In article ,
running dogg wrote:
uncle arnie wrote:
Mark Zenier wrote:
That's probably Turkmenistan, not Uzbekistan. It's getting to the
point where you can't tell those central asian dictatorships apart.

We used to call the Latin American dictatorships "banana republics". We
need a term for the Asian variety. Suggestions?

Rice republics? (In the US, souped up Japanese racing cars are called
"rice rockets".) But "Asia" is a big place, stretching from Turkey to
Oman to Japan. When that is considered, rice doesn't really fit. Maybe
the Muslim variety (most of the places we're talking about have Muslim
populations) could be called halal republics, halal being the Muslim
equivalent of the Jews' kosher. Any other ideas?

Bananistans. ;-)

(Although it doesn't make that much sense, as the crop
that makes the economy in most of those places is cotton.)

Mark Zenier Washington State resident