And we Americans thought that our electoral system was wacky! In Russia, presidential candidate Ivan Rybkin is missing. That's right, he's MISSING! Now if this were the old Soviet Union, it wouldn't be unreasonable to suspect foul play since any dissenters were routinely rounded up and sent to Siberia. But in this case, am I too naive to think that Russia has moved beyond such days? Rybkin was not a serious threat to Putin's reelection prospects so it might just be a coincidence that he's missing. Or maybe he's hiding on purpose in an effort to get some attention and maybe some sympathy votes. I just hope that Karl Rove doesn't get any ideas.

Speaking of Russian leaders, I'm reminded of a funny pattern that existed throughout the 20th Century. The pattern is that every other leader had hair and every other leader was bald. It goes like this : Lenin (bald), Stalin (hair), Khruschev (bald), Brezhnev (hair), Gorbachev (bald), Yeltsin (hair). Then Putin (hair) came in and the pattern got messed up.