We've heard a lot about how folks around the world are tuning in eagerly to the '08 campaign in the United States. But what about China? "Sufei" from Sexy Beijing wanted to know what the Chinese "man on the street" thinks about the U.S. elections. The answer? Not much:

Judging from the video, Chuck Norris is not exactly a household name in China, either.

It's always somewhat disconcerting to see retired leaders in new contexts. Exhibit A: Decorated general and former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell was the guest of honor Monday on ABC's The View, the daytime playground of veteran journalist Barbara Walters. She greeted Powell thusly:

Walters: I'm so pleased. We're also delighted that the day you watched the show was the day we were doing the breast pumping.

(laughter, chatter) 

Powell: Well, I was just sitting there working at my computer, and suddenly I heard this noise behind me and demonstrations of it all, and I couldn't resist turning around and watching for a minute or so.

Check out the full clip here.

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For some reason, my mom always told me that fortune cookies were invented by Jews from Brooklyn. I have no idea where she got that from. And it turns out she was wrong. But her main point was right: that fortune cookies were not Chinese, never were Chinese, and never would be. Go to China, and what's for dessert? Fruit! Go to Taiwan, and what's for dessert? More fruit! Fortune cookies are a pure American invention. They caught on in Chinese-American restaurants. But they aren't Asian.

Or are they? It turns out that fortune cookies have their roots in Japan, not China. According to the New York Times's Jennifer 8. Lee (who, natch, has a book coming out in March, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, about Chinese Americans and food), a Japanese scholar named Yasuko Nakamachi has dug up evidence that fortune cookie-shaped biscuits were crafted by hand near a temple in Kyoto as early as 1878. They made their first appearance in California in the early 1900s, possibly brought over by Japanese immigrants, and then were co-opted by Chinese immigrants. Nakamachi suspects that it happened because Japanese immigrants often owned Chinese "chop suey" (also American, not Chinese) restaurants in the United States during the first part of the 20th century. Chinese owners then took over the restaurants when the Japanese were rounded up and placed in internment camps during WWII. It wasn't until the 1950s that they became popular throughout the United States, after cookie-makers learned how to mass-produce them.

The funny thing is, in discussions of inter-Asian rivalry, many Chinese often complain that elements of Japanese and Korean culture actually stem from China, if you go back far enough. Now we've got a modern Chinese-American food that actually stems from Japan. But the most important question for Nakamachi and Lee is: Who decided it would be fun to tack on the words "in bed" to the end of every fortune?

FP obtained the following top-secret document outlining 10 iron-clad rules that the best pundits must follow in order to have fruitful careers and multiply their earnings.

After a long internal debate, we decided to share this vital—but possibly dangerous—information with you, our loyal readers. Enjoy.

The foreign-policy scholar was searching for inspiration. He walked on high, to the TV Studio of Knowledge. And the Lord of all Pundits revealed himself in a flash of klieg lights. And it was said unto him, “Follow these Ten Commandments and you and your think tank shall forever be a People of Pundits close to my heart.”

1. Thou shalt be the Expert, on Everything. If the press asks you for comment, always bless them with your “expertise and analysis.” It does not matter if the issue is Iraq, Darfur, trade, or bird flu—your knowledge is infinite and your opinion final. Never refer the reporter to a researcher who has actually studied the issue for years. Remember, you are the Alpha and the Omega, because you, holy of holies, have been on TV (plus, if you don’t know what to say, you can always lift ideas from the executive summaries of their journal articles).
2. Thou shalt not waste “time in the field.” Your 10 minutes chatting with the taxi driver on the way from your four-star hotel to the first-class lounge at the airport is enough to provide unique insight into what “the street is thinking.” The same goes for that night you spent in a hotel inside the Green Zone. You are Dr. Livingston back from the wilds, Achilles back from the front lines of war. Upon your return, write an op-ed, hold a press conference, and go on the talk-show circuit. These are far more worthwhile activities.
3. Thou shalt be Non-Partisanly Partisan. Learn the code words and the tax code. If your organization is “Progressive” or “Conservative,” it can toe the party line but still technically be “nonpartisan” and thus not have to pay taxes.
4. Thou shalt be neutral, but not always. Normally, a pundit must present him or herself as a “nonpartisan, disinterested analyst,” who “cares only about the facts.” But the Middle East is the exception to this rule. You must pick a side: Red Sox or Yankees, Sharks or Jets, Zionists or anti-Semites. Your side is always right and the other side is always wrong, and evil to boot. Plus, if anyone disagrees with you, they are most obviously a bigot and/or a terrorist.
5. Thou shalt not commit the sin of Footnotes. If you want to go primetime, you must wisely invest your energies in writing 700-word op-eds and jetting between press appearances, not the humdrum of actual book research. However, you need not waste the opportunity to make manna out of all that public exposure. Slap those op-eds together into a book, so that you have something to flog in your bio line.
6. Thou shalt not misuse the title of “former.” The three months that you were principal deputy under assistant secretary in the waning days of the Harding administration give you a knowledge that is supreme. It must be cited upon all occasions. Your data may be years outdated and your title may start with “former” because you were fired for incompetence and indicted for corruption, but this matters not to a Pundit; the TV host will never introduce that part of your resume to the audience.
7. Thou shalt remember the past day, by keeping it forgotten. There are no consequences for being wrong as a pundit. Call for an invasion and it turns out not to be a “cakewalk?” You never said it. Advise a political candidate who was indicted for prostitution or, even worse, lost the election? Never met the guy.
8. Thou shalt be who you need to be. A good pundit must be a chameleon, able to test the winds and portray him or herself according to the circumstances of the time. If a war is popular, you are a supporter. If it starts to go bad, you have “always been a critic from the start.” If you must present yourself as a regional expert, don’t worry about speaking the language or even having been to the country in question. The only requirement is keeping a straight face and a not-too-shiny forehead for the TV cameras.
9. Thou shalt not commit the sin of Common Sense. The press loves contrarian ideas, even if they have no basis in fact or even a lick of common sense. So, when the news cycle is slow, go ahead and toss that half-baked proposal out there in op-ed form, as if it reflected real research or analysis. It is not like there are any consequences (That is, unless a policymaker actually implements it. If so, see Commandment 7 and deny you ever wrote it).
10. Honor thy Funder. The funder giveth and can taketh away. The funder is not paying you to break new analytic ground; they are paying you to validate their own ideas and preconceptions. Work backwards. Their conclusions come first, then your “research” explains why. If donors ever get upset, name something after them. They like that.

The scholar thanked the Lord “for having me on today.” And it was good. And he spread the 10 Commandments of Punditry to all the think tanks of the Earth.

The scholar works at a think tank in Washington, D.C. and is a sinner of the first order.

On January 3, the 46th most-searched term on Google was "Iowa caucasus." You know, those Iowa Caucasus that are tucked between Azerbaijan and Armenia. 

(Hat tip: gurBlogs)

JUAN BARRETO/AFP/Getty Images

Supermodel Naomi Campbell apparently really dug deep last week when she got the chance to interview Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez for the British edition of GQ. Asked which world leader is the best dressed, Chávez plugged his friend's radical chic:

Fidel, of course! His uniform is impeccable. His boots are polished, his beard is elegant."

The Venezuelan strongman also had some choice words for George W. Bush:

Like the fairy-tale, the emperor [George Bush] is naked. We've seen the emperor's ass."

And, bizarrely, the British royal family: 

I like the Prince. Now he has Camilla, his new girl. She's not attractive is she?"

Don't be offended, Charles. He's probably just jealous.

For a top politician you can't continue in power when you are seen naked."

—Political analyst Ooi Kee Beng, commenting on news that Malaysia's health minister resigned after admitting being the guy in a widely distributed sex video

'Tis the season for wacky business revelations—or rather, wacky revelations about business people. The Financial Times' John Gapper highlights a number of incidents likely to raise a few eyebrows. For instance, David Rubenstein, co-founder of the private equity firm the Carlyle Group, bought a copy of the Magna Carta for $23.1 million. He plans to display it at the National Archives in Washington, to "repay a debt I have to the country." Less charitably, the CEO of Sallie Mae, the student loan behemoth that is in trouble thanks to the subprime crisis, bailed on a conference call:

It started amiably but Al Lord, its chief executive, then got into a tussle with analysts about how much information he was divulging. The call ended with Mr Lord saying testily to his head of investor relations head: "Let's get the (expletive deleted) out of here" and Sallie Mae's shares dropping 21 per cent.

You might have thought that staying on a call long enough to answer questions and remaining polite would not be too much to ask of a chief executive trying to retain confidence in his company.

This week, Fortune Magazine also launched its 101 Dumbest Moments in Business for 2007, including the seven dumbest moments featuring "Bosses behaving badly." Some choice highlights:

Number 1:

HBO President Chris Albrecht allegedly punches and chokes his girlfriend while drunk at 3 A.M. in a Las Vegas parking lot.

Number 2:

I like Mackey's haircut. I think he looks cute." -- Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, posting under the screen name Rahodeb, on a Yahoo Finance stock forum. The Federal Trade Commission reveals that Mackey authored this and numerous other posts over an eight-year period, hyping his company and himself while trashing the competitor he hoped to acquire, Wild Oats.

Number 6:

In July, as Bear Stearns executives futilely attempt to prop up two hedge funds that ultimately collapse amid the subprime meltdown, CEO James Cayne spends ten of 21 workdays out of the office, playing golf and competing in a bridge tournament in Tennessee. According to The Wall Street Journal, his fellow bridge enthusiasts claim that Cayne sometimes smokes marijuana at the end of tournament sessions.

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While Belgium's king and interim prime minister struggle to end the country's seemingly endless political paralysis and trade unions take to the streets in protest of the government's inability to form a coalition, Dutch-speaking Belgians seems to be taking out their frustration on an unlikely target. Twenty-year-old Czech immigrant Alizee Poulicek, who was recently crowned Miss Belgium, was booed at an event in Antwerp on Monday when it became clear that her knowledge of Dutch was minimal at best:

When the show's presenter quizzed her on her hopes for the future, she said: "I didn't understand, can you repeat?"

Ms Poulicek says she has been taking language lessons and has promised to improve her standard of Dutch.

[...] 

In halting Dutch, Ms Poulicek told the Flemish network, VRT: "I have to try to learn more."

She then went on in French: "I spoke almost no Dutch when I started this adventure."

That has not impressed the Flemish language press. 

Poulicek has spent half her life in the Czech Republic so she presumably speaks Czech in addition to French. Here in the United States, where Miss Teen South Carolina was greeted with polite applause for this performance, the idea that a beauty queen would be booed for being insufficiently trilingual is a little baffling. Then again, even in cosmopolitan Europe, the organizers of beauty pageants don't seem like the most enlightened bunch:

The organizer of the contest, Darlene Davos, said it could have been far worse.

"It is the least painful thing," she said. "I would consider it different if they had said: 'Miss Belgium is an ugly girl'."

Meet Sha Zukang, the new U.N. undersecretary for kicking butt:

From the moment I showed up at the General Assembly, the other countries knew I was trouble. They took one look at my three-button navy suit jacket and my dark, searing eyes, and prayed to whatever God they knew up there to keep their daughters safe from me....

I came here to do two things: advance the cause of economic equality, and get some tail—and I'm all set on economic equality.

Thank you, The Onion. With the Daily Show in hiatus, you're all we have.

JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images (FILE photo)

Perhaps hoping to turn back time after last week's electoral defeat, Hugo Chávez has finally followed through on plans to set back Venezuela's official clock by half an hour. The move is being billed as a public health measure but, as far as I'm concerned, is basically just begging headline writers to come up with stupid puns. (Back to the future, anyone?)

The scheme was originally announced back in September, but was derailed by confusion over whether clocks were being set forward or back. (Chávez didn't seem too sure himself.) Now that the scheme has been made official, Venezuela joins Afghanistan, India, Iran, and Burma as countries that differ from Greenwich Mean Time by half-hour increments. Take that, imperialists!

The change is one of several initiatives in recent days that seem meant to show that Chávez is still capable of making policy after his constitutional changes were rejected by a close popular vote. If one of the only upsides of accepting defeat for Chávez was that it bolstered his credentials as a democrat, activities like hanging out with Belorussian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko and dedicating statues of Ho Chi Minh in Caracas don't really make it seem like he's trying to capitalize.

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Vermiculate. Lobscouse. Desuetude. Macerate.

Just about every American high school student who has planned to attend university has had to learn words such as these in preparation for the SAT exam that is used as part of the college admissions process.

Now, by learning these words, whether for fun or for test preparation, you can also help end hunger. A computer programmer created a Web site, Freerice.com, that throws multiple-choice vocabulary questions at you. For every one you answer correctly, the site donates 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. The first few questions are relatively easy, but as you answer questions correctly, subsequent ones become progressively more difficult.

Advertising income pays for the donated rice. The site averages close to 200,000 hits daily, and since October 7, 6.9 billion grains have been donated. How munificent.

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In the November/December issue of FP, Jeff Chang's article, "It's a Hip-Hop World," described the social, political, and even economic implications of hip-hop's appeal to young people around the globe. It appears, however, that age is no longer a factor in hip-hop's growing popularity. In China, the "hip-hop grannies," a 30-member group of retirees, perform hip-hop dance routines for both entertainment and high-energy exercise. Most of the members are over 60, but that hasn't slowed them down. The group is now performing on tour and taking China by storm.

I know the saying "you're only as old as you feel," but I don't think I can imagine Grandma Lewis taking part in this particular international trend.