Bad Deeds for 12-9-2009

North Slope Oil Spill in Alaska Among Worst Ever – Remember how conservatives tell us how oil drilling is completely safe? Well (no pun intended), a North Slope spill of an estimated 46,000 gallons was caused when a pipeline ruptured lengthwise along the bottom, creating a 2-foot-long opening. A unified command of officials handling the spill say the rupture along the bottom of the 18-inch pipeline was caused by too much pressure in the line, likely caused by ice plugs. The spill of crude oil, mixed with natural gas and water, occurred more than a week ago in the Lisburne field just north of the Prudhoe Bay oil field. The pipeline was not in operation at the time. When it ruptured, residual material spilled on to the tundra. Just imagine if the pipe had been in use.

U.S. Lags China in Green Stimulus – In less than a year, China went from a polluting megapower to an up-and-coming clean-tech contender that promises to outpace America. Both countries responded to the recession by authorizing big stimulus plans with significant green components: 34% of China’s stimulus money was green, compared with just 12% of funds in the U.S.

Madagascar Has Already Lost 80% of its Rain Forest – Madagascar has already lost some 80% of its rain forest — crucial habitat for its many species — to logging, and despite some effort to preserve the rest, there’s a real danger that one of the most biodiverse places on the planet could be losing more species than anywhere else.

Fox News Falsifies Poll Numbers About Scientists Allegedly Falsifying Data – Fox News reported that a vast majority of Americans — 94 percent — believe that climate scientists have falsified research into global warming (see picture below). The only problem is, according to Fox’s poll graphic, the total number of participants in the poll adds up to 120 percent.

The network had been reporting on a Rasmussen poll that shows considerably different numbers. It appears Fox added the number of people who said data falsification was “very likely” (35 percent) to the number of people who thought it was “somewhat likely” (24 percent) and then presented that sum — 59 percent — as the number of people who said it was “somewhat likely.”

Any independent observer will certainly note the coincidence that the fudged number makes it look like a disproportionately large part of the US population is opposed to climate change legislation, a favorite whipping boy of Fox news hosts.

Fox News Hides Good News – On Tuesday, as Fox News broadcast a speech by President Barack Obama in which the president announced that the US will spend $200 billion less on bank bailouts than previously estimated, the chyron at the bottom of the Fox News screen announced that the president’s bailout savings would amount to … $2 billion.

Raw Story has confirmed that, as of press time, Fox News hasn’t corrected the error on air. But they certainly must know what the actual figure is, as the online version of the story correctly cited the $200-billion figure. (That bit of good news for taxpayers is buried way at the bottom of Fox’s story.)
Fox’s factual errors — which somehow always seem to lean towards the network’s conservative bias, rather than against it — are quickly becoming the stuff of legend.

Warmer Temperatures Affecting Americans Ability to Reason – A near-consensus from scientists doesn’t have Americans convinced that Global Warming is real. A Pew poll found that 57 percent believe that the earth’s climate is changing, and just 36 percent believe that humans are responsible. 77 percent believed that global warming existed in Pew’s poll conducted in 2007.

A blog at the website of Foreign Policy notes that more Americans believe in UFOs and ghosts than do anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming. Just 39 percent of Americans said in a February poll that they believe in evolution.

Sound familiar? US refuses to allow UN inspectors to investigate its WMDs – The United States said Wednesday that it remained opposed to international inspections of biological weapon sites, even though it stressed its commitment to a UN treaty covering such arms and invaded Iraq in part over its alleged stalling of — UN weapons inspectors.

Someone should invade us!

Independent Probe Says Fox News ACORN Videos Were Heavily Edited – ACORN, the community organizing group, found itself embroiled in controversy after some of its workers were recorded providing advice to a couple posing as a pimp and prostitute. An independent review of how ACORN operated after those sleazy videos were released by Fox News concludes the following:

“The videos that have been released appear to have been edited, in some cases substantially, including the insertion of a substitute voiceover for significant portions of Mr. O’Keefe’s and Ms. Giles’s comments, which makes it difficult to determine the questions to which ACORN employees are responding. A comparison of the publicly available transcripts to the released videos confirms that large portions of the original video have been omitted from the released versions.”

A real news network would have spent the time necessary to prove the accuracy of the tapes. FOX News never tried to act like a news organization when they received the tapes. It’s their responsibility as journalists to verify the information the tapes contain, but instead FOX repeatedly aired them in hopes of destroying ACORN, a group that has a history of great work with lower-income families. The damage has been done as Congress joined in the vilification process.

Proof, once again, that this is not a news network. It’s a propaganda mill posing as one.

Decade Ends Nearly as Badly as it Started 😉 – According to Professor Davis Logsdon, the proliferation of hoaxes, such as the White House state dinner-crashing Salahis, may have contributed to the sense that the decade was just a bad dream. “The decade ended with these people who didn’t belong in the White House illegally scamming their way in,” Professor Logsdon said. “But the last time that happened, they stayed for eight years.”

It’s Just a Texas-Governor Thing – The mounting ugliness between “Slick Rick” and “Kay Bailout” seems destined to turn off independent voters because, as the veteran political handicapper Charlie Cook observes: “in a primary, shrillness matters. It’s a race to the fringe.”

Regards,

Jim