Every December we argue long and loud about exactly where Santa Claus lives, but until now, we never thought that people did scientific research about it.

A Swedish engineering firm with too much time on their hands recently calculated the ideal place for Santa to be based if he wanted to optimize his delivery of Christmas presents on December 24. It turns out that, taking into account the population distribution and the earth's rotation, Santa should start in a spot 22 miles north of Kapkatash in Kyrgyzstan.

While Kyrgyzstan is not known as a tourist hot spot, we already know it as the gentle place where bank robbers use hypnosis instead of guns, and Kapkatash is not far from the border with Borat's home of Kazakhstan. Perhaps we'll soon be promoting "find the real Santa" tours to Kapkatash?

Related Stories:
· Santa's Best Location: Kyrgyzstan [Jaunted]
· Please ... Or You'll Burn in Hell [Jaunted]

[Photo: Fanboy30]]]> amandak 2007-12-07T09:30:02-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2006/11/9/75122/8844
Despite knowing that there's more to the world than the fluffy-moustached alter-egos of British comics, we seem to get a nervous twitch when we go too long without mentioning Borat or Kazakhstan. Luckily for us, Lonely Planeteer John Noble goes inside the real Kazakhstan this week. He's currently working on LP's fourth-generation Central Asia guide.

While Noble reminds us all that nothing in Kazakhstan is exactly like Borat tells it--that Cohen probably chose the country simply because most Westerners knew little about it, that ethnic Kazakhs look nothing like Borat, and that women do ride on the insides of buses there--he also, perhaps unintentionally, does a bit to rub in Borat's stereotypes as well:

Families trace their lineages back to the scions of Ghenghis Khan, and Kazakhs play the wild sport kokpar, a kind of free-for-all football on horseback with an animal carcass instead of a ball.