--- Kevin Robert Dean <qualiall at adelphia.net> wrote:
> Turkmen President Bans Lip Synching
>
> ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan - He has outlawed opera and
> ballet and railed against long hair and gold teeth,
> but now Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov is
> determined to wipe out another perceived scourge:
> lip synching.
>
>
Niyazov has also made knowledge of the book he wrote mandatory for getting a driver's license, and quotes from said book are written on Turkmenistan's mosques' walls along with verses from the Koran. He also has a giant statue of himself in the middle of Ashgabat that rotates every day to greet the sun, and has named the months of the year after things important to himself (I wish I could do that; "February" would become "Beer").
That said, a friend of mine spent six months travelleing through the 'stans and says that people in Turkmenistan seemed the happiest and best-off of anyone there. If I recollect correctly, Niyazov gives a solid chunk of the country's gas profits to the population in the form of cash payments.
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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