Q: What do toilet paper and Venezuelan currency have in common? A: Absolutely nothing, as toilet paper is more valuable than is Venezuelan currency. No, seriously. And of course, toilet paper is hard to find in Venezuela.
Pejman Yousefzadeh
Pejman Yousefzadeh
Scribbling, scribbling, scribbling on the Internet.
Tagged Bush Administration
On Subjects Rachel Maddow Won’t Touch with a Ten-Foot Pole
I remember when Rachel Maddow of MSNBC wrote this opinion piece, informing us that the administration of George W. Bush did nothing to cultivate a deep bench of Republican leadership prospects. As far as Maddow was concerned . . . well . . . let’s let her words speak for themselves:
Quote of the Day
Mr Krugman thus implied that the British government—deliberately or mistakenly—had engineered measly growth at the beginning of its term, thus making it easier for the economy to roar back as the election approached. That would seem to ascribe to the coalition an unrealistic level of strategic wizardry and general deviousness, beyond even that possessed by the chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne. Though interesting, it may say more about Mr Krugman than the British government. —C.W.. Of course, as many of us already know, Paul Krugman is fond of crazy conspiracy theories.
There Was Never Any “Team of Rivals” in the Obama Administration
Richard Holbrooke was always one of my favorite Democrats–brilliant, dynamic, a fascinating personality, and a diplomat with actual, substantive accomplishments to his name (unlike a certain former secretary of state who is currently trying to convince us that she should be the next president of the United States). If life were fair, Holbrooke would have served as secretary of state in a Democratic administration (again, unlike a certain presidential candidate who actually did serve as secretary of state, despite the fact that she has no substantive accomplishments to her name), but alas, life is not fair. I bring up Holbrooke…
The Decline and Fall of American Foreign Policy
American foreign policy is–to put matters bluntly–in free-fall. The United States is significantly less able to influence events around the world, it is not trusted or respected by allies, and it has undermined its negotiating position with Iran in the nuclear talks by making it abundantly clear that it is desperate for a deal. If you care about the state of American foreign policy, you should be very scared right now. Let’s start with the recently concluded Israeli elections. Benjamin Netanyahu won, and that made the Obama administration mad. So the administration decided to work to delegitimize Netanyahu’s election by…
Foreign Policy Question of the Day
Why don’t we talk about the chaos in Libya as much as we talk about the chaos in Iraq? This time it was the guards from an Austrian-run gas facility in Libya’s Saharan southwest. They were shown beheaded in a series of images posted to social media on March 8. A few weeks earlier it had been 21 Egyptian Coptic Christian labourers, their throats slit, some murmuring prayers as they were slaughtered in the central coastal city of Sirte. A month before that it had been the storming of the five-star Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli in which nine were killed, including…
Social Media: Not the Place to Go for Sober-Headed Legal Analysis
There has been a lot of debate about the letter sent by 47 Republican senators to the Iranian regime regarding the negotiations over nuclear energy use–likely for weapons–by Iran. I happen to think that sending the letter was a bad idea; foreign policy has been found to be the province of the executive branch, with a few exceptions, and I generally don’t like it when people of either party freelance in opposition to any White House when it comes to foreign policy–even if I disapprove of the White House’s foreign policy. But while it is one thing to disapprove of…
Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Know the First Rule of Holes
The former secretary of state and putative next president of the United States held a press conference today to explain that thing about her e-mails. It . . . um . . . didn’t go well. Clinton now admits that yeah, maybe it would have been a good idea to use two e-mail accounts; one for official business and one for personal correspondence. We are supposed to believe the following explanation for why she didn’t: Clinton said she exclusively used her private e-mail account out of “convenience,” so as not to have to carry two phones. But she conceded that it…
Hillary Clinton Should Not Be President of the United States
The recent revelation that Hillary Clinton used a homebrew e-mail address to avoid disclosure requirements regarding e-mails–a home-brew e-mail address that was not secure and likely exposed communications to surveillance by foreign espionage agencies, mind you–should absolutely disqualify her from any consideration for the presidency. Clinton sought to evade transparency requirements, and she put the national security of the United States at risk in the process. No one who does either one of those things–let alone both of them–has any business occupying the big chair in the Oval Office. Don’t believe me when I write that Clinton’s e-mail habits likely compromised…
A Long Overdue Goodbye to Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Sullivan was one of two big-time bloggers–the other being, of course, Glenn Reynolds–to have helped put me on the blogospheric map. For that, I shall always be grateful. He was also–as Ross Douthat pointed out–extraordinarily influential in advancing the cause of same-sex marriage. Anyone who is the least bit concerned with fundamental human rights should be grateful to Sullivan for all that he has done on this issue. At the outset, when I first started blogging, Sullivan’s political views and mine coincided quite neatly. After a while, they began to diverge. I certainly changed some of my political views…
