Articles by David Roberts

Saudis heart China

By the way, elsewhere in the world -- and yes, in case you didn't notice, there is an elsewhere -- King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia set off on his first trip outside the Middle East, perfectly timed to the President's desire to ditch the whole region. (And given what's happened to him there, you can't blame the guy, can you?) The Saudi king, in search of reliable allies, boarded his plane and promptly headed for... China.

This, along with much else to amaze and amuse, in today's TomDispatch.

A final wrap-up

Yeah, so, I spent several days last week blogging about the State of the Union speech. I know you're all sick of it -- probably were before I even started -- so this will be the last one I promise think.

I knew going in that political speeches are generally empty rhetoric, particularly Bushian speeches, but even I didn't anticipate the utter vacuity of Bush's pronouncements on energy independence.

So, forthwith, here's a final wrapup post on The Unbearable Pointlessness of Being ... interested in political speeches:

Super Bowl suckage

Grist's own Seattle Seahawks were screwed out of a Super Bowl victory last night by awful officiating -- some of the worst officiating in Super Bowl history.

And the commercials sucked. And so did the Rolling Corpses Stones.

Grumble.

And just to pretend this is about environmentalism, read Sustainablog's post about how green the stadium is.

Kristof for plug-in hybrids

Nicholas Kristof -- with whom I've taken issue in the past -- advocates on behalf of plug-in hybrids in his latest New York Times column.

I must say, it's passing strange to see issues once confined to greenie outposts suddenly flooding the mainstream press.

(via After Gutenberg)