the airlift to armenia after the earthquake. that ended up being a source of support for armenia that spanned 20 years. made him one of the country's 15 official national heroes. so the prospect of someone who is just a cousin of armenian, me and cousin kirk, being the writer, is especially -- i'm especially plead by it, that after all this time with are meanans knowing who he is but the rest of us clueless, is now at least -- kirk's now being shared with a broader audience and a wider bunch of americans, and i can't be -- couldn't be more delighted to be the -- a vehicle for sharing him and i'm grateful for the -- to all the armenians for sharing him with me. i'm also grateful for the armenians who have been buying this book like crazy. we have only been out now three weeks, and we're already in the third printing and it's a best seller. so thank you. [applause] >> we can do the q & a and i love telling stories so i have a million of them. thank you. [applause] >> if you have questions, please raise your hand, if you filled out

the mandate for armenia. take it over for palestine. put skin in the game. do what we're doing, and take on the burden of operating these parts of the world. >>> now, i can talk about it more if you want, but i'm going to skip ahead to what tasker bliss thought about this because i find it's really interesting. bliss understood the odds of the united states coming into this part of the world and making it better were really slim. all the ideals, all the good ideas, all the wonderful things in wilson's 14 points and in other documents simply weren't going to work. bliss said this. it seems that certain promises were made to the arabs. he's referring here to promises by the british to take all that stuff and make one arab federation out of it. in the early days of the war -- and now they are so unkind as to insist on these promises being fulfill fulfilled -- the consequence of grand triangular route on part of the arabs the matter be arbitrated by the united states. i myself have declared that i would not touch

in the book as the account of the only time kirk went to armenia and it was an emotional trip for him and i recommend that chapter. you mentioned the earthquake in 1988. was that a catalyst in the book first in the philanthropy and the latter parts of his life helhowdid that change over time because there were some shifts. >> prior to the earthquake, he was an extremely generous philanthropist, but you didn't know it because some people here are old enough to remember is he show called who wants to be a millionaire but every year in every week the secret millionaire gave the million to somebody on the condition that they never explained where the money came from. he gave generously everywhere with the caveat you can't tell anybody i gave this to you because you will never get another dime. so even after the earthquake before the airlift began, he gave money to the causes that it was in the same caveat. then he took some heat for not stepping up and helping. that's when he formed the lindsay foundation and had to have a way to assist. the foundation ended up giving away more than a bil

further east was around the black sea the caspian sea this area cloud just stretched across georgia armenia. that's in the process of pulling away as well so baku getting up to around seven celsius father draw across the events eighteen degrees there in beirut i will get up there at eighteen maybe nineteen degrees there for baghdad and for kuwait city touch warmers to go on into friday thank fine and try a little bit of a wintry mix them into the northeast as actions of the region but elsewhere as you can see it does look settled and sunny settle in sunny to across the arabian peninsula here in doha twenty two cells is feeling a little chilly and that's not going to change as we go on through the next few days quite a keen always a possibility of a little bit of lifted dust and sand stripe richard to into worse southern africa for the most part the drought continues for cape town twenty four celsius here still a few showers just around the eastern side of south africa and they'll still be there as you go on through friday capetown stays dry a little more cloud rolling in over the mountains

offer times for a few spots of rain but not too much i suspect the wetter weather will be up towards armenia maybe into. baquba to eleven degrees celsius which is forty better about myself he says we go on through to stay here but lousy dry and bright brighter skies also coming back in across syria lebanon jordan but some think of clout there just across israel northern parts of saudi arabia twenty three celsius in baghdad twenty one degrees there in kuwait city we're getting up into the low twenty's once again here and twenty three celsius as we go on through monday it should be largely dry winds falling light so it will feel somewhat warmer and it will be warmer as we go on through tuesday picking up to around twenty four celsius by this date further cloud to the north of us states right to this here in doha will just not jump as we go on towards the weekend may touch twenty five or twenty six degrees so that's something to look forward to still looking forward to some rainy cape town no sign of that in the forecast the showers continue across the eastern side of south africa heavy downpou

now, last time you were here, i asked you about the armenia tax treaty. didn't expect you to know, i did tell your staff in advance. and we have gotten the most absurd response. i'm an old tax lawyer. i know it's hard work but this is the easiest job they're ever going to have. they responded to judy chu who also raised this by saying that this is a very resource intensive process. here's the model treaty. we've published it. and the government of armenia has said they just want to sit down and use this as the basis and get the treaty done. 28 members of congress have asked you to do this. can you commit to investing 28 hours of one tax lawyer just 28 hours of that one tax lawyer's time because -- and to start the process i think he or she will finish the process. we're talking about filling in the blanks in a document we already have. can you commit 28 hours of one tax lawyer's time? >> i can commit the 28 hours. >> we will get it done and the benefits will include the exchange of information provisions which will allow the irs to get information about a

further east was around the black sea the caspian sea this area cloud just stretched across georgia armenia. that's in the process of pulling away as well so back you getting up to around seven celsius father drive across the events eighteen degrees there in beirut i would get upset about eighteen nineteen degrees there for baghdad and for kuwait city touch warmers to go on into friday thank fine and try a little bit of a wintry mix there into the northeastern sections of the region but elsewhere as you can see it does look settled and sunny settle in sunny to across the arabian peninsula here in doha twenty two cells is feeling a little chilly and that's not going to change as we go on through the next few days quite a keen always the possibility of a little bit of lifted dust and stripe richard to into worse southern africa for the most part the drought continues for cape town twenty four celsius here still a few showers just around the eastern side of south africa and they'll still be there as you go on through friday capetown stays dry a little more cloud rolling in over the mountains b

and the government of armenia has said they want to use this as the basis. twenty members of congress have asked you to do this. can you commit to investing 28 hours of that one tax lawyers time to start the process i think they will finish the process. we are talking about filling in the blanks. can you commit 28 hours? >> i can commit 28 hours. >> we will get it done and the benefits will include the exchange of information provisions will allow the irs to get information about anybody hiding assets. with the enhanced tax collection process. when it comes to marijuana, we currently have citizen guidance, and if you were to revoke that, and that would make it better for the armed robbers in my community because there would be huge amounts of cash at the local marijuana dispensary. to respond for the record and i hope you would indicate we don't want bags of cash at the marijuana dispensary down the street. >> i can commit we are reviewing it but we do not want bags of cash but to make sure to collect the necessary taxes. >> you assured us last time although