Articles by David Roberts

CNOOC and Unocal

Some great comments from Billmon on CNOOC's bid to buy Unocal.

It's completely insane (or utterly craven, or both) to obsess over the $18.5 billion purchase of a second-tier oil company, when China is buying up roughly that same amount in U.S. Treasury and agency securities every quarter. China's stockpile of Treasuries ($235 billion at the end of April) already equals almost 12% of all U.S. debt in foreign hands, and is growing nearly twice as fast as the global total. And that's using the Treasury's own figures, which probably undercount. Add in securities held through third parties, such as offshore banks, and China could easily be holding close to $300 billion in America's national debt -- second only to Japan. And unlike Japan, nearly all of China's Treasury holdings are in the hands of the Chinese government.

If the dipsticks in Congress really had national security threats on their minds, they'd probably be worrying about that one -- not the risk that ownership of Unocal might allow China to tamper with the U.S. oil supply in time of war. If that nightmarish scenario ever were to unfold, the problem of seizing and securing Unocal's energy-producing assets would be trivial compared to the havoc that war would create in the global financial markets and the U.S. economy.

It’s gettin’ hot in herre, so take off all your robes…

Rumor has it Rehnquist and Stevens may be stepping down tomorrow.

Please, just wake me when it's over.

Sustainablogging around the clock

I have been remiss in not posting about this earlier:

On July 11-12, one of the leading lights of the eco-blogosphere, Jeff McIntire-Strasburg of Sustainablog, will be celebrating his blog's two-year anniversary by "Blogging 'Round the Clock." Yes, that means what you think it means: Jeff will be posting continuously for 24 hours. (Those familiar with the quantity and range of Sustainablog's content might already assume he never sleeps, but apparently he occasionally does.)

In addition to Jeff's own writing, he'll be publishing guest posts from other eco-bloggers, including yours truly and folks from Worldchanging and Greenbiz.

But this is not just to celebrate a blog. Jeff is asking readers to sign up and donate -- on a per-post basis -- to the Missouri Botanical Garden's Earthways Center, an outreach and education center in St. Louis that gets people fired up about sustainability.

Sign up to give Jeff $.50, $.25, or even just a dime a post. It's for a good cause, and a good blog.

Terror: Good or bad?

I believe the attacks in London today are horrific -- for the loss of life, obviously, but also because they distract attention from global warming and poverty in Africa, which are, in my humble opinion, much worse problems in the grand scheme of things.

A Fox News anchor agrees with me that the focus has shifted, but thinks, for that very reason, that the attacks are a good thing.