Articles by David Roberts

And make it clear that Bush is talking smack

Bush's BFFs in Saudi Arabia were a little puzzled by his (now inoperative) comments about Mideast oil:

Diplomatically, Mr. Bush's ambitious call for the replacement of 75 percent of the United States' Mideast oil imports with ethanol and other energy sources by 2025 upset Saudi Arabia, the main American oil supplier in the Persian Gulf. In an interview on Wednesday, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Turki al-Faisal, said he would have to ask Mr. Bush's office "what he exactly meant by that."

If you know what he means.

In Washington, Prince Turki, the Saudi ambassador, said he was puzzled by Mr. Bush's words in the speech. He said he wanted to know if reducing American dependence on foreign oil also applied to other suppliers to the United States. "Is that a declaration that the U.S. is going to work to be independent of Canadian oil, Mexican oil and Venezuelan oil?" he asked, adding, "I see no threat from America from receiving its oil from the Middle East."

Say what you will about Saudi Arabia, but the guy's got a point. Oil is oil.

Bush didn’t mean he’d literally reduce Middle East imports

Well, turns out all the doubt, debate, and discussion about Bush's oil pledge was beside the point:

One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.

Let it sink in ... give it a second ... don't fight it ... theeere it is.

It was just a figure of speech! An old saw. An aphorism, you might call it. You know, like how they say.

Not that kind of 75%-by-2025, the kind you were thinking, with the 75% and the 2025. More like a metaphor.

SOTU: Corrections and updates

All right, I've been blogging on the fly since the SOTU speech, and in my haste I've gotten a couple of things slightly off. Boring corrections and updates below the fold.

Hybrid myths

BusinessWeek covers the "Top Ten Hybrid Myths."

Excuse me, but do people still think you have to plug hybrids in? Clearly I'm out of touch with mainstream American here in my elite coastal bubble, 'cause I mean c'mon.