A surprise from the NYT


Katy says: As I begin reading today’s newspapers, I see that the New York Times has a couple of recent articles on Venezuela.

One is a fairly tedious one about the boom in scotch sales in Venezuela. Yes, Venezuelans love Scotch, and yes, high oil prices mean Venezuelans will drink more and more expensive Scotch. It has happened before and it will keep happening. Big whoop.

The other article was a bit more interesting, although not much new there either: Chávez’s strengthening ties with Iran and other radical Middle Eastern states. A few things I found interesting: that the tractor factory Iran installed in Venezuela is actually functioning, that soon we will see Iranian Khodro Samand sedans rolling around Venezuelan streets, and that the Samand is actually not a horrible looking car (see picture).

The shocker came when I saw the list of most emailed articles… the article on Chávez and Iran is – at 11:34 AM Eastern time – at the top of the list! I wonder what that means.