Pulse of the Saudi Blogosphere · Global Voices
Ahmed Al-Omran

This week was a little bit quiet at the Saudi blogosphere. Probably most bloggers have decided to the chance of the very nice weather in Saudi Arabia these days by camping in the desert or going to the beach. However, there were several posts of note, so let's take a look at what was interesting.
This week has witnessed two Saudi bloggers meetups. The first was in Jeddah, where eight bloggers gathered for coffee, and talked about Linux, college life, and blogging. Fouad al-Farhan has a detailed report (Arabic) from the meetup. Another mini meetup was taking place in Riyadh, with a “females only” theme.
One of the hot topics in the Saudi blogosphere for this week was about driving, however, no women included this time. Trilancer wrote about road dangers, and thinks it is “tragic that a road accident soon becomes the reason for more accidents.” He blames that on the state of roads, and also the people, “since years of lax traffic law enforcement has shown them that the traffic police are always, if at all, after somebody else.” Dotsson was almost in another accident. Meanwhile, TyT takes the time to explain a phenomenon he called Attack of the Camry Boys. “These kids are REALLY annoying on the road, driving at speeds no less than 150km,” he wrote.
Under the title, “Do you remember him?” Abu Joori writes (Arabic) about a year after the mysterious death of Yasser Arafat that he was the best representative for the Palestinian cause. Abu Joori also prays for the Palestinian people to be united, and to gain their right by having their independent state on the Palestinian soil. More questions come from Meesho, who was surprised to hear the news about building the first church in Qatar, and wonders if we need to do this just to please the Americans and Europeans (Arabic). “Or is it a weakness? A weakness in our religion, a weakness in our personalities?” she asks.
Now, let's check out our selection of random, quick snippets for this week: Saudi Eve talks about being a news-junkie. Trilancer did not like the design of Nintendo DS portable game system, so he has been working on a new design. And Fouad al-Farhan expects some changes in the cabinet, naming three ministers that he thinks would be replaced. He says if his expectations were wrong, he is going to close down his blog (Arabic).
Finally, here is a piece of philosophy by ubergirl87, who wants to be anonymous, but not left out. “When I'm anonymous, I could be anything to anybody. (…) When I'm left out, people know who I am, but don't relate to me, and I don't to them. It's like being the odd one out. Whereas when you're anonymous you're not one in the first place,” she writes.