Denial ain't just a....oh, nevermind

The NY Times also has a remarkable story called "At a Tea Shop in Cairo, Disbelief at War Reports" in the Sunday paper. The men occupying the New York Times editorial board Egyptian teahouse simply refuse to believe that the Iraqis welcomed the U.S. soldiers. But I really got a kick out of this last paragraph in the article:

He leaned back. "God makes us to enjoy life, not to kill people. In Egypt we have 7,000 years of civilization. Another country with just 200 years of civilization will not stand for a long time against the whole world."

Dude! You had a 6,800-year head start on us, and your country is a basket case!

According to the CIA World Factbook for Egypt:
Infant mortality rate = 58.6 / 1000 live births (Albania, Bolivia, and sanctioned Iraq were better)
Literacy rate = 51%
Per capita income = $3,700
Unemployment = 12%

All this in a country awash in oil and pulling in hard currency in tourism money (at least until 9/11). If you enjoy life so much, why don't you build a society where substantially more than half of the citizens can read?