Distortion & Oil Articles
Conservapedia: The theory of relativity is a liberal plot
Except when it is being used to defend the 6000-year age of the Earth or attack Copernicus.
The theory of relativity is a mathematical system that allows no exceptions. It is heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world.[1] Here is a list of 24 counterexamples: any one of them shows that the theory is incorrect.
I would have filed this under Signs of the Apocalypse, but we are way past that. This is more like, Signs that the Apocalypse happened a long time ago but we were all too busy watching American Idol to notice.
Yes, there is a Conservapedia and its main benefit to society is that it apparently occupies the time of the great many conservatives who post meticulously-footnoted articles like the one above, titled, "Counterexamples to Relativity."
It is hard to know what is the most mind-boggling thing about this particular article. Footnote 1 reads:
See, e.g., historian Paul Johnson's book about the 20th century, and the article written by liberal law professor Laurence Tribe as allegedly assisted by Barack Obama. Virtually no one who is taught and believes relativity continues to read the Bible, a book that outsells New York Times bestsellers by a hundred-fold.
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Distorting science while invoking science
Debating science shouldn't enable antiscience disinformation
Despite a two decades old consensus among climate scientists that the globe is warming, many people believe that there is still an active debate. This is due in large part to a direct and strategic public relations campaign being waged behind the scenes by free market-fundamentalists and funded by big polluters. Big industries such as tobacco, oil, and coal, aided by conservative foundations and the free-market ideologues who inhabit them, have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to undermine science and scientists. In doing so, they make it difficult, if not close to impossible, for ordinary people to get the information upon which reasoned public policy should be based.
This coalition, promoting disinformation while claiming to be dedicated to science, is nothing new. In fact, today's climate deniers are using the same playbook used by supporters of Ronald Reagan's failed "Star Wars" program in the 1980s, and by the tobacco industry to avoid regulation of secondhand smoke in the 1990s. Indeed, science denial, free-market fundamentalists, and big industries have a long and sorry past together.
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Lords distance themselves from climate sceptic Christopher Monckton
House of Lords steps up efforts to make Christopher Monckton stop claiming he is a member of the upper house
The House of Lords has stepped up its efforts to make Christopher Monckton – climate sceptic and deputy leader of the UK Independence party (Ukip) – desist in his repeated claims that he is a member of the upper house. The push comes as Buckingham palace has also been drawn into the affair over his use of a logo similar to parliament's famous portcullis emblem.
Last month, Michael Pownall, clerk of the parliaments, wrote to Lord Monckton, a hereditary peer, stressing that he should not refer to himself as a member of the House of Lords, and nor should he use any emblem representing the portcullis.
In a letter seen by the Guardian, Monckton replied this week to Pownall stating that "the House of Lords Act 1999, which purported to exclude hereditary peers from membership of the House of Lords, is defective". Monckton argued that the act, which debarred all but 92 of the 650 hereditary peers, removed the right to sit or vote in the upper house, but did not remove membership because peerages are granted by "letters patent" which are a personal gift of the monarch. Monckton claimed in the letter that "only a specific law can annul a grant. The 1999 act was a general law."
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The skeptics are sweating
Former Weather Channel "adamant skeptic" says "it's a case of Weather Gone Wiggy": The "nature" of extreme weather "is changing along with changing atmospheric moisture, stability, and circulation patterns."
Stu Ostro, Senior Meteorologist at the Weather Channel, has become quite good at explaining the link between global warming and extreme weather - see "Weather Channel expert on Georgia's record-smashing global-warming-type deluge":
… there's a straightforward connection in the way the changing climate "set the table" for what happened this September in Atlanta and elsewhere. It behooves us to understand not only theoretical expected increases in heavy precipitation (via relatively slow/linear changes in temperatures, evaporation, and atmospheric moisture) but also how changing circulation patterns are already squeezing out that moisture in extreme doses and affecting weather in other ways.
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The Legacy of the Gulf Spill: What to Expect for the Future?
The Gulf of Mexico's capacity to recover from previous environmental assaults - especially the 1979 Ixtoc explosion - provides encouragement about the prospects for its post-Deepwater future. But scientists remain worried about the BP spill's long-term effects on the health of the Gulf and its sea life.
In June 1979, workers on the the Ixtoc I oil platform in the Bay of Campeche attempted to seal the exploratory well on the sea floor 160 feet below. A sudden burst of pressure sent a volatile bubble of oil and natural gas up the pipe, where it ignited and exploded. The burning rig collapsed and fell into the Gulf of Mexico, where the busted wellhead had started spewing oil. The flow could not be stopped until the following March - 290 days later. During that time, approximately 3 million barrels flowed into the Gulf, according the well's owner, Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), the Mexican state oil company, though that was likely an underestimate. The resulting spill washed onto nearby beaches, coral reefs, and mangrove swamps and spread northward, hitting a stretch of the Texas coast.
"Substantial stretches of beach, tens of kilometers north of the well were just blackened - it looked like an asphalt road," said Arne Jernelov, an environmental biochemist who led a United Nations team that analyzed the impact of the spill in 1980. "This had an extremely clear effect on crabs, mussels, snails that burrow in the sand in the intertidal zones - they were practically wiped out. There was also a very significant effect on shrimp, certain fish, squid, dependent on the location of the spawning places and the time of impact. In some of the important spawning places you had a year class or two wiped out."
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Big Oil's long history of compromising national security for profit
Pan-Am 103Months after the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, BP is delaying deepwater drilling off the coast of Libya and exploratory drilling off of the Scottish Shetland islands. The delays also reflect the political pressure BP faces because of its lobbying efforts "over the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya that led to the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi." Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) is planning to send members to the UK and Scotland to question witnesses on the role of BP in the release of the Lockerbie bomber. This development follows the postponement of a Senate Foreign Relations hearing because the witnesses declined to show.
As we recently reported, 2010 lobbying disclosures reveal that Big Oil is influencing foreign policy by lobbying on the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act as it is debated in the Senate. But this is not anything new. The oil industry and related trade associations have been lobbying to secure their bottom lines by risking our national safety for decades, including advocating for the removal of sanctions against oil-rich countries Iran and Libya.
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The 15 Biggest Oil Spills
Where's the Exxon Valdez on the map of biggest oil spills, you might be wondering? Well, at 262,000 barrels spilled, it doesn't make the cut. Not even close. The smallest spill pictured below was 871,000 barrels. The Deepwater Horizon, even using BP-provided estimates, is now the world's second-largest spill of all time, right after the oil that Saddam Hussein intentionally dumped in 1991. This map does not account for chronic spills, as in the Niger Delta, polluted by at least 13 million barrels. And it shows the problem of identifying the culprits: In three instances, the responsible party is still unknown.
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The Gulf's Other Time Bombs
The Deepwater Horizon rig was just one environmental time bomb in the Gulf. There are 33,000 miles of pipeline. 50,000 wells (PDF). Thousands of abandoned rigs. And did we mention it's hurricane season?
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BP's Damage Control: A Timeline
When did Tony Hayward say, "I want my life back"? How many times did Joe Barton apologize and unapologize to BP? Your source for spill trivia.
5/2000 Minerals Management Service (MMS) estimates deepwater-drilling worst-case leak at 116,000 barrels per day (BPD), causing underwater plumes: "There are few practical spill-response options for dealing with submerged oil."
7/2000 BP unveils "Helios" logo as part of "Beyond Petroleum" rebranding. Meanwhile, it's slashing costs, firing engineers, and pursuing high-risk, high-reward projects known as "elephants."
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