence of safe seat redistricting. As a result, forecasting seat gains from national surveys has become more difficult.