Turkey

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Gobble! Gobble! Gobble!

Turkey is either a European country in the Middle East, or a Middle Eastern country in Europe, or a large bird native to North America that has been domesticated and tastes yummy when stuffed and slowly roasted (for this reason, domesticated turkeys are bred to be larger and thus meatier than their wild brethren).

Turkey is a modern democracy (though the military does get involved from time to time) in a region that is usually home to despotic theocracies, kingdoms, or one-party states. There is a high level of support for its secular constitution.

In Turkey (the country), turkey (the bird) is known as "hindi" (which refers to Hindistan, or India) in order to avoid confusion.

Perhaps this oasis of democracy will infect other Middle Eastern nations. However, it seems that due to the identification of secularism with military coups, stratocracy (a government headed by the armed forces, typically military chiefs) and elitism (the so-called "deep state theory"), Turkey is one of few completely secular countries where fundies actually have a shot at power.

Areas in what is now Turkey are almost as central to Christianity as Jerusalem. Several early Christians set up shop in Anatolia, occasionally going underground in the sandstone formations of Cappadocia. Constantinople (now Istanbul) was the capital of the Byzantine Empire and center of the eastern Christian world, up to when the Crusaders sacked it in the Fourth Crusade. Several major cathedrals are located there, such as the Hagia Sophia, which got converted into a mosque and later into a museum. Despite being so important to Christianity, Greek Orthodox was the main denomination there, so the West just kind of ignored it and today the Church is probably in crisis there as its archbishop (Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew) only has a small office compound, which is under constant threat from Islamic extremists and an inability to get more leaders for the spot.

Although Internet censorship was not generally considered a concern in Turkey, it became widespread after a new law was passed in May 2008. In one incident, Richard Dawkins' website was blocked after a complaint by Harun Yahya, a pseudoscience promoter who campaigns for the Islamic version of creationism. Harun Yahya claimed Dawkins' site contained "insulting" remarks about his works.[1] Fortunately this law was repealed in 2010, largely because they forgot to also ban vTunnel.com and hence the original law had no effect.

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For those who eschew the consumption of meat, Tofurkey® is a viable option.

Benjamin Franklin famously proposed that the Wild Turkey be the United States' national bird, though he could have just been mentioning it sarcastically while he was voicing his disapproval of the Bald Eagle.

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