Things We Learned on Google Today- President of Turkmenistan Has Very Long Name

We don't have a list of every world leader in front of us, but we firmly believe that Turkmenistani President Gurbanguly Berdimukhammedov has the longest surname of them all! He became president of Turkmenistan in 2007 after replacing 'president for life' Sapurmurat Niyazov who died in December of 2006.



The current president, like the man before him, has been cited for human rights abuses by Amnesty International (amnesty.org), but hey we worry more about Republicans here! And, in all seriousness, while human rights abuses are a serious matter, I want to focus on this very remote country that few Americans have probably been to.



The capital of Turkmenistan is Ashagabat, which sounds like a city in a "Harry Potter" book, which has a population of 695,300.



Afghanistan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan border this former Soviet Republic.



There is apparently lots of unique cuisine in Turkmenistan, including the national dish plov (pictured here) which consists of mutton, rice and carrots.



Blogger Jon Rosenweig visited Turkmenistan and he discovered some other foods there, including chorek, which sounds similar to the Turkish dish borek, both of which consist of baked bread. There is also kohlbasa, a lunch dish made from fried kielbas with onions and boiled eggs.



Turkmenistan is the seventh former Soviet republic we have profiled in this series; Belarus was the pervious one.



SIDEBAR_ He's back. "Independent Weekly" in Durham, NC, is reporting that fringe Republican candidate Vernon Robinson will challenge Cong. Larry Kissel (D-NC), a moderate in North Carolina's 8th district.



Robinson, who has been nicknamed The Black Jesse Helms, challenged Cong. Brad Miller (D-NC) in 2006, even though he does not reside in Miller's 13th district.



To our knowledge, the only political office that Robinson has ever held was in Winston-Salem where he was a city council member who allegedly missed a lot of meetings.



Robinson also managed to get lots of media attention, even outside of North Carolina, for his racist anti-Hispanic ads back in 2006.